((( Typo )))

For me, understanding that this "guard dog" thinking is there to do just that, protect you, but isn't YOU, has been the most important realization. You can recognize those feelings, and imo, understanding "the worst that can happen" and coming to terms with how you would feel/deal with it, if it did, can actually be helpful, because then you can accept that "biggest fear", allow yourself to play it through, and then try to let it go. Many times, it's deconstructing the "biggest fear" that makes things a little easier for me. The worst possible outcome usually isn't as terrible as it is before we give it form in our mind. When it's just blanket fear with no definition, imo, it's much worse.

I understand not wanting to be let down, disappointed, or hurt, because it IS hard to trust people. Just like it's hard to trust a wild animal. BUT... what I've come to I understand is that people do not mean to be so broken. Even the "worst of the worst", the most "villainous" human beings on this planet, are just shattered, scared, confused, and in many cases, so much worse off than we are.

That being said, anxiety sucks. I don't honestly know how to make it stop when I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack over something that rationally seems so trivial.

So what if the girl who came to visit me yesterday was bored? So what if she never wants to hang out again? Am I going to be alright? Of course I am. Is my family going to suffer in any way? No. Is the world going to end? Of course it isn't. And what if it does? What if the whole friggin world ends because of it? Well... then the world ends? Oh well. I KNOW this, but how do I tell my nervous system that??

I think you're doing darn good job Typo. Life is all about building walls and breaking them down. Fight vs. Flight. At the end of the day, we are still animals who have to deal with the depth of our emotions and intelligence ON TOP of our biological and instinctual experience. The reason that Momma bear knows to keep her babies safe from predators is because she has those necessary instincts. Her vigilance and anxiety is what keeps her species ALIVE. And in many cases, so does our own.

But she also has the ability to trust, just the same as we have the ability to trust other people. After they have EARNED that trust. It takes time. It's ok if our first reaction is defense. It's how we move past that tightness in our chest, that shortness of breathe, and that desire to growl that makes us who we are.

There is a new song that my husband has been playing non-stop lately that has this one line in it that I just love :

"This world is hopeless, but I love it anyway. That's why their giving out the good love for free."
- Mellow Mood by. Slightly Stoopid