What is Fear stopping you from doing today?

[Phoebe]

Hopefully nothing.
For me... I don't like to fail. So if you avoid, you can't fail. If I don't finish the project, I can say I'm working on it but nobody is judging it yet.
If I don't schedule the appointment, I can't find out something bad that I'd rather not deal with right now.
I fear being disliked by those I admire; don't want to risk being confronted with evidence of that.
If I make lunch plans with my friend, then I might have to cancel and embarrass myself and make her think I'm a flake. But if I don't schedule then I'll never get to have lunch with my friend, and then I will never have closer friends generally.

[Eliahad]

Yup! All of those things!

[poorpete]

I'm afraid of lots of things but working on it through therapy and meditation and other stuff.

So fear kept me from... doing the dishes. Or working on finances. So I guess boring stuff that is a task to complete but only stays complete for a day or so.

[FlameBlade]

All of these are perfectly normal things to feel.

[akiva]

[poorpete]

I have some luck simple things like "I got this" (and the proof is I've always gotten this). or to dismiss the fear as "so what" to disarm it or to remember I've felt that "this will be forever" many times before and I've been 100% wrong everytime.

[Phoebe]

[poorpete]

[Phoebe]

For every season there is a Lucy:

[akiva]

[Phoebe]

That sounds bad, I'm sorry. Why people suffer through so much, I don't know, but it's definitely enraging.

[poorpete]

Cosign

[akiva]

[Phoebe]

Well, maybe it's okay to let fear win some days. Fuck it, today is one of them. Fear, you win. I can't live like this anymore. God knows I have tried to fix my mind. Maybe tomorrow I will have slept more and will be better able to deal. Today, I cracked under finally.

[poorpete]

My therapist talked to be about how the amygdala (the part of brain that is in charge of fear) fires off quicker than the rest of our brain. So it's good when fear comes up to give yourself a little time (aka deep breathing, counting down from five) in order to access. Let your rational mind, your true self, catch up. Fear always has the advantage of getting there first.

I was like, if this was all for protecting us from saber-toothed tigers, why hasn't it gone the way of the appendix?

Makes a good point that we still need that speedy fear at times, like making quick decisions in and around erratic drivers. Which led to me laughing loudly at if we didn't have that speedy fear, like a bus was heading towards you and your brain was like "oh, huh, uhhhh, hmmmmm". Seriously laughed for 2 minutes straight.

This was yesterday.

[Phoebe]

I love it, this is all good stuff. And you are totally right, because after having a two-hour period where I despaired of ever fixing or facing the things, some kind of rational agent got back in control and now I'm okay. Everyday One Foot In Front of the other. We just have to accept that people around us have problems that we cannot fix or solve or be responsible for at all times. The people we love will suffer and it drives us crazy. I might add that I am told one reason for OCD is having an outsized fear response and malfunctioning amygdala. Sounds legit.

[bralbovsky]

This guy, who has video and other stuff too. This is why we have to expect (and catalyze) every kid to be a superhero, because by the time we get old it's much harder, and maybe too late (though it's comfy to blame it on the amygdala, I think the real culprit is second grade, and TV, and Readers Digest, and....)

[Phoebe]

I had forgotten about this thread. It was charming how optimistic I was. Well, sometimes you're right to be afraid, and exactly the things you fear will happen might happen. And then it turns out your life is busy and full of other things that matter more, and you go take a kickboxing class and beat the s*** out of the targets, and Life Goes On. There was literally nothing to be afraid of. It is amazing to function at full powers again.

[Phoebe]

Nothing! Muahahaha, I have done all the things this day. Not so bad.

[Ronster]

driving too fast and breaking traffic laws.