This is all background info. My mother is a woman of worry. A very fragile worrier. She grew up in a house filled with tension and fighting. As a result, she doesn’t take many risks in life, because she always imagines the worst case scenario. And since she was a single parent, I grew close to only her. Her worries, however, have rubbed off on me. We both cant venture into life altering situations without saying, “what if this? what if that?” This leads to indecision from fear.
I’m am trying to break away from this fear based thinking. I told her to stop expressing her worries to me, because I hear them so much I internalize them. I just want to live free from worry and fear.
Today I asked her if she had any extra lightbulbs, because mine sparked out. She brought one over, and before leaving she said “now dont drop it and break it.” I got frustrated and told her about the worrying and the fear again. Finally she left. I started putting away my groceries, forgetting that the light bulb was in the bag. It slipped out and I caught it mid-flight, before it smashed on the floor. Relief.
But two questions flashed in my mind.
Are fears and worries justified, no matter what the context?
and . . .
Is it worth communcating, admitting, expressing fears and worries, if the very thing you’re fearing or worried about can happen anyway?
kev - I have an abiding fear of being electrocuted by a blowdrier in the shower. I also don’t own a blowdrier. You tell me if it’s worth worrying about on a daily basis.
I also have a great fear of dying a lonely old, bitter, toothless, incontinent, renal-failing, emphysemic, psychotic, homeless piece of unwanted white trash.
But it beats dying young!
Try a little sense of humor about your fears. It helps.
But fear is good. May keep you from taking a chevrolet in the face some day. Worry is different. Prudence is better than worry. Perspective, kev, perspective.
Perhaps accepting the inevitability of your deepest fear coming true would be liberating. Fear is often based in the unknown, and your uncertainty as to whether you could cope with it.
yes to everyone. fear can be sensible sometimes and obstructive othertimes. i guess one has to rely on one’s own awareness to decide what role it plays in which situations, and one’s own self-knowledge to decide how much influence it should have in life and in what way.
personally, i can’t stand flying since 9/11. but i’m about to go paragliding. on the fearless-and-fun/fearful-and-safe balance the former will prevail, innit.
I only fear those things I have no control over…If I cannot affect the outcome…then why worry…its going to happen anyway. Take control of your fear…turn it against it self.
I think fears and worries are justified no matter what the context …but u shouldn’t worry cause nothing really matters…
U should know about my traumas… which my family has given 2 me as gifts since childhood…
my mom is evil 1st of… she doesn’t worry, but wants others to be unhappy and worry,. specialy us (daughters and husband) while she has a ‘good life’ I mean… she is narcisistic guess… and I can never ‘chill’ arround hre cause she always does something 2 me.
A constant flood of warnings - doom-laden worst case scenarios - even for the most mundane of actions “Hey! Careful with your fish-finger little Billy - you might get a fishbone stuck in your windpipe and DIE!!!” is I think an unhelpful practice esp. in a pedogogic situation - because it psychologically primes and conditions the one bombarded with such epithets of admonition to always seek primarily for a source of fear in any given situation, or a method of failure to any activity. Inhibitory and self-reinforcing.
To not warn is to supress a natural need to protect and also a natural instinct to insure the self against blame if the worst should happen.
Say little Johnny does fumble the lightbulb - it implodes and a bit of glass slices his cornea clean in half.
Oh dear.
Now - if I had previously warned him against the (remote) likelyhood of this. I’m off the hook completely. I told him so afterall. Stupid boy. Phew. Not my fault.
But if I hadn’t told him - just trusted him to not fumble it - and the worst happened anyway… Then now I feel guilty, because by not warning him - I, by inaction, allowed him to come to harm. As Mr. Asimov might say.
Constant complusive warners I think have just made up their minds that not only is the worst is likely to happen, but also that the person they warn is almost inevitably going to cause the worst to happen. And so warn constantly, rather than run the risk of having to blame themselves for the errors and ineptitudes of others. But in doing so within the confines of the family, however, they also must acknowledge their acceptance of a personal failure in training their child to fend for itself that this continual practice implies.
It doesn’t hurt to consider the possibles, but focus on the plausibles. Skydiving without a parachute is stupid, but after careful planning and preparation, there is a reasonable and plausible expectation that things will go well.
We need to exercise caution in all things, but wrapping ourselves in cotton balls isn’t a good answer either. There was a fellow I knew that never did anything wrong, never made a mistake, never got into any sort of trauma situation. You know why? He never attempted to do anything.
