Fear
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Posted: 19 Jun 2012 02:55 AM PDT I love Eleanor Roosevelt quotes about facing fear!I know for myself, fear plays a huge motivating role in my life --sometimes more than others -- fear is the thing that pushes me into action and fear is sometimes what keeps me from action. Fear is a primal emotion -- put there and honed over the milena to protect us. However, when fear goes awry, we can get trapped in behaviors that are no longer helpful and can be downright hurtful. The other day I happened upon this post (***beware -- LOTS of swearing in this one!) and it got me thinking about what I fear. Unlike the author from the post above, I'm not going to share my fears here (well ...except the one that I'm afraid of public ridicule for things I'm afraid of) and I don't think it's necessarily imperative that fears need to be acknowledged in a public forum. What I do think is important is to give some of our valuable time to understanding what it is we fear. Because our fears are such powerful drivers of our behaviors, if we don't understand what fear feels like -- all the small feelings we seek to avoid -- we'll never get to the bottom of where many of our negative eating habits come from. Eating is one of the ways we block out our fears. Eating (and planning what we're going to be eating, with whom and when) can be an absorbing activity -- ever noticed that as a side effect of being on a diet? Eating allows us to block out the uncomfortable fear feelings: of rejection -- or potential rejection of loss -- or our potential of loss of failure -- or our potential to fail etc. But when we don't understand what specific fear is driving us to eat, we can't deal with the fear. We only deal with the eating part, which is a symptom -- not the root cause of our problem. So here's my challenge to you: Write down every one of your fears (on paper!). And then spend some time paying attention to see which of those fears routinely sending you running to the nearest vending machine, refrigerator, fast food outlet, etc. Need help getting started with your list? How about your first fear being: Afraid to list all my fears on paper because I am not sure I want to deal with them ??? |
Fear can be a powerful emotion.
Fear to me was when I looked in the mirror and didn't recognize myself as a normal weight person. When my "fat suit" was gone, I was exposed.
Even at my heaviest I still was active and really didn't care what people thought of my weight. It is was it is. To this day, it's just a number on the scale and I refuse to let the scale dictate to me if I have been "bad" or "good".
Fear to me is knowing I will have to have another surgery in the future because of my adhesion's. I stay on top of my health but I'm not the same since my last small bowel obstruction.
Would I do this WLS all over again? You betcha. I can play with my grandkids and this last weekend I kept 4 of them overnight then took them home at 8pm and still babysat til 1am. 2 of them are babies (2 yrs. and 9 mths.) The 5 and 10 year olds were a piece of cake. David is teething bigtime. Ugh!
Maybe this weekend I'll sit down and write down my fears. Tackle them head on. Then kick my fears to the curb!
Fear to me was when I looked in the mirror and didn't recognize myself as a normal weight person. When my "fat suit" was gone, I was exposed.
Even at my heaviest I still was active and really didn't care what people thought of my weight. It is was it is. To this day, it's just a number on the scale and I refuse to let the scale dictate to me if I have been "bad" or "good".
Fear to me is knowing I will have to have another surgery in the future because of my adhesion's. I stay on top of my health but I'm not the same since my last small bowel obstruction.
Would I do this WLS all over again? You betcha. I can play with my grandkids and this last weekend I kept 4 of them overnight then took them home at 8pm and still babysat til 1am. 2 of them are babies (2 yrs. and 9 mths.) The 5 and 10 year olds were a piece of cake. David is teething bigtime. Ugh!
Maybe this weekend I'll sit down and write down my fears. Tackle them head on. Then kick my fears to the curb!
I know I have a lot of fears, but I'm not sure what. I fear for my kids and anything happening to them. I fear for my husband. But fears that I eat to avoid, I will have to do some deep soul searching to admit to those because I'm sure I have them well buried. I know I eat to avoid things and/or dealing with certain emotions. I really should deal with it more because I've been losing some control that I am fighting to regain since surgery.
Yet, without the surgery, I would not be about to do my 6th half marathon, and so many other things that I'm healthy for. When my family does something, I can do it too and not just be a spectator. For all that I am grateful for. But your posts give me so much to think about. I should copy them all and make myself a notebook so I can keep refering back to them. It's on my to do list.
Hugs!
Jan
Yet, without the surgery, I would not be about to do my 6th half marathon, and so many other things that I'm healthy for. When my family does something, I can do it too and not just be a spectator. For all that I am grateful for. But your posts give me so much to think about. I should copy them all and make myself a notebook so I can keep refering back to them. It's on my to do list.
Hugs!
Jan
Ahhhh...but we are strong women!!!
We will face fears and overcome them. One by one.
I remember when I was a kid I would look at my mom and observe how she would deal with her fears. I think she did really well and I didn't inherit her fears, I thought she was fearless...until one day she was throwing up blood, I was around 11 I think and was scared to death. Of course she reassured me but later on I heard her talking with her friend and saying she had to get well because who would take care of her 5 kids.
Keep tapping away at your fears Connie. Tap them high and then give them a might slap to the side and watch those fears fly away. Now that's an excellent vision to embrace.
We will face fears and overcome them. One by one.
I remember when I was a kid I would look at my mom and observe how she would deal with her fears. I think she did really well and I didn't inherit her fears, I thought she was fearless...until one day she was throwing up blood, I was around 11 I think and was scared to death. Of course she reassured me but later on I heard her talking with her friend and saying she had to get well because who would take care of her 5 kids.
Keep tapping away at your fears Connie. Tap them high and then give them a might slap to the side and watch those fears fly away. Now that's an excellent vision to embrace.
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