The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Recently I looked up the word fear in the dictionary and was surprised to find this definition:
Fear: An emotion of alarm and agitation caused by the expectation or the realization of danger.
Interesting. My alarm and agitation can be just as debilitating and disruptive to my life when I expect that something bad may happen as it will if something bad is actually happening. That means, if I will let it, my sick mind will play tricks on me even if everything is actually fine and safe, and will lure me into wasting my time and energy anticipating, projecting, imagining, and preparing for awful things that may never even come to pass.
By wasting my precious present moments with my mind in tomorrow or a year from now and my focus tied up in dreading the future, the things I can and should be focused on right now are slipping by untended, and as those things pile up or get lost in the disorganized shuffle of a life run by a fearful mind, I am creating real, measurable trouble for myself that will certainly crop up later. In other words, the feeling of fear itself ends up creating a bigger crisis than whatever it is I am so worried about and afraid of to begin with. So my fear that bad things will happen becomes a prophecy that fulfills itself.
Does anyone else get overwhelmed by paralyzing irrational fear? What do you do when you feel afraid? My sponsor has me write down my fear when it starts to overwhelm me, to get it out of my head. So often when I go back through the fears I have written down they seem so small and foolish when I am in a better frame of mind. So many times they are things that never even happen, so why am I wasting so much of my time in that painful illusion-world of panic, feeling that bad things are inevitable?
Please help. I would really appreciate your experience, strength and hope on this topic.
Fear: An emotion of alarm and agitation caused by the expectation or the realization of danger.
ROSIE##### so THAT is my description!!!! i was a huge ball of fear when i first got here......fear my needs wouldn't be met (cause when i was child they were NOT met)....fear of disaster (becuz when i was child that was all i saw) ......fear of attack (becuz i was attacked)
i was TRAINED to be afraid becuz of the hellhole in lived in.......now??? working the program??? i do my self talk i say "rosie that was then, this is now....i am gonna protect you, hp is gonna protect us" i just do self talk over and over
i also stay in the now when i am feeling fearful.....i also ask my inner child when i am in quiet place "hey, what r u afraid of???" than i listen....
i find that my fear is old woundology rearing its head!!!! in the past, i was on alert all the time for the other shoe to drop....as a severe codependent/ acoa, i was so screwed up in my perception of me/ god/ life i brought ON my *bad luck* by my low sense of my own worth..
affirmations help....and i tell my self "god has NOT dropped us on our a** to this date, so why woud he NOW, in recovery???" if my hp didn't want me to suceed/ be secure, somewhat...he would not have DRAGGED me into 12 steps
please take what you can use and leave the rest.....rosie
My sponsor would tell me "to keep it in the day". Not an easy thing to do at first, but the more I tried, the more success I had when I found myself projecting.
Another thing which helped me [again suggested by my Sponsor] was when for instance my A was late home and I knew he was driving and my imagination would roar off into la-la land, my Sponsor would bring me back to earth by saying..... "what would would you have been doing if this hadn't happened?" That would instantly pull me up and I would answer that I would have been doing this or that. "Then do it", she would say. That helps me time and time again. So simple.
Thank you for your interesting and thought-provoking post Emmie. Most times I find that what I anticipate will happen, doesn't happen. Goodness knows how much energy we waste by worrying and fretting and thereby allowing fear to take over.
Why do we do this to ourselves? When I think about the fears and panic that has been over taking me lately... I think how ridiculous it is. How much time I have spent in a state where I am unable to accomplish what NEEDS to be accomplished. I have been allowing fear and panic to alter my life, sometimes to a very debilitating state, creating a worse situation for me that the possible outcome. When I have been both able and unable to comprehend what my fears are about they tend to overwhelm me to a point where my mind cannot function beyond dreading this invisible fear. Why am I allowing this to happen?
Now as I look back on m previous states of panic and fear I can see how irrational, unnecessary and detrimental my fears have been.
In the future when these feelings overtake me I will try to use your words and wisdom to help me. I will try to analyze my negative feelings and sort them in a realistic manner. Hopefully this will allow me the ability to pull myself into the present and regain a sense of stability. I will then add them to my fears list and look at & work on my gratitude list. When I feel strong enough I will go back and re-assess my "fears" and see if it is a realistic fear or one which is unnecessary. If it is a realistic fear I will see what I can do to minimize the anxiety to deal with the danger. If it is an unrealistic or unnecessary fear I will sort my feelings out so I can take a more realistic and practical view of it. I will then move on and remind myself to stay in the present and not worry about unnecessary fears, which I have no control over anyway. I will practice deep breathing and living for today.
Thank you for posting this topic and helping me see how unproductive it is to allow fears, rational and irrational, to overtake me. I now have a new tool, power and strength to help me move on, during hard panicky times, and live for today.
