What is it Like to Process Fear?
I woke up shaking in fear. This is not new. I have been processing fear for past 8 years almost daily. I can feel myself wanting to feel fear, and wanting reassurance to comfort the fear simultaneously.
My neck and my lower abdomen is shaking gently. I remind myself, this is about the past. Stay in the past. My mind goes towards the future. The Law Of Attraction triggering the fear makes me want to fix it somehow. I am catastrophizing how bad it will get if my situation doesn’t change. Will I end up on the streets? I remind myself, LOA is only trying to trigger emotions from the past so that it can be released. In my fear, I can’t remember the past events that changed to the better once I released the emotions, especially fear. I tell myself, I know this works even if I am too stupefied by fear to remember the events.
I am crawling out of my skin. I distract myself with the Wordle of the day. I look at FB, news, play the Two Dots game on my phone. I am still shaking slightly but I am not surrendering. I am having fantasies of being rescued from my current situation. I catch myself and take myself back to the sensation of fear.
I have learned that if I suppress the fear completely, I will go into blame, anger, addictions for comfort, validation, neediness, placating and begging God to change my situation. Those techniques are too painful now so I stay in the fear but not surrender.
I start to acknowledge the emotional truth. I don’t like this fear. I don’t like the memory that will surface (even though I do not know what it is yet), I feel the fear is real, I feel there is no escape and nothing will get better. Now a memory surfaces. It is about being unwanted and blamed for it. It is about how small and crushed I feel in receiving this treatment. I have to accept the justification of the caretaker that I deserve this treatment.
I ask God, please show me how the caretaker is breaking Your law in how they are treating me. I am shown that I have absolutely nothing to do with how the caretaker is feeling. Now I can feel the child self feeling courageous. She is not to blame for why the caretaker doesn’t want her. She is not to blame for their anger and their choice to attack her. In the past, the blame will keep me stuck, and I had to process this for years, before I learn to ask God for truth so that I don’t accept the blame anymore.
My abdomen is shaking so much I look like a belly dancer. Every moment is a prayer. God please help me stay in this. God, I don’t believe you can solve this for me, but I will stay the course until it is done. I am feeling the grief that no one rescued me. It only took me 2 hours to get to this. The grief feels better. I feel connected to myself. I feel compassion for how abandoned the child felt all her life. The fear was uncomfortable to get through, but the grief feel sweet and gentle. I feel grateful to have found the sadness of the child and release it.
I have had times when I process fear for weeks before I could get to the layer under it.
As I had fearful events happen daily for 29 years, it is understandable that I have more fears to release than most people.
The mantras I use to stay in fear are - fear is about the past. Fear is about a lie and truth can’t enter until fear is released. It is just a memory that I can go back to in the safety of my current life. My life will change for the better by staying in the fear and releasing it. Generally I also remind myself that God is here with me in this process, but the emotional truth of the hurt child is that no one rescued her, so it didn’t feel true to say that today.
After crying for 15 minutes, I feel a calm presence enveloping me. I feel the same comforting feeling returning, God is here. I am not alone. I have never been alone. It is impossible for my Parent to ever abandon me. The truth enters me emotionally, and I am grateful for the strength this gives me. I cry from relief and gratitude, that I will never be abandoned by the One that loves me so much, I can’t imagine how I survived without receiving this love my whole life.
Love,
Dr Dharm
PS I have done Zoom workshops on this topic. If you would like to learn more, click the button below to watch them.