A reflection on the words of Eleanor Roosevelt – we can’t let fear hold us back from living life to the fullest.  No one’s life is perfect – change can be scary, innocent children experience abuse and trauma, relationships can bring pain and brokenness.

We must always remind ourselves that grief and pain are temporary.  In this blog I will categorize types of fears and how I try to handle them.

As you read my thoughts, I hope you can apply her wisdom to your own fears and struggles in life. Here are some of my own fears, which I’ve categorized to help me determine how to deal with each one.

As I make this list of my fears, many of them seem silly and surmountable.  How can I pick one of these each day, as Eleanor Roosevelt suggested?  Why would I?  This seems like a good mental exercise though, and a good practice in general because we are guaranteed to be scared by something big in our lives more frequently than we’d like to admit.  I feel like if I practice reacting to things that scare me – or better yet – if I can convert my mindset to be prepared for anything – then I’ll have less anxiety, and in the end, less fear and more freedom!

The thing about fear is that it keeps me from living freely.  It’s important to me that I take a snake bite kit on hikes when snakes are likely going to be present.  This fear helps me to be prepared and avoid danger.   Some things are truly dangerous and should obviously be avoided, while other fears seem less rational.

When I was young, I experienced incestual abuse – which thank goodness could have been worse than it was – but it still instilled in me some irrational fears.  If I feel trapped at any point – in a chair at the dentist, strapped down with a hypodermic threatening my skin, in a tight space – these fears all stem from being trapped in that bedroom during my childhood trauma.  After the incident I couldn’t sleep with my bed sheets un-tucked at the end, I couldn’t sleep with my back toward a door or window, I began to search for escape routes everywhere I went.  As time went on I learned that I was safe and these fears diminished.

Mrs. Roosevelt’s words apply very well to these types of fears.  If I can recognize an irrational fear and face it head on knowing that I will remain safe, I have not only become braver and conditioned my brain to a new way of thinking, but I’ve healed a little as well.  From the outside, one step appear tiny, but inside of me, it is a huge one!

As we prepared to be foster parents I’ve been reading many books about the brain.  The Whole Brain Child has been one of the best books I’ve read in my entire life.  They teach that re-telling experiences (stories) helps one to heal and prevents irrational fears from being created.

As a child I don’t think I dealt long and hard enough with my own trauma story, and the results have compounded into bigger fears as I’ve aged.  I needed to tell that story again and again until I felt like I’d moved past it.

If you feel like you just aren’t over something, or know someone with that struggle, I recommend talking about it – over and over. (with a professional if need be.)  The goal isn’t to solve a problem or find an answer each time you tell it, but just to repeat the narrative until you really know you’re okay.  I have to figure out a way to apply these whole brain techniques as an adult now, and I will become better, braver and more healed every day as I face my fears.

Several fears on my list are simply fears of the unknown.  I have found that these can be remedied by telling myself that there’s just nothing I can do about it.  Life will go on, I’ll be in pain or experience sadness but the hurt will be temporary.  My mother in law used to worry about her son at night, knowing he was abusing drugs and alcohol.  He was in several wrecks and she never knew if he would come home.  She couldn’t do anything to make him stop – he was too old at that point – but she started telling herself, “If he is dead in a ditch, is my worrying going to bring him back to life?”  It sounds so morbid, but this has helped me so much!  Knowing that I’ve done what I can do to influence the ones I love, prayed for them, and then repeat that process as long as I need to, it brings me more peace.

I hope that Mrs. Roosevelt’s wisdom impacts all of you in a positive way so that you can have a richer, freer life, inside and outside of your brain!