Fear is normal

Today I want to talk about fear. One thing is that I become more aware of how it runs my own life, but more importantly – it affects lives of so many people who have gone through devastating loss. In what way?  – You might ask.

I have been thinking about it a lot and it breaks my heart when I see people years after they have lost someone they loved and still being in the same pain as if it happened yesterday. On outside they might put a smiley face and never mention it, but inside they feel like their lives have stopped on ‘that day’.

Yes, the following is all true – everyone grieves their own way, in their own time-frame and nothing there can be forced, nothing can even be fixed. But having my own experience both with healing my pain and helping others to heal, I am convinced that it is possible to have joyful life after the loss. I asked myself – why would anyone settle for anything less than even ‘new normal’?

It might sound harsh, but – why would anyone marry their grief? My answer is – because of our fears and beliefs we hold. It’s not that people don’t want to feel better. Of course, they do! We all want to be happy. But people who have gone through devastating loss often don’t consciously choose healing because they don’t believe it’s possible as the loss is so overwhelming.

Not being able to say ‘I’m done grieving, or – I’m still on grieving path, but I really want to move on with my life. I am willing to create a joyful life for me again’ is caused by, among other things, fears. Fear that by letting go the pain, they’ll lose the only connection that’s left with the deceased loved one. Fear of unknown. Fear of taking action that is so uncomfortable.

Fear of not being understood.

Fear of standing in their power as a person who choose to feel and express the feelings even if it’s not socially approved.

Fear of others imposing their agenda and deadlines of needing ‘to get over’, ‘to move forward’, because they are so uncomfortable seeing our pain.

The most important part is that the decision to create a new life after loss of loved one can be made only by us, ourselves. Others around can only be facilitators and supporters, never decision makers for us. Nor should we accept others’ decisions on how to live our lives, even if we choose to (consciously or unconsciously) waste them.

The truth, however, is that it’s extremely difficult to make a decision to heal when you are in the midst of torture of pain.

The only thing we want to do then is to run away from pain, to avoid it and by doing that we create even more pain that masks itself as numbness. We’d rather be numb than allow the pain to be.

When we lose someone we love, all these questions arise:

• How will I live without them?
• Who am I without them?
• How can I ever go on living when they are dead/ have left me?
• How can I be happy when they are not here to experience it all?

It’s totally unexplored, unknown, uncharted territory we are stepping in after the death of loved one. And the first thing to know is – the fear is natural.

Fear has many faces.  It might be feeling of paralysis of not knowing how to even function on the basic level;  helplessness; loneliness; shame about feeling joy for something, maybe even insignificant, after the loved one had died; guilt that we couldn’t save them; anger towards ourselves, others, God who let it happen and the whole world; worry about how to survive if the deceased one was providing financially; feeling of being trapped in depression and not knowing how to get out of it; blaming yourself for not being strong enough and not being able to ‘move on’; feeling of betraying loved deceased one if we do move on. Fear of losing control over one’s life; fear of the need to make change; fear of loss of security and total loss of one’s identity; fear of being hurt again; fear of losing and failing again…

When we face fear, when we don’t run away from it, don’t try to suppress it or avoid by addictive behaviours such as emotional eating, drinking, working too much, engaging in busyness in general, withdrawing or pretending as if nothing had happened, the fear dissolves. Then love can take its place. It is said and I truly believe it to be true, that there are only two emotions – fear or love. So every thought, every emotion, every action is either fear based or love based.

So what exactly it means to face fears?

• First of all – become present, become grounded. It probably is the most overlooked and most powerful step. In practical terms it might look as taking few deep breaths; doing something that allows you to feel that you are in your body – having a massage, having a hot bath; taking rigorous physical exercise or simply having a walk. It is not possible to be simultaneously very present in your body and at the same time being in the mind space worrying and mulling things over and over.

• Second – identify your fears as best as you can and – accept that you have them. You are not your fears; they are just a natural reaction we have and our tendency is to dissociate with them as quickly as possible. But we cannot transform what we are not aware of. The more honest you can be identifying them, the more chances of them dissolving quickly and love taking their space.

• Third – Tap the fears away. (You can find tapping instructions PDF in Resources) Or use some other techniques. One is to write all the fears and worries down on the paper and make a ritual burning of it.

• Fourth – have a vision for healing. It might be a very conscious decision to ‘live’ again, to be happy again; or it might be simply willingness to feel a bit better each day, to be kind and gentle with yourself, no matter how small steps you are taking. This is not an easy step and there might be days when you just want to throw everything you have accomplished away, and when dark shadows seem to be overtaking every effort to heal. That’s ok, accept where you are again, forgive yourself and make this decision to heal again.

These are very general steps, they might intertwine and overlap, but they all will help us to open our hearts towards love and compassion for ourselves and others rather than close them.