Fear: Fear Itself (12/12)

December 12th

Fear: What were you afraid of in 2011? How did you let fear control you? What will you to do confront it in 2012?

I was once afraid of seaweed. I grew up, for the most part, in Southern California. Boogie boarding and taking to the ocean were the highlights of much of my upbringing. Years earlier, however, when I visited Hawaii for the first time (25 years ago) I was pulled down by the undertow. 

A mixture of sand and water forced its way up my nose and into my throat, and while my eyes were peeled open, I couldn't see very well. Everything looked foggy and hazy like looking through a blurred and water-filled hourglass, the sand just slowly passing through. It would be at least half a year until I'd find out (as a second grader) that I would need glasses. 

I felt my body slam against the bottom of the ocean, which may have only been three feet down, and the force of the water sent me ashore. It felt like hours, but possibly wasn't longer than thirty seconds, and I remember it as if it were yesterday.

It was one of the most frightening moments of my young life; to be sucked beneath the surface, unable to see, hear, or breathe, until I appeared once again.

A theme for me this year has been to trust my instincts and let go of the fear. Instinct, I believe, is about seeing something and knowing it's there. Faith, on the other hand, is about believing in what you see, without knowing it's there. Somehow, Heaven-sent, I've been able to slowly grasp my instinct, and faith when allowed. 

The thing I feared most in 2011 was, in fact, fear itself. 

I pray that I'd be able to stare down the fear and be able to make the necessary decisions for advancement and contentment and pure joy in life from the perspective of faith and the instinctual good of the moment. 

To read more about the end of the year journey, visit Resonating Reflections of 2011 by clicking here.

The Best Way to Heal is to Help

When I first set out to write this blog it started because of a wound that was very deep, but very few people could see it. No matter how hard I tried to cover it up, the temporary bandages didn’t seem to be working.

There are bruises we can see, and there are bruises we can’t. It’s the latter that are the most common and the least talked about. 

When I set out to get the frump out of my rump, I didn’t realize that it came with the shedding of the source of my “frumpage.” 

The truth of the matter is that I didn’t realize I was being hurt until I wasn’t being hurt anymore.

It’s been a struggle, almost daily, these past several months trying to figure out if there’s a story to tell. If I was alone, and if I wasn’t, could others need to be helped. If they needed to be helped, how can I do that? 

It’s clear, as I write this, that the pain still exists. Some of the wounds have healed, but it’s an ongoing process. 

I heal when I can fit into that little black dress and am confident to wear it.

I heal when I am not afraid, or bothered by the possibility of enjoying tea alone.

There are other moments I heal. 

But, the biggest is finding ways to help. Would you be willing to help me help others? 

We Need Not Take Everything So Seriously (Part 1)

Maybe, if I just keep chasing them around in circles they’ll want to be my friend.

At least, that’s what I thought. 

I was in the third grade and I was new to my hometown and my school. I didn’t know anyone. Friends didn’t come by me easily because I didn’t talk to anyone. I was too shy and too afraid of what they would think if I did speak. 

When I moved to Southern California it was between my second and third grade year. I honestly didn’t believe that my friends, or the people I believed were my friends, didn’t live near me anymore. 

“Mommy, when are they going to take their masks off?” I asked my Mom about a year after the move. I was referring to my new friends who weren’t anything like the friends I had left behind, but I was certain they’d show their faces soon. Oh, the amazing imagination of a child! 

Then, I started to meet people. Popular people. Pretty people. Mostly, they reminded me of my old friends.

This is probably when the me that I am now first started to emerge. I remember going to some Scholastic book sale in the library and a girl didn’t have any money. I did. So, I let her go around the store and buy whatever she wanted. At the end of the little book outing, I spent $80.00 of my allowance money. I never got it paid back. 

That was my first lesson in realizing that your friends can’t be bought. I didn’t feel the joy in giving then. I felt let down. 

That same year, I remember trying to be friends with a girl that I thought was a lot like me. She was studious, and quiet, and seemed reserved, but friendly. I couldn’t figure her out, though. 

I called a family friend on the phone, who used to be my babysitter. She would call me, “Little Annie Petersen.” And, still calls me that to this day (makes being a 30-something feel like being a 3-year-old-something sometimes, but a fantastic thing none-the-less). 

“Listen, Annie,” she said. “You need not take everything so seriously.” 

To be continued... 

Being "Open" Can Change Your Life

Written around 7:00 p.m., January 16, Local time over the Pacific Ocean. Posted upon return.

This is relief.

Clearly stated, it is my opinion that anyone who says you can't "Eat, Pray, Love" the way Elizabeth Gilbert does is wrong. I just did it and didn't have to take six months off or quit my job. I just wanted it to come to me. You know, the grand feelings of nothingness like relief, solitude, and simple quiet celebrations. I experienced it all.

"Annie, you are free," said a former colleague, who now must be a friend, in the hours after my life changed. Her statement almost immediately allowed me to see that I should celebrate it.

Sidebar: Isn't it funny how one person can say something so simple and we just grasp on to it like a commandment? The smallest thing can make all the difference, I mean one word, one person can change your entire perspective. Ultimately, just by being open, it then changes your life.

Freedom followed me to Hawaii where I just came back from vacation.

The first night I was mistakenly recognized by ten members of the Air Force as a celebrity. Ashley Greene from "Twilight" and Jennifer Grey. I'm so glad they didn't ask me to perform any dirty dancing.

To Michael in Miami, thank you for telling me to relax... I certainly did.

The next day, my friend (who met me in Hawaii from Chicago) and I drove to the North Shore and we ate Mexican food. We escaped the rain and found a private beach where we sat and ran and laughed and took pictures. Later, at The Hula Grill, I ordered a Mai Tai (my first one in almost 8 years) and a seafood platter. That is my "Eat."

That night we went back the hotel bar, where I was the celebrity the night before. It was called The Shore Bird. Immediately I spotted a Man in Maroon sitting across from me. The connection was instant. After a drink or two, conversation, and a walk on the beach the following night it was over.

My friend back in California said, "No pressure, just have fun." I did, but the Man in Maroon represents the "love." Maybe I just had to travel that far for a confidence boost.

The morning after meeting the Man in Maroon we went to Pearl Harbor. There isn't a better place to signify "pray." Standing over the Arizona, I saw the "oil tears" rise up immediately after I prayed, and then I nearly cried.

I never once heard the word or uttered the word frump on this vacation. Getting the Frump Out of Your Rump is a process, a journey, and as much as we want to believe it is possible, it does not happen overnight.

I wish it would, but we are all a work in progress. We're all in or have been in situations we know aren't right but deep down hope that they are. We've all been tugged and pulled at every angle and left to figure out how to keep moving.

I'm still Floating on The Wings of Earthly Angels. Yet, I'm sustained by a journey in which I realized it's ok to be perfectly me, and find out that I'm just as attractive as I had hoped to be.

At the end though, this is not just about me. It is about all of you, too, and if I could have packed you all in a suitcase for the opportunity to just feel free, I would have.

In short, here are the lessons of the island:

• Smile. Everyone will smile back to you. 
• Laugh, because it matches the synchronous sounds of the crashing ocean waves.
• Embrace, because someone who just wants a human connection will embrace you back. 
• Be open. You cannot feel the healing until you recognize the freedom. When you do, let freedom ring. Buy a piece of jewelry, fitted with the plumeria, to remember your self-discovery. I did, and it will stay with me until I have a daughter or a granddaughter one day who needs that reminder as much as I do now.
• Be you. Being open and being you work together. You simply can't be open if you're faking any part of you.
• Love, because it offers the most rewards. 
• Forgive, because there is no passage to any of the above without it.

I forgive myself for believing for so long that I wasn't good enough, beautiful enough, or smart enough to have, or be, what I needed.

It may just be wishful thinking, but I never saw my worry wrinkle...

Join the conversation. Feel free to leave comments below, or  send me an email direct. 

So, this is Christmas. Everything’s OK.

I’m sniffling, not because I’m crying, but because I have a cold. At least, that’s my answer at this moment. Ask me again later and the answer might change. (A short time ago, someone texted me something very simple, and I was fighting back tears).

The Reverb 10 project provides opportunities to reflect on parts of 2010 and manifest destiny for 2011, and some of the writing prompts they choose resonate like the echo of a harp played down the hall and around the corner. That would be the reverberations.

Everything’s OK. You know, I think if a person says that enough they come to believe it. Two weeks ago I sat at the computer I’m at now explaining I didn’t want to worry in 2011. I believed that if I could shed it from my life, the “best of my life could begin.” Honestly, I just didn’t know how that manifestation would occur. But, that worry, the worry that I so desperately didn’t want to be experiencing anymore (I swear, I was living right smack in the middle of worry that I didn’t even recognize it) is gone.   

Have you ever noticed that if you have had a rough go, illness, relationship breakups, or other crisis, people tend to inform you that everything will, in fact, be OK? [Thank you, each of you.]

“This too shall pass.”

“Time heals all wounds.”
“Everything happens for a reason.”

Yes, you’re right.

I’m sure that it does.

That seems to be the case.

Looking ahead at 2011, the recognition is that as tough as something seems to be while you are in it, or coming out of it, or going through it, or whatever, it does get better.

There are two lessons I move forward with.

One comes from several years ago from my Mom. I had just earned my driver’s license and with energy was on my way to pick her up from work. Just past the cul-de-sac I hit a fire hydrant and a geyser of water went into the air. I decided to make it much more dramatic than it was and climbed out of the sunroof, rolled down an embankment, and called her on a brick-sized cell phone.

“Mom? I ran over a fire hydrant.”

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?”

Mom’s point was I hadn’t hurt anyone, I wasn’t hurt, and the most I had done was flooded the street. Lesson learned.

Another lesson dates back years ago and carries with me straight to this night. As a child I would watch “A Sesame Street Christmas” with my Dad (aka, "Christmas Eve on Sesame Street"). The song that plays during it rings true and my Dad so often reminds me that it is to, “Keep Christmas with you, all through the year….”

If I do, Everything’s OK.

Floating On the Wings of Earthly Angels

The healing is just beginning. 

In these final weeks of 2010, the healing is just beginning. It started with writing this blog. Everyone needs an outlet of some kind to identify why they are hurting and need healing in the first place. 

Putting pen to paper, or fingertips to keys on a keyboard, is one way a person can get close with their thoughts. Joan Didion once said, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” 

Perhaps, healing comes in a two step process when one is writing. First, the thoughts enter your mind. Then, there’s an adjustment between resting on a sturdy foundation and falling into a deep pool of uncertainty. At that point, if you’re writing, the words start to flow. Then, you start to make sense of it. l guess it was more than two steps, wasn’t it? 

This process, this blog is a way to heal, for me. It is my sincerest hope that if you’re reading this, and you wonder how to begin the healing process that maybe you find a nugget of hope, or process, or passages to sustain you. After all, the characteristics that make us all human come in the form of faith, hope and love and are sometimes masked as doubt, worry, or regret. 

Floating on the wings of earthly angels. I’ve said this statement a few times this week and at first it sounded quite holy and mighty. Then, I realized it just happened to be the truth. 

Sometimes, things change in our lives in a way that we don’t understand, or we have trouble accepting why things have changed, or just can’t get beyond being stuck in a moment. 

The healing process for me got a kick start because of others in my life. The recognition that people like you for you and for no other reason is one of the most comforting feelings in the world. People just sometimes show up. You have no idea who they will be or why it is them, but when they do, embrace them with open arms. I have to. 

I’m trying to like myself more. It’s really easy to give up on yourself when you’re so busy running errands, going to work, cooking meals, dealing with the kids, the cat, the dog.... You get the idea. You become exhausted. Remember when I talked about napping? We can’t do anything for anyone else if we don’t do something for ourselves. In 2011, I’m going to like myself more. 

You know, giving is not about the anticipation of anything in return, it’s about the genuine human character of the giver. People who give do so because they want to and because they can. 

And that, realizing that in order to really give, one must heal (which may involve forgiving oneself), accept love, and try to like themselves more and allow themselves time to do all those things, is the lesson learned in 2010. 

Oh, and to smile more. Maybe someone will smile back. 

Get Your Own Blog Prompts at www.reverb10.com

"Change, Big Or Small, Is a Real Challenge"

“... I will be in the hospital Easter, but remember I love you. God bless you, dear one.” 

My Grandma, always putting others first, in the Spring of 2006. She wrote the words in a Easter card, the last legible writing I ever received from her.

“I love you more.” 

My Grandma would say that to me each time she ended a phone call with me. I can hear her saying it to me, it’s the whisper of the faintest distance in the dead of night. In my heart I say, “I love you.”

I can feel her say, “I love you more.”

Since my last post about not wanting worry wrinkles, a part of my life changed. A significant part is no longer and now that is part of my journey.

I believe you don’t necessarily have to be a religious person to experience God’s grace. In a year, for me, that’s been full of changes, both good, and bad, and somewhere in between, grace defines me. 

She, my Grandma, taught me to affect my circumstances, and not to be affected by them. 

Tears, they may stream like a slow, but steady drizzle from a faucet, onto my face, down the curve of my lips, and into my mouth, but they are happy tears. The salty sensation, the cool wet kiss of my own emotions on my cheek, remind me again of the resilience, the promise, and gradual, if not certain, passage to happiness. 

My Grandma suffered a stroke in June 2006. I never experienced her the same after that. In my memory, she is this strong-willed person who said, “Don’t give up on me just yet.” 

She died a few months later. It was grief, and to this day, is grief of the deepest magnitude I have experienced.There is a hero for every person and in every family for different reasons and at different times. My hero is, and has been, my Grandma.

In the days, if not minutes, before she passed away, I wrote some words down that resonate quite deeply with me now: 

I’m going through the motions of going to work and doing my job and feeling like I’m a spectator of my own life. Certain things happen in slow motion because my mind is so preoccupied on what’s happening outside of the present moment that I forget to notice it. People talk to me and I miss what they say and sometimes don’t remember hearing them at all.  I’m told this is normal and that it will come and it will go. Then, for an instant, something triggers and I’m fighting tears, but just for a moment, until I return to my vacant mind of going through the motions.

Grandma wouldn’t want me to just go through the motions. 

It does not matter what loss one is experiencing, because loss is the one unifying factor of life. Maybe not loss, but the fear of failure realized, or the fear of loss realized, the fear, the very worry, and the edge of doubt you sat on top of, when it slips out, and it’s realized; we’ve all been there. Also, let me be the umpteenth person to say that sometimes loss is a blessing in disguise, we just don't know it yet.

It is the one thing everyone goes through and yet that does not make it any easier because of the circumstances and the people involved. It is really only being experienced in one unique way for each person grieving.

It hurts, because very few people understand, even though everyone can relate. 

I pray, one day, my children, whenever I do have them, I can share her eternal faith with them, so that they, too, might find a foundation and a hope for a future. 

Resilience, remember, is about accepting our circumstances even if they are different, or disappointing, or not what we thought they would be. We can do nothing, as Elizabeth Edwards said, but scream about what we have lost, or accept it, and try to put together something that’s good. 

Scratch that.

Great. 

Appreciate. Prompts at http://www.reverb10.com/

This year, I appreciate my friends, the many of them who showed up on the doorstep of my heart when I least expected it.

I love you more.

I appreciate the memory of my Grandma, and the lasting wisdom she instilled in me. Certainly, I appreciate the faith, and the gentle tugging of my heart, when she would rub the small of my back when I wasn’t feeling well, and gently squeeze me in a life-affirming embrace.

I Don't Want Worry Wrinkles

I also don't want to be a frump.

I’ve filled my face with worry wrinkles.

That’s what I call them. There’s this crease in the middle of my forehead above my left eyebrow, and I swear it was not as deep and as defined earlier this year as it is now. I can tell you exactly when it developed, and it probably will never go away.

I’d rather be noticed for my smile lines, my bursting red cheeks, and my sometimes apple-colored skin. I say that even though I find it, too, embarrassing sometimes.

The Reverb 10 project put out the word today as “Things.” What 11 things do I not need in my life in 2011? Certainly, I don’t need worry.

Worry never got anyone anywhere and fear and doubt don’t help either.

“Doom!” My boyfriend says to me when anything could potentially go wrong. For example, I have a paper due for a graduate class but I may not have time to finish. I’ll tell him my concerns, and he says the word “doom.” He says it with this deep, long, “ooom” sound that kind of makes me laugh and quiver at the same time. I love that.

I don’t want the doom. Yet, I have to understand that sometimes, I just can’t do anything about it.

Another example is having an unpredictable expense and putting it on a credit card. Instead of whining about it, I have to make the money I do have last longer. Or, I ask him kindly to donate generously to the Get the Frump Out of My Rump fund, and he pitches in, willingly.

What happens to you when you worry? When you are afraid?

I sometimes call it the “haunted house of my head.” It’s where all the negative ideas and thoughts are. There’s a difference between a gut instinct and rattled nerves. I believe that fear and worry manifest with a heart beat, and flushed skin, and sometimes the nibbling of fingernails. It manifests in the same way when I’m watching a movie that I know is not real, which is how I know it’s irrational.

Fear of failure. Fear of losing. It is the disenchanted wonderment that comes in asking, “Why?”

Doubt, fear, worry, they’re ugly. They are unattractive. Yet, the fact that we, as humans, have these feelings is real. Most of us, unless we are serial pessimists, don’t go through life looking for evidence to support our doubts, our fears, and our worries. Instead, if you’re like me, we choose to believe. We choose to trust and open our hearts to the positive parts of life. I recognize that life does not come without some sort of angst every once in a while, I just don’t like it.

A life that is worth living, and a love that’s worth loving, is what these experiences are all about. If we are lucky, we learn something along the way. Every morning that I wake up, I choose life. In that choice, I also choose to love the people I love, and who I know love me: Mom, Dad, Nathan, and so many good friends.

Resilience, I wrote the other day, is about the staying up and not in the falling down.

So, in answer to this challenge, as difficult as it is, I need not worry in 2011. I choose faith. I choose to celebrate in the joy while I am in it, and not wait for it. The minute worry ends, the best of my life can begin.

p.s. The 10 other things I could do without in 2011 are: doubt, fear, anxiety, confusion, debt, loss, weight gain, illness, car problems, and somehow not graduate.
How I'll work to prevent them? Believe, trust, relax, ask questions, save more, love wholeheartedly, eat and work out well, take my vitamins, take my car to the shop, and do the work and graduate.

UPDATED: DECEMBER 20, 2010