Soon the Fear Will Go Away

I don’t admit to anyone how often I’m wracked with fear.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m fine. I’m happy. I’m safe. And I’m doing really, really well. But I still get wracked with fear. Often.

I’ve learned to breathe through it. I’ve learned to call it out as false—False Evidence Appearing Real—as I learned in Al-Anon years ago. (I also learned F— Everything and Run, but that doesn’t ease me through this fear as much, so I don’t use it as much.)

I’ve learned that it will pass and to remind myself that I’m okay. Right here, right now, I am okay.

But it still wracks me.

I want to call it out because maybe other people also get wracked with fear for little or no reason, and I want them to know that they’re not alone and it’s not weird. It’s annoying maybe, but not weird. I want to call it out to continue to lessen its hold on me. “We’re only as sick as our secrets,” is something else I learned in Al-Anon. I do my best to have no more secrets, especially ones like this that feel shameful. I want to call it out so that it has less (and less) hold over me.

I do think the fear will continue to lessen and continue to dissipate. I do think the fear will go away. I hope it goes away soon. Really soon would be really nice.

I’m assuming that the more evidence I have that I have no reason to fear, and the more I learn to catch my fear quickly and breathe it to release, the more my fear will go away. That’s what’s happened so far. That’s what I know will happen again.

I’ve also learned that the more I try and make the fear go away, the more the fear is there. The harder I push against it, the stronger it seems to be. The more I try and deny it, or judge myself for feeling it, the more power it seems to have over me.

Once again, it seems, it’s a moment for acceptance. Self-acceptance. And self-love. A moment to be as kind to myself as I would be to my best friend if they were feeling fear. As kind as I would most likely be to a stranger if they were feeling fear. “There, there,” I would say. “It’s okay. It’s okay that you feel fear, and it will be okay.”

Once again it’s time to have faith and love, because soon the fear will go away. But for right now, I’m okay anyway.