Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person. Dr David M Burns.
I am part of a group of women who get together to support and learn from each other. This is a new group that has had only one meeting so far. At that meeting it was decided that future meetings would have a ‘theme’ and the ‘theme’ for tonight’s (the second) meeting would be FEAR.
We were asked to put something together about our fears and how we planned to get over them aka move/live through them and come out the other side.
When I sat down to put together my piece for the meeting I thought about the many acronyms for FEAR and several came immediately to mind.
The obvious one is False Expectations Appearing Real but what about
For Everything a Reason
Forget Everything and Run
Forget Everything and Remember
Failure Expected and Received
Face Everything and Rejoice
False Emotions Appearing Real
Forget Everything and Relax
Future Events Appearing Real
Of these my favorite is ‘Face Everything and Rejoice”.
But of course when we usually talk about FEAR it is in the negative sense. For me, having lived this long and interesting life, there really is nothing I fear except perhaps ending my life as a vegetable. This could be Alzheimer’s or some other debilitating illness.
Each week at the hospice I see people in the last stages of their life. By the time they arrive at the hospice they all appear to have accepted that their life is coming to an end. I don’t fear this as an ending to my life but I would hate to be totally dependent on somebody else for all my needs.
Not since I was a small child have I been dependent on somebody else. I was inter-dependent with my late husband for more than 40 years but this is something quite different. We were mutually supportive of each other.
There are two things that I really dread – losing control of my mind and losing control of my body.
So I am doing everything I can to stop either of these things happening. I walk up and down the hills of this very hilly suburb in Wellington, on a daily basis. I walk to the local store and take opportunities to walk when I can.
Photo -Karl Nelleson
I play the occasional game of golf with a friend. Neither of us is particularly good but we love the game and the open air. I promise to play more golf in the coming months.
I read vociferously. I love words and word 
puzzles and these form part of my everyday life. I play bridge, not as often as I used to but I promise I will take it up again. I will find three others to play with on a regular basis.
I will keep on working on these things so that my daughter will never hear me say “Who are you?” when she comes to visit. And I will also exercise the body.
I would sort out all the arguments and see which belonged to fear and which to creativeness. Other things being equal, I would make the decision which had the larger number of creative reasons on its side. ~Katharine Butler Hathaway 1890-1942, American author.
Related Articles
- Our Greatest Fear (dghwp.wordpress.com)
- Live without Fear (vishalbheeroo.wordpress.com)
I choose how I will spend the rest of my life 