“I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.” Yann Martel -- Life of Pi

As the school year comes to a close, I am reading essays and reflections my students have written over various books they have chosen to read recently. Several students had read Life of Pi by Yann Martel. One of my students chose this quote as the starting point for his reflection. I had forgotten about it, but I remember when I first read the novel, this passge really struck me.

My therapist always seemed to come back to the basic concept of fear as the root of pretty much every issue and symptom I dealt with: insecurity, lack of confidence, depression, negative self-talk, suicidality, difficulties with communication, social isolation, stagnation, anxiety, dissociation . . . I could go on and on. He always came back to the question, "What is my fear here?" I hated that question because, ironically, I was afraid of it. To explore those dark corners in my mind took more courage than I felt like I could muster. I wanted to run from the darkness, not plunge into it.

But my therapist took my hand (both literally and mostly figuratively) and walked with me into those dark corners to confront my fears -- my greatest opponents -- so that I could reach a place where those dark places weren't so scary anymore.

For me, I think my therapist was right. At the root of everything were my fears, and by confronting my fears, I was able to defeat the old ones and learn how to step up courageously and look the new ones in the face more immediately so fear doesn't have that same power to defeat me as it once did.

So thank you, Cooper, for that little reminder. My students are great teachers of the art of living. They always keep things fresh and keep my eyes wide open.

[nervous puppy]

So very true.

Fear can help you also. It's a survival tool. Withiut dear how would we know whether something is unsafe?

My T uses fear to try to manipulate people to "do as he says". He is a ruthless sociopath and is my Greatest Opponent. He continues to try to manipulate me and uses other people in my life to obtain HIS GOAL. Not to help me but to HURT ME. He convinces people with his psychobabble. It's sad really because he is not fooling me, he is only fooling himself!

Mssofty, I hope you will find help getting past your rage. Not really what I was discussing though.

Originally Posted by _Mouse

Fear can help you also. It's a survival tool. Withiut dear how would we know whether something is unsafe?

True, if something is going on that is truly unsafe. But the problem is that I (and I'm guessing many others) automatically go into that fight or flight mode when it really isn't warranted most of the time now purely out of habit of action that we developed under truly dangerous situations that have left us in that state almost permanently because we were traumatized. At some point we have to realize that most of the time what we are so afraid of isn't still happening to us and we have other means of reacting/responding. Personally that is where PTSD had left me -- hypervigilant and reactive -- and I had to get to a place where those reactions were no longer running the show.

This is also about living in a state of fear, not just about immediate fear response. Living paralyzed by our fears is not a survival tool; on the contrary, it deprives us of life.

Thank you for sharing.

"To explore those dark corners in my mind took more courage than I felt like I could muster. I wanted to run from the darkness, not plunge into it."

I am glad your t was able to walk with you into that darkness so you could confront it. My t did the same with me. Any time I tried to back away from it because let's face it, working so deeply like that is hard, she would remind me that "Not everyone can do this deep work, Art" and that she was walking beside me through it. And that made me feel a little bit stronger (that she thought I could do it) and safe enough to continue. I enjoy reading what you share about your own work. Thank you for doing so.