I've heard it said, and I am wont to believe, only two emotions really matter: Fear and Love.
Today let’s talk about the dark emotion.
Interactions with my Father were foundational in developing my approach to dealing with fear and building courage. My Father employed an immersion technique so effective, I have used it every now and again. He must have realized I was afraid of the dark by observing that my disobedience in response to errands spiked disproportionately after 7 pm. If I had to go brush my teeth, go to the loo or fetch a book from the room and the hallway was dark, I found a way to wiggle out of it. I just could not bear the dark. I honestly believed at age 6, that there could be monsters or ghosts out there! I would beg, cry or play dead just to get out of going into a dark room.
My Dad would calmly ask why I didn’t want to go. I would respond “Daddy I’m scared!” He would prod: “of what?” and I’d whine “I don’t know!” I would wail and twist and sob. To me it was a no-brainer — if I can’t see what’s out there then don’t ask me what I’m afraid of! I’m afraid of all the terrible things I can’t see! My dad would then calmly and VERY firmly tell me to go. “Enene go, step into the dark room, I know you are afraid, but go, and if anything comes to get you, I am here”. He gave my Fear validity AND encouraged me to act in spite of it.
By the time I got to high school, I realized there was no Daddy to come save me from the shadowy goons. I was in boarding school and once again fear of the dark was immobilizing me. I would wake up at night to use the bathroom and hear the eerie whistling sahel winds, feel the crisp cold air and lose the mind/heart/bladder battle. I could not imagine walking 200 odd paces out the room, down the corridor, past the decorative hollow brick back wall and into the bathroom. For several weeks I just couldn’t do it.
But sometime in the early weeks at Oleander house, I took my Dads immersion method and fiddled around with it in my head. I acknowledged my fear, it was real and was becoming a nuisance (weeing into a bucket is not cool). I decided that it was OK to be scared of the dark shadows, it was OK. I could actually get up out of bed with my fear, walk all the way to the bathroom and back — still afraid. I could. The one thing that could NOT happen was for the object of my fear — those evil dark figures to catch me — that would be a real problem. So I adapted the technique — my Dad was not close enough to deal with them if they pounced but since they had not yet come at me in 11 years of living, then there was a chance they wouldn’t get me this time or the next and the next and the next.
Armed with a new resolve, I started going out whenever I needed to. Howling winds, whistling winds, crying winds, it didn’t matter. I would walk deliberately slow, all the while goading my imaginary adversaries to come get me. I would drop each heel firmly, using my whole heart to resist the pusillanimous urge to run frightfully for it. I would walk so calmly and purposefully, my outward composure borne out of an inward mantra “Come and get me…come now, come now. I am not afraid of you.”
My method worked! Pretty soon I was the girl everyone woke up when they were too scared go on their own. And by and by, I didn’t need my mantra anymore — if there was anything out there, they were clearly not interested in getting me (or maybe THEY were afraid of me….hehe). I conquered my Fear.
Fear is an avoidance technique we indulge in when we are not actually yet in danger. When you are staring down the actual danger, fear is often the last thing on your mind! When real danger comes, we fight, we engage, we go for it. And yes, sometimes we don’t have what it takes, sometimes the danger knocks us out. But if we stay in the fight and learn from past defeat, we are that much closer to victory. The 11-year-old me found out that fear often fizzles away when we face it. Fear is a test. You can pass.
Another thing I’ve learned is that we choose our Fears — or maybe they chose us. In other words, fear is deeply personal — its intimate. My fear of the dark needed to be overcome because I find it hard to sleep through the night, without needing to pee. If I had been the type that doesn’t need to go at night, I might have, to this day, still been night shy. If you don’t need to conquer a fear, then you don’t have to. Some fears we can afford — others will cheat us out of way too much living.
That brings me to RATS! The darned things that got me thinking about fear in the 1st place…
