Fear appears in many forms, not just in turbulent economic times.
Fear is the opposite of compassion, the opposite of patience, the opposite of love. Love appears in many little forms too; recognizing love or fear in a fleeting moment gives us clarity and inner control.
Please share with me here any moments of fear you may have recently experienced or are currently suffering. Here is a recent experience of how I have worked through acting fearful in the past, to now be at a point in the present where I can experience love instead of fear.
The other evening, I was sitting with my best friend on her sofa, catching up. We are such close friends that sometimes we joke that we must have had the same parents because we have such odd-ball things in common, and yet on many levels we are so opposite each other.
We have many of the same insecurities, which has helped us understand ourselves better and take the constant risks to be closer and closer, as if we had been actual sisters, and grew up with an expected sense of intimacy. Learning to trust other women has been our test; getting past those fears. Our understanding of those fears keeps getting deeper and we revel in each other’s willingness to be so honest, so real, and so raw in our feelings, that we constantly congratulate each other for bravery. Acknowledging fear allows us to move forth. Acting fearful would not have allowed us to have the experience I am about to share with you.
We both have what I have coined as: a heightened sense of awareness; we are always on guard, always paying attention to the change in winds, knowing when that blade of grass in Montana is turning in the breeze. Both of us came from childhood households that had no healthy boundaries, and guaranteed uncertainty of everything. But, I have worked diligently to have more compassion for myself, allowing myself to be patient instead of fearful.
Back to the sofa…
So, I was telling her that I had spoken to my father that week, which is a rarity. He is 91, lives in New York, and I call him every few months. We have a minimalist relationship, by design on my part. My father was abusive and cruel to my whole family. His self-loathing originating from his dysfunctional parents, then of course, dumped it onto us.
Let’s give my friend a name…Monica. So, Monica asked me how was it to talk to him. Had the question come from someone I was not so close to, I would have sluffed it off with ‘ok’…but, I was sitting in the presence of someone who I could be 100% raw with…so, I did not feel the need to protect myself. And, I was not even thinking all of this, I was just in the moment, listening to silence in the room, feeling my heartbeat. My eyes got hot and I could feel the tears start to swell…I started to talk about my fears about getting older…(it’s high on my obsession list…milestone birthday coming in a week)…my mother is gone, my father is still robust and youthful, and still totally incapable of meeting my needs. He could not meet my needs when I was 10, 20 or ever. We were all cast adrift by his cruelties and selfishness. We had to fend for ourselves.
But, here comes the icing on the cake:
As I started to cry, Monica sat closer, then softly asked: “do you want a tissue?” I nodded ‘yes’. She got off the sofa, went into the next room and came back and handed me one from a small purse size packet. She then put the packet within my arms reach, and pulled out the next tissue and set it on the coffee table.
How thoughtful, how profoundly sweet.
That action demonstrated to me how much she loved me. I said nothing at that moment because I was talking about someone who in my life was the opposite of what I was experiencing in that precise moment. But the next day, when I was journaling, I wrote about it, and when next we spoke, I told her what I experienced in that ‘tissue moment’. She laughed, and said to me: “You do the same for me, remember last week how you moved the cars, so I could easily get a space and not have the sprinklers go off as I was taking the groceries out of the car…you are so conscious of everything tiny thing.”
Love….it truly heals.
1 comment:
Wow, that is so incredibly touching. On the subject of your father, I'm a faithful Dr. Laura listener who agrees with about 90% of her advice. She often gets calls from listeners who are older children of abusive parents. Dr. Laura always questions why they would continue to be in touch with a parent who was cruel and abusive. However, it must be a very common issue, as I have heard so many people calling in about that. Anyway, I do like the point of your post, how little things like preparing the next tissue, can mean so much. You two women are very lucky to have such a bond. :)
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