Blog 87 Fear (Gary)
Fear (Gary)
My core wound is abandonment. That I knew. I learned how to model that well. I learned how to abandon myself by not being seen. My wife recently complained that when I came home from work I was depleted because I hadn't taken care of myself. I believe that if I sacrifice enough my heroic gesture will be rewarded someday. (One of my mother's words: "Someday.")
I see now that I want to do things for others in a way to get what I need without being seen, more accurately without any need. Just like I had as a child. “Invisible” means to neglect myself as I was neglected. Ignore my needs as my needs were ignored. I can’t write a book because then I would be seen. Being seen scares me as much as going back to Vietnam.
I don't know how to be seen except in small venues. I just don't have the experience yet. If I want to make a more significant difference in the world I will have to be seen. In order to do what I want to do, which is write a book, I will have to become visible. It's time that I allowed myself to be seen and not abandon my Self and my dreams to old fears and a role of suffering my abandonment.
Old habits die hard or never do if you medicate yourself. Mark and I chose the pain and pleasure of being awake and we hope this inspires the same in you.
I vaguely remember my parents arguing around me and the job I took on must have been to be invisible or at least quiet. That’s it. Now I remember my mother saying that she had to keep me quiet because we lived in a small apartment, and she didn’t want to upset our neighbors (and the landlord). That must have included restricting my breathing, thus causing frequent colds and respiratory ailments. It is now easier to breathe. Thanks for another day, different mountain, same spirit. Ah-HO.
It's an interesting shift for me. I am at an age where I will soon qualify for Medicare. There is the confrontation with getter older, but there is also the positive side of being able to save about $300 a month on medical insurance. I was getting to like that idea and what I might do with the money until my wife brought up the fact that I didn't really carry enough life insurance to care for her if something happened to me. The needed increase would be about $300 a month.
I got angry, felt many feelings including feeling cheated, resentful, confused. I ruminated for several days. Then suddenly all those feelings went away. On my walk I asked myself what happened. I unwound the process. I came to a place of feeling wise. The $300 held no energy for me.
I had surrendered to my adult partner’s needs. I was in relationship with her. I no longer had to fight for me. I trusted she would be there for me as a partner. I had come a step closer to home. I was no longer in survival from childhood dislocation. I had let go of FEAR of being abandoned. Actually I had let go of FEAR.
I used to think of myself as highly sensitive and some saw me that way. My first wife called me her "baby doll" because of it. There are books written about highly sensitive people. Now I see the deeper truth for me. I was a highly scared person, which made me highly sensitive.
You see, through all this the most important thing that was revealed to me in my miles and years of walking, and trying to come home, was my fear. Only in absence of fear could I come home. Only in absence of fear could I find my home, and claim it by being present to the moment without fear, and old pictures coloring my catalog.
I had to walk away my fears and grieve in order to find my place. Presence is being in a place without the cloud of fear. I visited a lot of pictures on The Hill until they distilled into a common cauldron. Vietnam wasn't the first place I had visited fear. It was only a reminder. It brought me back to where I had come from. From there I had to go back to my first fears. And I knew those fears were about absentee parents and my attempts to control my inner toddler’s reality.
What might you be afraid of facing?
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