Fear

Do you ever notice that something is constantly popping up in your life - maybe a theme (like everyone getting married around you, a lot of people moving, even death, or all of the sudden something is rampant- like gluten free diets), or you keep running into that person who you never usually see, or all of the sudden you notice people are wearing some silly trend like overalls?

In the last couple of days, fear has been popping up all around me.  Being a newly sober alcoholic (I have 28 days today and am not quite sure if the word sober is appropriate yet but I'm going to use it anyway), fear is something guiding a lot of what I'm thinking and doing on a daily and even hourly basis.

Fear:
1. A distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid
2. concern or anxiety
3. something that causes feelings of dread or apprehension; something a person is afraid of
(paraphrased from dictionary.com)

Yesterday I spent the morning in a group therapy session where we talked about fear (False Evidence Appearing Real) and then last night I went to an AA meeting where the leader invited us to speak about Fear (another way of putting it - Fuck Everything And Run).  When I was telling my sponsor about my fears between these two meetings yesterday, she told me to put a pen to paper about what I was feeling.  So before going to that AA meeting yesterday, I spent some time sitting outside the church - when I put that pen to that piece of paper it didn't stop.  The words and the thoughts just kept encroaching on me.  The FEAR was relentless.  So when I stepped into an AA meeting about fear, God was definitely saying "HEY YOU!  FEAR is normal when you are 28 days sober...but you cannot let it swallow you!"

Fear is very real - whether it is about something real or imagined - and I'm realizing that yes, it is important to identify the fears but then you have to deal with it and learn to move past it into action.  For me dealing with fear means talking to my sponsor and really being honest with her and doing whatever the heck it is she tells me to do. 

In the moment, the fear that is the biggest driving force in my life is my impending return to work next week.  I talked to my sponsor, we have started to come up with a plan and next week when I return to work I will be putting that plan into action. 

I have other fears for sure- I could probably list over 25 right now easily.  But I have to learn to tackle these fears one at a time just as I am learning to live one day at a time.