I Was Afraid My Daughter Was Dead!
Whether it is teaching people how to set expectations, boundaries and communicate them, or giving Akashic readings and teaching spiritual trainings, there is always a central theme that appears as we do this work. It’s the feeling of “fear”.
With all the strange changes in the world and in our country it is no wonder fear is a major theme, and if you let it, fear will run and ruin your life.
I consider myself truly fortunate because I grew up with a pretty fearless attitude toward life and all it has thrown at me. But this is not generally the case for most people. I know this. It’s not that I’m completely fearless, it means I’ve learned to see fear for what it is and put it in it’s place.
As a single parent, my daughter and I were very close as she was growing up. I worked thoughtfully to be a fairly “hands off” mom and allow her to make her own mistakes and learn from them. When my daughter went away to college, I didn’t go through the empty nest stage, mostly because it was the first time in my life that I’d ever lived alone. It was great!
However, I missed my daughter and we kept in touch regularly. Then one weekend I kept calling her and couldn’t get hold of her. My fear began to rise. Why wasn’t she answering? What had happened? What if she was laying dead in a ditch somewhere? I couldn’t possibly think about losing her. I’d had so much loss in my life. So after 2 days of this fear frenzy I actually called the police to go check on her. She was home and called me. Boy did I feel stupid. I think she was just out that weekend having a good time and recovering.
Still I could not get over this fear of losing her until a few years later when I was in my coaches training program. As the classes were taught at that time, a concept was lectured about and then was demonstrated with a few students from class. This particular module was about how certain feelings can run your life and how to meet them head on. Well guess who volunteered (fearless me)? The work the coach did with me was an amazingly painful yet freeing experience and was a turning point in my life. I’ve never looked at fear the same way since.
Here are my 3 tips on dealing with your own fear.
- Name the feeling and feel it. So in my case it was the fear that something horrible had or could happen to my only child. And because I’d lost my mother when I was 15 and many other family members throughout the years, this was a reasonable place for my mind to go. However, it also created an “out of control” place to be. When I suggest you feel the feeling I mean confront it. What would happen if…? It takes a lot of the negative energy out of fear when you consciously explore the very thing that has a hold on you.
- Let it go. I know this is easier said than done. There’s a popular acronym for fear: it is F.E.A.R. – False Evidence Appearing Real. When you look at your fear, whatever it is, it almost never comes true, at least not in the way you might have imagined it. Think about that. Think about some of your fears and how little they resembled the actual reality. When you can’t seem to let it go, return to Step 1 and breathe through it again and then remember what F.E.A.R. really is.
- Trust your higher power. Trust your instincts, intuition, intellect and your faith. Come back to reality and remember, the actual situation is almost never as bad as you imagined it.
This all takes practice. Keep at it and trust.