Naming my fear

Earlier this year I wrote a post on paralyzing fear. Then a few weeks ago I was reading a book that challenged readers to name their fear, in order to overcome it.

I am taking it a step further - I am not only naming my fear, but I am posting it publicly for the whole world to see. Why? Because I refuse to let it have power over me any more.

What am I afraid of? Loss.

I have experienced some intense heartache over the years. Once upon a time I did meaningful work that consumed me. I loved my work and invested my whole self in it. I invested deeply in relationships. I was ALL in! Then I had to leave that work and those relationships. It broke my heart.

As if that wasn't tough enough, I had to do it again a couple of years later. Then again a year later, Then again a year after that. By the fourth time, I was already growing apprehensive of investing myself in meaningful work or relationships. But now, it is best categorized as a paralyzing fear.

Sure, I am dissatisfied with my "normal" life - waking each day to go to a job. Coming home to do it all again the next day. But, my fear of being ALL in and having that ripped from me again outweighs my discontent with normal.

Like a heartbroken teenager, I am scared to love again. I am scared to invest myself deeply and then be uprooted (again). I am scared to open myself up to relationships and then have to say good-bye (again), with  no idea when or where we will reunite. My heart is unsure it could love again like that. It is unsure if it would recover from such a fate.

But, when I look back at the relationships I built around the globe and the people and places that still hold a piece of my heart, I am reminded of Tennyson's poem (In Memoriam: 27, 1850): 

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all. 

2 Timothy 1:7 For God gave us not a spirit of fearfulness; but of power and love and discipline. 

What are you afraid of?

just Sheri, working to overcome fear