Fear no more

I often wonder if people find me easy to love. I imagine that if I asked my family or friends, they would say that I am loveable. That I have qualities that they love about me, but I am aware that I am not loveable all the time. Lately, I have been a whirlwind of emotions, I have been chaotic in my thinking. I’d imagine reflective of my current emotional state. I don’t function well in chaos so as the amount of chaos has risen, so has my fear and anxiety. The question is, how long do I want to live beholden to fear before it consumes me? I’d imagine many would say that life is too short to be surrendering to fear. That fear takes away from actual living. I can’t even argue and say that I disagree but what do you do when fear has been the only motivator I know?

I have been over-thinking, over-feeling, over-analyzing, thinking critically into everything, seeking answers everywhere and nowhere, and I am still unsure of how to move forward in life in the ways that I find fulfilling. Is seeking happiness truly this complicated? I don’t believe that it is, so I do believe that I am making this far more complicated. But why? If I had the answer, I suppose I wouldn’t be writing this. I wasn’t even going to write this to be honest. I feel that at times I am misrepresenting myself in these entries. I vacillate between victim, martyr, healer, and truth seeker. And yet I feel like I am in imposter.

On paper, I am relatively successful. I am hard working, some would even say that I am determined but when I really do a deep analysis into myself, I have measured success by accomplishments. I suppose in part that has to do with the fact that, for most if not all my life how I was seen and valued was about what I could provide or accomplish on any given year. But does that really measure my happiness? The answer is no. I feel like I have spent a long time going in and out of periods of happiness. I find happiness and then slowly that erodes away, and I fall into periods of feeling not good enough. And I have perpetuated this for as long as I can remember.

Lately, I have felt deeply out of control. For me that is a tremendous admission since I have spent an entire lifetime being in control of everything. I have been exposing myself to stimuli and experiences that test all my limits and somehow, I am feeling calm at present. That may change tomorrow but at this moment I am calm in my environment. But the one thing that seems not to subside is this deeply rooted fear that is consuming my entire being. Suffocating me in ways that I often struggle to breath deeply enough. And all I can do is sit in this complete discomfort and experience it, in all its glory. Good, bad, or indifferent. The more consuming the fear the more motivation I must fucking stop allowing it access to me. But how?

The reality is that I have recently begun coming into my own. And while fear and self-doubt seem to rule me at times. I am getting to know myself in ways I had never imagined possible. But I still have so much more to learn. I am still a woman, who is easily angered, easily triggered, difficult to love, untrusting, and self-sabotaging. But I am on the road to recovery. I am acknowledging that while I still have a lot to work on, I have come a long way. While I am self-defeating at times I am also self-actualizing. I know that I am not perfect. I know that I am difficult and challenging. But I am committed to myself so that I can be a role model for my children. It is only in my wholeness that I will step away from my fear.

Even in my fear, I have found the courage to overcome adversity. To tackle the changes in my life one small step at a time. I am learning to love myself again. I am honoring myself, forgiving myself, freeing myself to love, honor, and tend to those I love not from a place of fear but from a place of self-love. I am radically accepting that I can’t change the past, that I can’t undo what I have done but I can take immediate action to go after what makes me happy. I get to live my life as a fully, whole, happy, person. Walking through my fear rather than dwelling in it, taking back control of my power will lead me to my happiness.