Fear Lake

So many feelings, big ones, ugly ones, ones I’ve spent some time learning how to get through, get over, not feel.  But there is a kind of fear lake inside me that won’t seem to dissipate even when I go at it with all the tools. It pops back almost instantly. It’s just there, a kind of energy-sapping extra weight I’m carrying all day every day, making everything I do just a bit more effortful. 

I kind of gave up on trying to manage or lift this mucky yucky feeling about a week ago.  Decided to just coexist with the fear lake, keep walking, know my energy was sometimes low, sometimes sad, sometimes enraged, and it’s just the lake, burbling up from time to time.  I don’t need to react to these feelings or do anything.  I can stop looking online for a cabin in the Pacific Northwest and stop trying to make sure there’s an outdoor adventure and craft time Monday, Wednesday, and every other Friday whether we want it or not.  

I’ve been noticing the sadness, the fear, and instead of working to push it away or feel it as fully and quickly as possible and then not feel it anymore, I’ve just been hanging out with it.  Sometimes instead of a lake it seems more like a big sleepy furry monster-like creature, like something plushy from Sesame Street, that I can maybe even snuggle up to and relax.

I can walk through this time, this bizarre and appalling time, with grace and fortitude, taking care of myself and others as best I can, even while there’s this fear lake thing happening.  And there are plenty moments of other stuff too, that seem to come more easily if I’m not working so hard to run from the fear.  

I don’t need to feel guilty that inside my particular bubble there is plenty of sweetness today.  I can enjoy that, cultivate that, move into that.  I can live a life worth living, even with the fear lake inside.  I’m gonna keep going.

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