"Fear has only two causes: The thought of losing what you have or the thought of not getting what you want." Byron Katie
How intriguing is this thought about fears; your fears.
What is it that you don't want to lose?
Or fear not working out?
Imagine how our minds play with our lives.
How can we know that a different choice would not work out, if we haven't ever taken that choice?
A sister from long past came in. After doing some chatting via message back and forth, it came to me a feeling of 'what's the use' or like I was setting myself up to be hurt again. I sat with the complexity of our exchanging words and to what end.
I wasn't in fear...but a self-protecting mode. Is that fear too?
I was in experience and knowing.
Do we connect only to disengage again?
Can I even fully put myself in as innocently as we began in childhood? Don't I already know who she is and who I am?
How something inside of us moves differently.
This something that repels me... draws her forward. It is like we are magnetically flipped.
What draws us forward or pushes us away?
Is it the fear of losing what we have or not getting what we want?
The tricky landscape of estrangement leads to encounters of our brokenness.
How do you know when to engage again?
To show yourself and your feelings - Here I am.
Here I am and do we match; are we compatible.
Is there the possibility for friendship, respect, truthful exchanges. Are our lives heading in the same directions?
How does the estranged reconnect, and do they?
I am not sure I have fear; but am unsure if enough has changed to rectify our relationship.
Something within us has had to have changed. Something has to now be different in order for the estrangement to be flipped.
I don't really sit here in fear; but in curiosity.
I am no longer the person I was, who lived in the dysfunctional family.
I changed...or did the family.
I guess we both did. I fell out of denial and the family went from a safe place to one with a pedophile.
We each responded differently; I guess with fear as a motive.
I feared that if I didn't change enough, the cycle would continue in my home.
Fear was a motivator.
I wasn't afraid of losing what I had.
I was afraid if I didn't make different choices, I would perpetuate the same in my home. Pass on to the next generation the legacy of abuse.
I did have fear that I would not get what I wanted.
I wanted a family model that was not harmful to children.
I was afraid, I couldn't be that.
I was fearful that my damaged nature would always destroy the self-esteem and self-love my children have. I have worked on myself to be a damage free zone.
To be a self contained unit where they didn't need to bolster me, or please me, or care about my feelings. I would take care of that myself.
They were free to be as they felt they needed to be.
I went from judging, controlling, needing, self absorption to the opposite. I flipped.
I pulled all that I needed from others and gave it to me.
I literally had to work against the magnetic pull to go for codependency to self love.
If I have any fear it is to need, want or desire Something from anyone.
The fear of using or being used.
I have heard others say, that when so and so dies, I will then be free.
Or, when I retire, or when this or this happens. I do not believe that freedom is in the hands of Other.
I untied myself from every thought of what others needed to be or say or do.
Allowing them this freedom freed me.
Freedom truly is nothing left to lose.
If I feel attached or caring about a certain outcome, I know I am in their business or I have left my business up to another.
We are all drawn to the life we live.
I can't know what draws you, what fears steer you.
I can only manage my own inner callings and question deeply my fears.
What I had feared to lose in the past, is completely different what I fear to lose today.
In the past, it was the family.
In the present, it is my Self.
