Fear

A couple of months ago, I read My Year with Eleanor by Noelle Hancock for my book club. It has really made me think about fear and reflect on my life and I have been meaning to blog about it since. After losing her job, Hancock read this quote by Eleanor Roosevelt: "Do one thing every day that scares you.". This sends her on a yearlong quest to learn about Eleanor's life and to daily do something that scares her in order to overcome her fears. Some of her scary things were small, some were silly, a few quite profound. Throughout this process she visits her therapist who gives her some great advice. I want to share some of the quotes I especially like as well as some of my reactions.

Her therapist Dr. Bob explained that most of our fears are survival based ... Or at least they were long ago...spiders, heights, claustrophobia, etc. are or were dangers. (page 29) They helped our ancestors to survive. Dr. Bob explained that when you follow your instinct to avoid danger you don't learn that you actually can handle difficult situations. He also warned about being an overly protective parent...you can unintentionally send the message that the world is full of bad people and that your child is incapable of handling even small problems. Your child won't learn to trust themselves or others around them. They will see all new experiences as dangerous. (page 59)(I also wonder if some kids won't also seek out dangers to spite their parents). Now I certainly don't think this means to not protect your kids at all...but allow them freedom to make choices where the consequences will be small and to let them fail. Hancock said this to her mom, who is a worrier, in regards to Hancock's sister, "Failure is a better teacher than success. ... You have to give her freedom to fail once in a while so she can learn to give herself freedom to fail." (page 126)

I definitely have a streak of perfectionism in me... At least in some areas (and not at all in other areas) so this quote was interesting: "perfectionism is the fear of making mistakes. There are two sides to perfectionism. At its best, it's motivating and assists you to set high goals for yourself. But it can also get out of control. Perfectionists can turn into workaholics because their efforts never feel good enough. . . . They give up easily. ... They organize their lives around avoiding mistakes and end up missing wonderful opportunities.". (page 71)... Dr. Bob said, "Here's the reality of life. You make decisions with imperfect information and get imperfect results. The alternative is to never make a decision and never achieve results."(page 71). ... Good thing to rememmber... And even better to remember that while our information is imperfect, God's is not and with His help and guidance we can make much better decisions. But we will make mistakes and it will still be okay. This part reminded me of The Gifts of Imperfection that I read back in January.

One of the most powerful parts for me is when Dr. Bob explained that biologically fear and excitement stem from the same place. "Your body can't tell the difference between fear and excitement. It reacts the same way to both-- racing heartbeat, butterflies, perspiration. It's your mind that decides whether the situation is something to be nervous or excited about. What you need to do is to turn fear into excitement.... Change your perspective of the situation. Change the narrative of your thoughts." (page 85). This is so powerful. I am convinced that most of us don't realize how powerful our own thoughts are and that changing our thinking can make drastic changes in our life. Dr. Bob also said, "We tend to treat our thoughts as though they are reality. If we think something, then it is so. ...Mindfulness teaches us to view our thoughts as just thoughts, not facts. We don't have to be afraid because we think fearful thoughts.". (page 151)

A quote from Eleanor: "The encouraging thing is that every time you meet a situation, though you may think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it you find that forever after you are freer than you ever were before. ... You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'". I know that giving birth naturally was that kind of experience for me. So was having Ella go through open heart surgery. And just this past weekend, running a half marathon was another. But that post is coming.

Another quote from Eleanor: "Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down."

And one last quote from Eleanor: "A great deal of fear is a result of just 'not knowing.'. We do not know what is involved in a new situation. We do not know whether we can deal with it. The sooner we learn what it entails, the sooner we can dissolve our fear."

Ultimately, I have no desire or need to face one of my fears each day or to ever conquer some of my biggest fears...skydiving and bungee jumping hold no interest for me. But I am more conscious of situations in which my fear holds me back and I am trying to conquer some of those smaller, more everyday fears. I read this just before a friend talked us into signing up for the Utah Valley half marathon, and so perhaps this is part of what gave me the courage to do that. And I do know that many of the things we fear never happen or are not nearly as bad as we think they will be.