Tag Archives: fear

Fear of intimacy

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They are wounded.

Keep this in mind when you see or experience people — or yourself — hiding or running from real intimacy in a relationship.

I am not talking solely about physical intimacy or love-making intimacy. I say love-making intimacy because people have been having sex for years without an iota of emotional and spiritual intimacy to be seen for miles. Physical intimacy, holding hands, holding each other, cuddling, simply touching, can be a steep climb for the badly wounded. Love-making intimacy, even steeper.

Avoiding intimacy takes many forms. One of the more common is when people enter into relationships with partners who are either unable or unwilling to be intimate. At times, this allows the partner seeking intimacy to both bemoan the absence of intimacy on the one hand without ever having to  be intimate on the other. Choosing to be with someone who can’t be intimate can be a way of avoiding intimacy in and of itself. This does not mean either person is aware of the intimacy-avoiding pattern they’re trapped in.

If emotional and spiritual intimacy were physical beings the amount of intimacy being lost could fill the Grand Canyon on a daily basis.

There are real reasons deserving of the deepest respect people fear intimacy. Almost without exception the fear revolves around the following truth. At some point in time, usually in childhood, but not exclusively so, you were in some way taught that being who really really are was dangerous. Emotionally, physically, or sexually dangerous. Someone you loved with all your heart died. You were abused physically, emotionally, spiritually, sexually. Somehow, through no fault of your own (even if you are still making the mistake of holding yourself responsible (You’re not!)), you came to believe truly being yourself with someone else was dangerous.

For an array of reasons, I believed it was dangerous for me to be myself with someone for years. For me, getting free of this fear began with two understandings. First, getting free of this fear meant getting free of my history. Second, who deserves to be in control of my decision making? Me or my history?  I pick me.

Talking about the fear with someone is not only an immense help, it is necessary. Talk to someone: a psychotherapist, a member of clergy, a close friend. Now, for those who believe asking for help is an act of weakness, let me ask you something. If it is an act of weakness to ask for help, then why is it so hard to do? After all, if it was an act of weakness, asking for help would be easy. And, it’s not so much that I think each of us need the help. I think we damn well deserve it. Why? Because you deserve to get free of your history’s decision-making power. Promise.

Getting physical: it’s all dance to me

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Movement comes from the inside out, not from the outside in. At least that’s my truth. Someone asked me once how I decided to dance to a particular piece of music. “It’s not up to me,” I said. “It’s up to the music.”  Let the music in and out the movement comes. You’ve got to keep self out of the way. In other words, don’t interrupt.

Movement: a form of dance like jazz, ballet, modern, a form of what society calls exercise or sport: running, swimming, climbing mountains, hiking, biking, walking, kissing, love making… hell, it’s  all dance to me. I’ve seen definitions of dance I like such as, to perform or take part in as a dancer, and, to bring into a specified condition by dancing. These help me understand why, when live wounds or rewards deeply, getting physical is inherently part of my response. When my mother committed suicide in 1992 I ran two marathons in two weeks in 1993. When my daughter was born, I could’ve danced forever.

Of late, swimming is my “dance floor” and  get-physical refuge, though I’m eyeing some challenges on my bike (summiting Mt. Greylock, Massachusetts’ tallest peak at a modest 3,491 feet) and a few others  I’m keeping off the page (for now).  I’m quietly joyous about my relationship with swimming. I can swim a mile freestyle now. For me this is a big deal. It was fall 2012 when I (finally!) decided to face my fear of water, deep over-my-head water.  Now when life wounds or rewards I’m in the water early morning, churning through, moving, dancing all the way. That movement experience when body, spirit, mind, heart and soul are one.

No better place to be fully alive than in the moment, the only place you have to be, in the moment.

Into the Arms of Fear

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Other than flying out to California to visit my mother Leona when she was dying of cancer, tomorrow will be my first time on public transportation since I was shot in the head in 1984. I was shot in New York City and early tomorrow I am taking a train to New York City. I am giving a speech there tomorrow. The chilly veil of fear has me thoroughly engulfed, but I am allowing it no decision making power.

Over the years I have learned that, with rare exceptions, the healthiest way to manage fear is to stride into it, not away from it. I particularly love the phrase, It’s okay to be afraid, don’t let it scare you. It is a phrase that underscores the notion that we have a relationship with all things and, in this case, with fear. Relationships can be healthy or unhealthy, including those we have with our emotional conditions. And so, tomorrow I board a train and travel to NYC. I never thought I’d be able to do this. But, as Nelson Mandela said, “It always seems impossible until its done.”

Lest you think I have not prepared, let me assure you I have. Today I drove to the train station so I could go inside and see it and familiarize myself with it. I picked up my tickets so the task of doing so in the morning would not sit in my mind and morph into an event that would be highly problematic and, well, scary. I scoped out the parking area and visualized myself walking from the parking area to the train. I saw a newsstand and a coffee counter and, to my delight, realized I could buy a New York Times and coffee there in the morning just like my Dad did when he worked in NYC. There is something comforting to me about the presence of newspaper stands and coffee counters

I will be getting up early and so have pulled my small coffee maker out of the cabinet and have it all set up so when I wake up I will push the button and speed the comforting aroma of coffee into my day.

I will, of course, bring a book and my journal along with a twig  from my father’s grave. While I am damned scared at the moment, I somehow know I am going to have a wonderful day tomorrow.

Just ‘Round the Bend

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It’s been many years since I’ve had a good relationship with August. We just don’t get along. I never wronged August, least I can’t remember if I did, but I must’ve. After all, August contains some of the biggest wounds of this man’s life. Shot on August 24th, mother commits suicide on August 12, and the biggest wound of all, my father dies on August 16 when he is 55 and I’m 15.

Now don’t be whipping out any sympathy violins for me, that’s not the point here. I am alive and well and happy and testimony that things can be survived and grown from and while wounds leave their marks and shapes, they don’t mean to stop your life, ‘less you hand’m more control then they deserve. Life happens to us whether we like it our not, it’s how we manage it that makes the difference, our living breathing relationship with it – that’s the point.

Suicide’s anything but fuckin’ painless and the same goes for getting shot and your father dyin’ when you’re fifteen’ll fuck your world up too. But you know what? Sunsets are beautiful and the same goes for sunrises. Friendships and family are precious and Springsteen songs make my heart soar and the sound of children laughing will lighten the heaviest heart and have you seen the flowers blooming lately?

Old wounds don’t stop life. Old pains don’t slam doors. Old scars don’t close your eyes or shut your ears. Open wide your soul and breathe. Lift your hearts up by the fuckin’ bootstraps if you have to. Open your eyes and ears, love people, love life. There’s life gifts in front of you and there’s life gifts ‘round the bend. You might not see’m now, but they’re just ‘round the bend. I know it’s scary, but don’t let it frighten you.

We all got our Augusts. You got yours and I got mine. You keep living now – and I’ll be seein’ you ‘round the bend.

WE OUGHT TO JAIL FEAR

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I live in fear every day. Some days more than others. Like the London fog, it rarely leaves. And when it does leave, it hasn’t gone far. Fear can be crippling. It is a master thief. It robs us of more than we realize.

An extraordinary song by Marc Cohn, an e-mail exchange with a loved one, and a recent discussion with a group of trauma survivors has me pondering the presence of fear in far too many lives. Like the song, “One Safe Place,” by Mr. Cohn reminds us, we all deserve a sanctuary.

Life happens to us whether we like it or not. Life, unlike people, knows no bigotry. It visits all of us. It brings us its greatest rewards if we stay open to them: the love of a fellow human being, the joy of loving another human being, the sweetness of a soft morning mist, a baby’s laughter, a piece of music that sends chills of joy riding up and down our spine and wets our eyes. Life brings fear too. There is a Life Growth phrase that says, It’s okay to be afraid, don’t let is scare you. The phrase seeks to help someone discover they have a relationship with the fear and thus have some say in the relationship. The idea is to wrest as much decision making power from the fear as possible by going towards and through the fear. Believe me, I am not always able to do it. But when I do, the results are not as horrifying as I thought they would be.

Not long after I was shot in the head in 1984 I was held up again at gunpoint and did what any sane person would do, I retreated into my home and did not leave it for nearly one year. Fear had me by the throat. It robbed me of participation in the world around me. How did I get free of it, at least to the point I could leave my home? Acceptance. Acceptance does not, I repeat, does not mean giving in to it. The equation goes like this; you have to accept it in order to manage it and you have to manage it in order to get free of it. You have to go through it.

We can be a spoiled lot at times. We want short cuts. Smokers want to defeat the cigarrette habit with a patch, hypnosis, nicotine gum, or accupuncture (I’ve always thought there should inaccupuncture too. Fairness, you know). In other words, they want to kick the habit without going through the experience of, well, kicking the habit (bet you didn’t see that coming).

There are some common sources of fear: violence, disease, death, loss of employment, end of relationship, of marriage, and so forth. But there are other fear-laden landscapes where the master thief robs more from our lives: fear of loving someone fully and allowing someone to love you. Fear of following your dreams: going back to school, picking up some paints because you’ve always wanted to paint, learning how to play an instrument because you think you’re too old or lack talent, and so forth.

We ought to jail fear every chance we get. The only way to jail it is to move through it. Will it be easy? No.

Hear me. You go through the fear and you will come out the other side. You will notice that you made it. You’re still breathing. It didn’t kill you (that’s what we think it wants to do, isn’t it?). You are alive and face to face a new kind of glory – you. Each time you go through the fear you erase more and more of its ability to control you and rob you of your dreams in life. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll paint that painting, play that instrument, love that person and let that person love you. Impossibilities become possibilities. And one of the last things in the world that deserves to rob you of your dreams and your possibilities is fear.

Remember, it’s okay to be afraid, don’t let it scare you. Remember to live.
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