Dating Fear
and my feral intuition
I always wanted to write on the walls and dream myself a portal to a reality no one has experienced before.
I wanted to see and feel what it means to be alive because I thought living and dreaming needed each other to breathe.
The dreams we share lead to the living.
Sometimes I fear I dreamt too far. That I don’t know what living is without it.
That I dreamt too long and lost the grip to pull myself back in.
I fear I’ll never hold a reality long enough to ground me back down.
To hold me somewhere I could live.
“What’s your biggest fear?” they ask, as if this is a simple inquiry to get to know a person. As if there is one fear that embodies who you are; that a fear could be the equivalent of a personality test.
And how do you answer?
What could each fear say about you?
If you fear heights, do you have a more careful demeanor? Does fearing sharks mean you have to be in control?
We love to attach to our fears. As if they are an embodiment of our identity and will never leave us.
We treat fear, much like we treat anger, as if it is a blanket around us, outside of us. Fear is not us, yet attach to us like a shadow.
We treat fear and anger not as emotions, but rather as entities that decide to follow us, gripping our hand, pulling us to the ground.
Fear, as is anger, is information. They are both iceberg emotions; they may appear on the surface, causing our chest to tighten, our bodies to freeze. Yet, how they present, is never what they mean.
I think a lot about the fear of being outcast. How in past civilizations, being ex-communicated from society meant certain death. How there are people today known as Dalit or ‘Untouchables,’ and how in some cultures, widows get pushed to the outskirts of society. There is a real fear of being removed from society, from your community, to become that shadow we are trying to outrun.
It’s no wonder we have all have such a fear of speaking up. The fear of telling the truth. The fear of showing up. The fear of being ourselves.
And we all find our own way of feeling in control of our place in society; when I am afraid, I intellectualize.
I don’t feel safe to experience my vulnerability, out of fear of being thrown out of my community, so I offer up facts and information to solidify my place.
My favorite way to avoid vulnerability is when I want to feel intimacy…without actually experiencing intimacy. I easily find an avoidant and emotionally unavailable crush to psychoanalyze and get myself into situationships out of the “curiosity.” I probably know more about how my crushes’ patterning and mind works than they do.
My version of dating is becoming someone’s therapist.
I don’t actually want to be seen. No, that would almost certainly end in me being cast away.
Even my writing has shifted as I deal with this fear of vulnerability.
When I first started a newsletter, I wanted it to be informational.
I researched the history of diet culture, the beginning of romance, the evolution (or lack there of) of education.
I treated writing as a way to prove I deserved a voice.
If I offered up information, I could belong.
With love, community, career, I felt I needed to have qualifications and deep knowledge to be invited in.
The way to move through fear, at least for me, has always been exposure therapy.
I had a deep fear of mushrooms. Like couldn’t look at them too long in a grocery store without my skin crawling type of fear.
Mushrooms were the bane of my existence and I wanted to figure out how to look them in the eye. Luckily, my work offers lunch everyday and every so often one of the options would be a portobello sandwich.
So I decided to try mushrooms once a month to see if I could get over this.
Some months, the thing would look at me wrong and I wouldn’t be able to stomach anything for the rest of the day.
Other times I would make it through half the sandwich. I eventually upgraded to buying mushrooms, and tried cooking it into a soup with more success.
And eventually one day, I started having mushrooms for nearly every meal.
Not going to lie, I think micro dosing also helped, but that’s a different newsletter.
And with mushrooms conquered, I’ve switched gears to focusing on my fear of vulnerability for the month of August.
Aka…rat girl August.
Okay pause….please listen to this:
Onward.
I’ve been lucky enough to cultivate friendships this year where I don’t feel the need to over-intellectualize my experience.
I’ve spent the majority of the year working with my dear friend and somatic practitioner Erin Schemenski on this pattern. She’s taught me how to hold space for moving through my emotions without analyzing and without attaching an identity or factoid to.
Up until recently, I was under the impression that moving through emotions quickly was a skill. I thought grief was something to be conquered and the quicker I could remove myself from a bout of deep sadness, the more I was “enlightened.”
Quick “recovery” turned into cringing at the word “trauma,” and trying to prove to myself and the world that the things I had experienced weren’t that bad.
I was gaslighting my grief.
When you are afraid of yourself, you tend to also be afraid of love.
I remember the year my grandma died was around the same time I started telling everyone I would never get married.
That I was not a girl to bring “home.”
That I was not going to stick around.
I was so repulsed by the idea of being tied down, that I made it my mission to be seen as the aloof one, the one you could crush on, have sex with, and never see again.
I was convinced I was meant to be left.
My grandpa, who helped take care of me, died when I was five; my grandma, when I was 14.
I was too young to attend my grandpa’s funeral and too busy to cry for very long over my grandma. Grief was a luxury I did not accept for myself.
I remember trying to go to a friend about my grandma, only to be told my sadness was too much.
Is this where it started? That fear? Or has the fear always been with me? Is it just who I am?
Fear feels like snowfall to me.
It feels light and harmless. Your sister jumps out at you one night. You feel embarrassed trying to talk on stage in front of your class. You have a bad dream. You get sick from something you eat.
A year after my grandpa died, my best friend moved to Texas.
The year I lost my grandma is also the year I lost my first relationship.
Maybe that was when I tried mushrooms too?
My point is, shit sticks.
Just like snow.
It piles on as you, all seemingly separate experiences, until you are left frozen in your fear.
Experiencing your fear, your emotion, your grief, is the jacket that allows you to move.
You can put on the jacket and warm yourself; or you can let the snow continue to fall, until you are buried in your own experience.
Because the snow will never stop falling. That’s the one truth about this life.
But, you can always put the jacket on, and move.
My fear of vulnerability is telling me I need to further explain that analogy. That my heart is not enough of a qualification to show what fear could be.
But, I am letting this speak to those that are willing to hear it. Maybe you’ll understand it, maybe you won’t.
My healing is releasing the explanation.
And surprisingly, teaching me what it means to be a poet.
I want to take this lesson into my art, into how I create.
The more I open a relationship to my fear, the more I learn about my desire.
So in a way, fear is a personality test.
When you are ready to listen, fear speaks from your heart.
“it’s not a logical fear”
Because it helps you see what your heart wishes it could be.
This month I’ve experienced the most grief I’ve ever allowed myself to.
I’ve grieved everything I’ve witnessed and every self I’ve had to leave.
I’ve put more of my art and self out there in ways I never thought possible and I’m scared shitless every day.
I never thought I would show my art.
I never thought I’d let anyone hear me sing.
I never thought anyone would read something I wrote.
And I’ve done it all.
I went to Australia to face my fear of spiders. I put my voice on social media. I showcased my artwork up in LA. I drove across the country, twice. I’ve hiked alone. I’ve paraglided, climbed things.
I’ve even moved into a place and took time to make it my home. I was terrified. And now, I’m moving into vulnerability. I’m opening myself up to love and I’m going to do it scared.
Because I love my fear. I love my shadow and the way it lights my heart on fire to show me what I truly want.
The more I date fear, the more I date myself.
And that’s what I wish for you.
What would fear be if they were your partner? What do they hope for you? What do they provide?
I can’t wait to see how your heart opens with fear by your side.
xx