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Fear & The Control Freak In Me

I'm having a great week.  I have chosen positive thoughts and positive actions and I have chosen to be happy.  Weird that those are all choices that one has to get up and make, but I'm finding that to be true more and more often than not.  So, why this post about fear?  Well, I've been thinking about it and even though it doesn't match my mood or my "place" today, I wanted to get it on paper.

I feel like I have blogged a lot in the past year about fear and love and the fear that comes with loving.  And I've been hearing a lot about fear because Andy's newest book is about fear.  And there is so much fear all around us (another post for another time) thanks to the news and crazy Facebook rants.  I feel like we are surrounded by fear.

One of my girlfriends and I were talking the other day about this fear that is often paralyzing (especially in relationships) and I said something that sounded very well thought out and rehearsed and really it just came to me.  I said something like. . . fear is safe for us because we can control it.  When we don't fear (just trust and have faith), we have nothing to hold on to and that makes many of us feel out of control.  With fear in our lives we are at least in control of that.  It is warped, but the more I think about it, the more I think it is true.

I have fear in relationships.  What if they don't like me?  What if they reject me?  What if they betray me?  Relationships and how the other person will handle you is out of your control, so you let fear step in because in some weird way, you can control that.  I should be saying "I," not "you."  If I have fear that someone won't like me, I hold on to that and do everything in my power (out of unhealthy fear) to make them like me.  Whew.  I'm in control.  What if they betray me?  I hold on to that fear and don't trust because if I don't trust (out of fear), then my trust can't be broken.

It is simple and complex.  I am afraid of turbulence when I am flying (especially without my kids).  Does my fear keep the plane in the air?  No.  But if I have fear, then I have some form of control when I am in a situation with ZERO control.  And somehow I think that feeling of control helps me feel better.  Maybe?  If Hays is late from wherever he is driving from I go into fear mode that something happened because somehow that gives me a little bit of control.  If I wonder what any boy in my house is doing online while I'm not looking, I snoop around and somehow that fear gives me control.

I'm not sure if I'm making sense or not.  I just get the feeling that my fear in my relationships comes because I am somewhat of a control freak and I don't really know what to do when I'm not in control. Then I allow fear to slip in and somehow I grab on to that because that seems like control.  Mind you, this is all subconscious.  I do not consciously choose fear ever.  But Andy said something to me the other night (that made me mad and hurt my feelings because it seemed so mean) that as I thought about it started to make a little bit of sense.  He asked me when I am going to decided to get out of my fear funk.  Those were not his words, I don't remember his words.  I was too mad to remember his words.  But as I thought about it, that is when this idea started coming to me.

I have to choose not to fear.  There, little Miss Control Freak inside of me--control that!  Relationships are scary, but they are also fun and wonderful and life-giving.  So, just enjoy.  Don't fear the unforeseeable.  Just go along for the ride.  Will I be hurt and rejected and berated?  Well, yes, probably at some point.  But I will be happy and accepted and someone will be faithful a zillion times before the other happens.  So I do need to just let go, put my hands up (like on a roller coaster) and enjoy the ride for what it is.  I am choosing not to fear.  And hopefully that daily choice will become such a habit that I won't even have to make it and fear will be so far out of my mind.  I'm choosing happy.  I'm choosing trust.  I'm choosing to believe that the things people say about me are true.  

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