When I was looking back on the MyStory that I started over two years ago, I am really seeing some interesting things about myself. I will show you MyStory eventually and the kinds of things that I am putting in there, but, for now, just know it is a huge rectangular art book and I am filling with things about me that my kids might like to know I was interested in, did, felt, saw, expressed. I was stopped in my tracks at this one. FEAR. `
In one of the groups, I belong to, the theme of FEAR came up. I spent a week really delving in to times when fear presented itself in its many forms. I was shocked as I realized what things FEAR were in my everyday present life. And, I then began to go back in time and look through incidents, experiences and decisions I had made OUT OF FEAR. It was shocking.
When I speak of FEAR, I am not speaking of things one ought to be afraid of, right now at that moment. I am speaking to things that were my personal, quiet in the dark, kind of fears and things I do out of fear without acknowledging it. I looked at some oddities in character and actions and reactions and there it was …FEAR.
It was not until 1987, when I graduated from University and at the dance, a friend asked me to dance… it was a waltz. I knew I could not waltz but I quietly tucked away that fear and went out on to the dance floor with him. It was horrible. As he, who knew me very well over those three years at University, led me off the floor, he drew me over to one of the seats away from others. “Now, he said, tell me why you are so terrified to waltz with me.” It was not him, I assured him. Gosh, we had taken psychology courses, Native Studies classes, art classes, where we had to work through our own stuff in the courses, and I was going to tell him. “I can not waltz because it involves having a man put my hands up high, in a vulnerable position and it is intimate and it triggers me.” He smiled and said, “Well, we’ve got to work on that!” and he drug me out on the dance floor for another waltz. I braved myself up and forced myself to relax, to not be so stiff (lord, I had never been stiff in my life as I am such a gypsy at heart and at ease with so much and especially dancing.) I have always loved to dance but I did not realize I never waltzed. It was an epiphany to me then, and now I was having more epiphanies.
When I go into a public washroom, I look to make sure no stranger danger kind of things are there. I, also, to my amazement, check to make sure I can get out fast if I have to. For crying out loud, I am a 73-year-old woman and still hanging on to being able to escape from a room if I have to. I realized, that week, that I am afraid to walk down long hallways where I can not see the exit doorway. I realized that most of choices and decisions were fear-based. There are names that go with those fears. But, I thought I had worked on all my down deep and dirty spaces and ferreted out my triggers, acknowledged them, and survived, overcame and thrived. These were so obvious I had missed them. And, there were many.
I am rally looking at my fear-base and how it influences my daily choices. I had no idea I was such a fearful person yet.
Do you have fears you have conquered? Can you express them in art journaling?
©Carol Desjarlais 4.27.21
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