Today I felt the need to write a follow-up to the post I wrote this week about my fears. It wasn't an easy subject to write about and I probably opened myself up to being judged one way or another, but I'm proud I did it, because writing about my fears has achieved what I set out to achieve: it made them seem as they really are, silly and insignificant.
And it made people reach out to me, people feeling the same way, or people wanting to comfort me - I feel so blessed. I had to love one of my dear friend's response below (hope she doesn't mind I'm publishing it, as I'm keeping it anonymous):
'In my eyes you are such a woman' - she said to me in an e-mail - 'not the always single one that will die alone. And if it happens to be that way, we should team up go to a sanatorium for old people and take every pill we can get hold of, lose our minds and have sex with everyone. And do whatever we can as we are old and no one will judge us :)'
I read somewhere that if you ask yourself what's the worse it can happen helps with getting rid of irrational worries. And frankly, if I do end up alone in a sanatorium having sex with everybody, I think this would be a great ending to a great life :)
But fear is not all doom and gloom. I've made a great decision a while ago to subscribe to The Daily Love blog and I am loving the advice from Mastin Kipp. It just happened that the other day he was writing about fear and why fear is good, because it's here to protect us, it gives us warning signals and it is the precursor of growth. Let's say being afraid is part of the growing pains package.
One of the lessons I've learnt recently is that I must stop trying to be perfect and to be gentle to myself when I am far from it. Because we're not here to be perfect, we're here to learn and evolve. Fear happens when we grow, it makes us act. And most importantly, instead of fearing fear and ignoring it, we must accept it, love it even, it's part of us. Accepting it is the key to ensure a seamless process. And I feel better now for having allowed my feelings and emotions to be expressed, rather than trying even harder to be in constant happy mood. Being happy means feeling bad sometimes. And that's ok.
I did some thinking and I realised my fears spring from some kind of resilient insecurity still lurking around.
“We each appear to hold within ourselves a range of divergent views as to our native qualities.. And amid such uncertainty, we typically turn to the wider world to settle the question of our significance...we seem beholden to affections of others to endure ourselves.” notes Alain de Botton and isn't he right? How many times have we not felt that we need others to acknowledge us, even though we have intrinsic qualities which need no subjective point of view to exist.
But insecurity is not such a bad thing. As Stephen Fry suggests, insecurities shape us:
“It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me.”
Fear no more: there's a good side to every fear!
