The Art of Changing from Fear to Love

Right now, in my life, I feel scared. My marriage is about as exciting as vanilla pudding. It's been 9.5 years and we've drifted apart during those years. We are like passing ships in the night, the dark of night. It isn't bad. It just....is. Time to work on that. I FEAR I will fail my marriage.

Boo Bear has severe learning disabilities and will need tutoring and occupational therapy. I have no idea how to handle this at all. I feel like a fish out of water. I feel like I've failed her. I feel like I have no way of coping with her needs because everything I read about how to handle learning disabilities is so counter intuitive to who she is as a person. I keep reading things about strict schedules and regimented follow through and follow up. Boo Bear doesn't thrive like that. It's why we have chosen to keep her home, so she could thrive, yet all this mumbo jumbo says to do it the exact opposite!!! I FEAR that I will fail my daughter's education.

Honey Bunny is doing well. Yet, I still FEAR. I fear she will relapse. I fear she will not be able to handle the responsibility of becoming a young adult and what that means in society. I fear she won't be able to hold a job because of her PTSD/anxiety. I fear she won't have a plan for her life for the next 2 years and she will still have me driving her around, playing on her iPhone looking at cats on Tumblr and waiting for others to fill her internal gaps.

I FEAR making commitments to classes because what if we can't make them.
I FEAR my business not bringing in money.
I FEAR my business bringing in money because that means more responsibility on me.
I FEAR I am not where I am supposed to be in life.

Oh man, I am operating out of FEAR again. Have you been there? Are you there right now? As you can see, I am. I'm sitting here fearing and fretting away. It's not a good place to be. Actually, it's a downright horrible place to be. It's not even productive IF I stay here.

But, staying grounded in fear is NOT my way of being. You see, to me, staying grounded in fear is a cop out. It's a way of saying "I don't have to deal with any of this simply because I fear it." By doing that, you get stuck in the muck of fear. If you don't own the fear, you can't get past it and you also can't get through it and own the success of doing so.

So, what's a person to do when they are kept up at night and up early before the buttcrack of dawn because of fear? LOVE it. Yep, in the place of fear, place love. Unconditional love...for yourself.

Let me go back and substitute the word LOVE for fear and have a different outcome. Let's see how things change....

1) I FEAR I will fail my marriage... becomes... I LOVE my marriage will succeed.
2) I FEAR that I will fail my daughter's education... becomes ... I LOVE that I will succeed with my daughter's education.
3) I FEAR she will relapse...becomes...I LOVE that I trust her to trust herself.
4) I FEAR making commitments to classes because what if we can't make them...becomes... I LOVE making commitments to classes because we will make them.
5)I FEAR my business not bringing in money...becomes...I LOVE my business bringing in money.
6) I FEAR my business bringing in money because that means more responsibility on me...becomes...I LOVE my business not bringing in money because it means I have more time for my family.
7) I FEAR I am not where I am supposed to be in life...becomes...I LOVE where I am in life right now.

You see, replacing LOVE for FEAR completely changed the outcome of each sentence. It completely changed how things are viewed.

Operating from a place of love is hard. It's easy to get lost. Self-doubt, life changes, doubt from others are all interruptions in the way of life. It's easy to get wrapped up in fear because it is a known entity. It is seductive. Fear is sexy. It truly is. It's that excitement that occurs when we are little with that monster in the closet or under the bed. It heightens our awareness. It brings about feelings of stimulation and makes us aware of even the smallest details in our world. Now, granted, they aren't positive, but they are sexy. They are real. They make us feel alive. And, best of all, society endorses it. Society understands working out of fear. Society understands and endorses all our fears. It provides therapy and medicine. It provides movies and music to back up our fears of abandonment and isolation. Society recognizes the sexiness of fear and capitalizes on it for us. We are surrounded with fear. Advertisements are based on calming our fears....so how do we learn and remember to move out of love?

Moving from a place of fear to a place of love isn't easy. It's not as easy as saying replace one word and it's all better. No. It's much more complicated. It requires the same focus as fear, but it's more exhausting. It requires the same heightened awareness, but not of our senses but instead of our motivations. It requires INNER awareness. It requires INNER motivation. It requires maturity.

To operate from a place of love rather than fear requires a moment to moment recognition of where we are physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. The truth is, most people don't want this. They want to be able to blame others for their fear because in blaming others they are released from ownership and don't have to be aware. They can disconnect and move on with their life. Their life will be unhappy, but that is their choice.

I lost my way this summer. I began to operate out of fear rather than love. I feel it. I see it when I go back and read through my posts. I have felt so out of synch with myself that I feel like I lost the joy of summer. I lost the joy of fireflies and full moons. I lost the joy of listening to my children laugh. I lost the joy of a glass of red wine while grilling a steak and sitting by the pool. And all by choice. All because I chose fear instead of love.

Well, I officially have another month of summer left. At least about 3 weeks of it if memory serves right. It looks like I have some memory making to do in the next few weeks. Looks like my homeschool fears just have to wait and be turned from fear to love. It looks like my marriage has to do a 180 from vanilla pudding to at least vanilla pudding with some rainbow sprinkles on it for now. It looks like I have to stop fearing and start loving!!!

What fears are running your life? What fears can you change from fear to love? Are your fears fact based or are they simply imagined? What can you do right now to change even just one of those fears from a fear base to a love base? What is your new reality going to be once that happens? Keep me posted.....