Fear is a real beast isn't it? I can tell you, I let it haunt and prey on me.
It seeks me out, smells me from afar and pounces on me like a thief in the night, I hardly ever even see it coming before it's too late. It is especially ferocious for me and it has the tendency to manipulate how I view and deal with situations that can in turn, affect me quite negatively in my life.
Prior to yesterday, I had a incapacitating fear of flying I told you about it the other day and I was showered with lovely messages that comforted and supported me into marching onto that airplane. (Thanks guys!)
With wide eyes, an anxiously over-working mind and a mission to accomplish, I set out on my adventure. All that time in the sky got me thinking... I began to dissect the very fear I was feeling and put it into images my mind could connect to easily.
Fear drains the color from my world, making everything seem dark or light, black or white...
The plane was shaking like a piece of chicken in a shake-and-bake bag.
Was there someone bigger than us, some giant baby out there confusing us for a rattle? It felt like the wings were ripping off. I had an image of a whale, with such force sucking in hundreds of tiny fish into his mouth in one gulp... it felt like the sky was trying to suck us in, in the same way and my anxiety was rioting.
Calm down... flying is the safest form of travel... there are hundreds of flights that are in the sky, perfectly safe every day... I kept thinking about the comments you left me on my last blog.
Head pounding, worst-case scenarios screaming their way into my thoughts, heart threatening to jump out of my chest... It wasn't working.
I could see in my mind fear as an image, as a black monster, a beast!
I continued that train of thought and in considering fear as a beast, let my mind flow into the story of 'Beauty and the Beast'. The Beast is wild, unruly, untamed, unknown. His motives and his actions are unpredictable and thus, causing beautiful Belle, to feel fear. The fear aspect is being driven from the unknown (a stranger) and is amplified by the fact that the situation (magical spell, half-man-half-beast) is all unknown territory as well, making it even more terrifying. More unknown= more fear.
I fear the dark, as if my eyes were closed, what I cannot see and what I do not know.
In life, nothing is ever certain and uncertainty causes me to feel threatened, stimulating the fear response. However, if nothing is ever certain except that nothing will ever be certain because that's the only thing I am certain about ;) then, fear will run me over time and time again... unless I learn to view it from a new perspective.
What happens later in the famous story? How does Belle transform what once was fear and anger into love?
Belle learns to trust Beast and as she gets to know him, become familiar, the fear and resentment starts to disappear and love is able to form. Belle's heart was open to the possibility of "something there that wasn't there before," to quote Mrs. Potts. Could there be something there that wasn't there before, for me?
Disney was incredibly influential for me growing up and I like to pull back from my early childhood years and form connections from those long term memories. The songs, story lines, characters are perfectly etched in my mind and therefore are very effective to use as learning tools for me now. Memory connections are strong when associated to an image, a song, a mapped gateway to finding what you're looking for. I learned how to remember sequences by creating mind maps from my long term memories and so, why not try it with this? With this theory, I could associate my fear within the story of Beauty and the Beast and walk my mind through it every time I began to feel this fear.
Historically, I have been viewing flying as something I fear, something I "hate." Now, I have always known better than that, but yet I kept doing it, amplifying the fear in my mind, granting it power over my thoughts and emotions. Telling myself that it's this monster trying to consume me! No wonder why flying was such a dramatic experience for me. No one is really keen to get eaten are they?
If Belle looked at the Beast the same way I have been looking at flying for the whole story, her heart never would have opened up to him and she never would have been able to see what he really was.
Her shield of rejection and denial would have consumed her and she likely would have locked herself away to starve like Beast threatened. (Notice how Beast challenges Belle to change her opinion, her disposition to save herself from her otherwise doom?)
Belle has a choice to make (just like I do.)
On one hand she can succumb to her fright instincts, live her days in dismay, allowing fear to have power over her and hold her captive or she can release her mind from those unhelpful thoughts, give herself a chance and power through her mind, break open her heart and through that find freedom and love!
I much prefer freedom and love over pain and imprisonment.
If Belle would have chosen option one, we all would have missed the beautiful ending resulting in.... love. What is love? Acceptance! What's that opposite of? Rejection and uncertainty! What's fear based off of? Rejection of the unknown.
I've been sabotaging myself this whole time!
I could be dancing with fear in the ballroom, free from it's grasp, living alongside it in harmony instead of hiding from it, locked away in my room crying about it.
I found myself singing these lyrics in my head, a perfect fit to my new perspective...
"Bitter-sweet and strange
Finding you can change
Learning you were wrong"
Now, whenever I feel fear in the shadows, lurking behind, tempting my senses to start to excite... I will remember that I want to be freed Belle, empowered Belle, who we all love and adore... not chained up, begging for life to show her mercy in a tower, Belle.
Fear is designed in my mind's eye, what we create is what we experience. Like a switch of a button, I am set free by these words "I am BRAVE!"
XO,
