Spirit of Fear

2 Timothy 1:7  King James Version (KJV)

7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.


I was not born afraid...all though the experience of birth, being expelled from a warm dark environment and rudely shoved out into cold bright lights, by my imagination, was not a fun trip.  I have pictures of me as a little girl happy and wearing my cousins ballerina outfit.  I loved the clothes and the dancing but there was no way they were getting me on a stage.  Yup, I quit ballet lessons just before the performance, because I was afraid.  My life decisions were repeatedly made in fear.  I watched my fearless granddaughter toddling across the soccer field and took stock of the scabs on her face where gravity pulled her down face first on the ground.  Life hands out hard knocks left and right.  Gravity is uncompromising knocking down even the strongest that try to defy its pull.  However, I wasn't born understanding gravity or fear.  The counsel given to me by my doctor was to let my children take the small falls since it is easier to learn about gravity falling off the couch instead of off a cliff.  But I was unsure how to create a feeling of respect of gravity without generating fear of the world.  I didn't know how to teach what I didn't know.  I was taught by fear: fear of being spanked, fear of rocks being thrown at me, fear of being startled so I fell down the stairs, I feared these things because all of them had happened.  I was ridiculed for me fear by the same people that generated my ever increasing feelings of fear.  To cope with demands that I be a happy little girl and living in terror of the bad things happening in my life, I subdivided my emotions.  I isolated the fear into one personality.  Another personality made it possible for me to face ANYTHING fearlessly or any other emotion.  Splitting was how I coped with the terrors of my life, a daring escape from my reality, that gave me an alternative perspective.  I functioned this way for over 45 years.  KavinCoach recognized in me, the little girl that was afraid to get on stage.  He coached, encouraged, and taught me that I could get on the stage of life and even if I felt fear, I could still do whatever I wanted to do.  He encouraged me to let go of the fear that I naively believed protected me and persuaded me to grasp the power that rightfully belongs to every person born.  I recognize that I am still afraid of the power that is rightfully mine.  I am afraid of what I am capable of doing.  I am afraid to succeed.  So many fears, so little time, if I hold very still nothing bad will happen but if you sit still on a railroad track you eventually get run over.  Part of depression is hiding in a deep dark hole where no one could reach me to hurt me.  If I ventured out, terrible things happened.  Ironically, depression was my safe place.  I am just not very happy there.  Bringing all my emotions to one personality was difficult, scary and painful.  Emotions waited for years to be felt and processed.  I doggedly kept going to counseling, my twisted sense of humor called the counseling office 'the torture chamber.' I knew full well that my counselor was not the source of my pain.  He was the doctor that had the healthy perspective of knowing he couldn't build healthy habits on a crumbling foundation.  He explained to me repeatedly the process I was going through was tearing out my entire foundation of fearful thoughts and reestablish a new foundation built on power, love and a sound mind.  The work continues for me.  I believe it will be an ongoing process as I stumble upon hidden pockets of negative emotions be it fear, mistrust, self-doubt, or any other of the myriad of destructive reasoning.  I feel like some days, depression is just easier, I'm used to it.  Then I look around at the world all foggy and gray, I remember that I was not born to hide from fear in depression... I was born to defeat fear with power, love and a sound mind. I get back up, brush away the cobwebs of depression that clog my mind and move forward once again.  Today, I am brushing off a few cobwebs.