sunday night thoughts – {the other side of fear}

Every Sunday night my therapist and I exchange a connecting email after the weekend comes to a close. We have done this now for a good 3-4 years.

I send an email giving him my thoughts, and he will respond back Sunday night with his thoughts, and then we talk about it during Monday mornings session.

I usually send my email sometime later in the day on Sunday, but last night I sent my Sunday email at 2am, and it was a big one!

It was vulnerable, risky, full of so much truth and pain! I put myself all out there to be heard, seen and understood, and then I hit send!

I woke up this morning (Sunday morning) and I pulled the covers over my head and thought “oh my God, I sent that email didn’t I? that was so big and so HUGE, what if it was too much truth? what if I was too vulnerable?!

So I sat with it all day today between being so proud of myself for doing something so big! and then feeling ashamed for how bold and risky I was. I wrote so much about what is going on inside, and what I fear, and what I really wish for, and hoped for, and how much pain I have felt working so hard but how healing it is.

It was an internal war…. until I saw an email come in from my therapist with the subject line “You are INCREDIBLE!” he read the Sunday email and said it was so big that he was going to sit with it more and respond a bigger email later on tonight.

I sat there and thought to myself “and here I was sitting in fear because I let myself be seen and open and thought it was too much, yet my he just wrote how proud he was of me, and how GOOD this was?”

What is it that puts us in a state of fear when we are open and vulnerable? what is it that creates FEAR so big in us sometimes that we pull the covers over our head when we do something so big we are unsure of?

I saw my therapists response and my shoulders dropped down from above my ears. I took a deep breath, I let my stomach go from holding it in all day, I smiled a little and thought to myself “there is nothing to fear from the truth”.

I saw it as risky and scary, my therapist saw it as BIG and FULL of truth and wisdom. HE was in AWE of my email that held so much truth and healing, I pulled the covers over my head this morning thinking my feelings and thoughts were TOO much.

So I sat and thought about it tonight. Everything we want and wish for is on the other side of fear! But what is the fear?

When I was little, I would write notes and put them in my fathers wallet because I was afraid to ask him for something in person. I would wake up in the morning and know he had it in his wallet and MULLED over it all day long not knowing what his response would be, and i felt ashamed and guilty for putting myself out there to be seen. Today I still struggle with it and it’s hard.

Fear .. fear of being seen the way I feel.

That is what I am going to find out this week. I am going to get to the bottom of this fear and find out what it is that causes me to go into such a HUGE state of fear when I put myself out there to be seen and heard.

I am healing a lot of old and new wounds right now, and I am vulnerable and open, but I want to understand what the fear is.

I have a lot going on this week between CASA training and doing some court observation for this training, and on top of that 4 days of therapy with one of those sessions being 2 hours. We plan to really work hard on something big and my hope is that it will be the answer on the other side of the fear!

I hope I take one big step over fear and find myself in a new place than I have been all year-long.

One of the things I said to my therapist in the email last night was “I AM DONE being afraid! I want to be OUT of this fear” and I said something along the lines of “I have been through enough in my life, I deserve to be free of these burdens I carry!”

Vulnerable?

It was a big email, and it was a BIG shift for me. I opened up and allowed myself to be heard and seen in a different way with no walls, not even the small little ones I keep at knee-length just in case .. none!

So as I sit here on this Sunday night preparing for my busy week ahead, I will take big deep breath and re-read the supporting email my therapist sent back to me tonight full of support, care and good hope.

I will know that this movement I made in this big courageous email of truth and vulnerability was about my healing and moving forward and facing that fear head on so that I can take a big step over it!

I will wake up tomorrow and not pull the covers over my head in fear of facing the vulnerability that is all around me – instead I will move towards it knowing I am supported and connected to everyone, and this is the path to healing.

I hope everyone had a great weekend, and I Hope whatever it is your facing, I hope you too can take a big step over fear like ME!