What really got me to start thinking seriously about recovery is little things going wrong with my health. None of them alone were a big deal – more the kind of things you might take over the counter drugs for. But together, they made me feel like I was getting “old” too soon. And really, after living half my life with bulimia, I was terrified about what it would be like to take it into the next decade of my life.
Feeling Fear
That fear was what motivated me in my first foray into recovery, when I went to see Rhonda Lenair. That makes me wonder about fear. Mostly, we view it as negative and yet, recently, my husband was reading this really interesting book on fear that changed my mind. The book is called, The Gift of Fear, by Gavin De Becker. De Becker is a leading expert on how to predict violent behavior, and while this book is not one I would choose to read, I had great conversations with my husband about it.
The Gift of Fear
The first thing that struck me is that De Becker says fear is a gift. He came to this conclusion after years of studying how people become violent and how the victims felt before any violence happened. According to him, violent people don’t “just snap,” but instead, events occur which build toward a violent act. Preceding these events, the victim tends to recount having a “weird feeling” that something was not quite right – and discounted that feeling.
Listening to Fear
So this post is not really about violent acts, but about the perception of fear and whether we listen to the “feelings” or our inner voice – or not. One of De Becker’s messages to us is that we can learn to use fear to our advantage by really listening in to our intuition or gut feelings about people or events. He says they can tell us when something is wrong, so we can take action, which in his line of work equals a saved life. And perhaps that’s what my fear did for me – saved my life – because I started to question how important this addiction was compared to living a healthy, pain-free life into my later years.
Using Intuition
As Joel and I discussed the book, it was really the part about fear being a gift that struck me as empowering, rather than negative. What if we truly listened to our intuition all the time? Eckhart Tolle says that most people live their lives with a low level of fear vibrating below the surface – you’ve heard me say this was true for me. And yet, since I’ve started to listen more to my intuition, that low level of fear seems to be gone. Perhaps it’s sleeping because I’m certainly not free of fear – it’s just not vibrating below every decision I make and every interaction I have anymore.
The thing that got me is that we have a perception that fear is negative – and we could probably find several cases where fear is positive. Like in De Becker’s line of work – it could save our lives. How else could it help?
Here’s My List
The 99% We Can’t See
Making this list helped me realize that often, we are afraid of fear itself – afraid of the unknown. And in the case of De Becker’s line of work, how would a victim be sure to trust their fear, if they are dealing with the future, the unknown? Someone once said that life is 1% what we can see and 99% what we can’t see. Fear seems to push us to look at and trust the 99% we can’t see. That must be why we are afraid of fear – because we learned to be afraid of what we can’t see or to not trust what we can’t see. Certainly, it might be easier to know for sure if something is safe or not based on what we can see. Or at least, that’s what I’ve picked up in my past conditioning.
You’ve heard me say that when I left my corporate job I was afraid. And what I feared was the 99% of life that I couldn’t see – all the things that required trust, faith, courage – with nothing visible to lay it on. And yet, somewhere in there, the trust, faith and courage became an antidote to the fear. But that alone isn’t enough – because remember, if fear is a gift, we want to know how to decipher when to charge forward and when to run. The only thing I can come up with to solve this is intuition. That “funny feeling,” that “first response” that you sometimes doubt and question. That sensation or those thoughts that something just isn’t right – or that deep down feeling that yes, it is right.
The Gift of Life
In any event, fear can be a gift when it motivates us into action – either toward or away from what we fear. And intuition tells us in which direction to go. Fear becomes our enemy if it holds us down and locks us in – and our friend, if it spurs us toward our inner voice, our intuition. I wouldn’t say — all those years ago, when I first felt that fear about my health — that I was ready to fully trust my intuition, but I am thankful that it pushed me forward. Maybe that one small step was what saved my life – and in that case, the fear was a gift.
What a beautiful post, Heather! Thank you, once again!
I think the challenge is not to let fear paralyze us – not to let the wave of fear crush us and drown in it, but, instead, to ride the wave and trust that it will take us safely to shore.
love,
Emily
Comment by Emily — June 22, 2006 @ 3:17 am
Hi Emily, You are so right! That’s the greatest thing about all of the writing our blog community is doing — we get to read about people who are riding the wave (like you!)– constantly rising above fear to find their path. And all the comments we get too — so many brave people out there. Whenever one of us falters, the other one is there to cheer us on — it is amazing!
With love,
Heather
Comment by Heather — June 22, 2006 @ 9:51 pm
Hi Sarah, Thank you for your comment and I’m glad you stopped by to share your reading time with me! You are one of the ones who is willing to take risks — and willing to look deeply inside, moving out of fear and into your power. Funny, who would have guessed that the greatest gift you could give yourself is also the greatest gift you’ll provide to your clients?
With love,
Heather
Comment by Heather — June 22, 2006 @ 9:57 pm