When Fear is a Bully

 I’m certain we can all think of ways fear has pushed us in directions that weren’t right for us. Usually, it does this by scaring us.

And when we have a frightened little child inside who learned early on to live with fear, it can make us even more vulnerable to being bullied by it.

Fear can convince us that we aren’t safe, that something bad is going to happen, or that we need to make a decision before we have time to think it through. Before we know it, we’re reacting to fear rather than making choices that are right for us.

But it’s a new day.

We don’t have to let fear run our lives anymore. And the way we begin to take its power away is to face it.

That doesn’t mean being harsh with ourselves or pretending we’re not afraid. We can be kind to the frightened little girl inside us while being firm with the fear that tries to take over.

We can acknowledge that she’s scared, reassure her that she’s not alone, and remind her that we’re adults now. We have choices. We can pause, think things through, and decide how we want to respond.

Fear may still show up, but it doesn’t have to be in charge.

Perhaps it’s time to stop letting the bully make our decisions.

We can meet fear with compassion, courage, and a little firmness. And each time we do, we remind ourselves that we are no longer living by fear’s rules.

Where in your life have you put other people’s needs, opinions, or expectations ahead of your own?

What might change if you gave yourself permission to listen to what you want and trust the choices that feel right for you?

And perhaps most importantly, what would choosing yourself look like today?

Sharing With Safe People

 Learning how to regulate our nervous system is a valuable tool. This can include breath work, meditation, taking a walk in nature, or finding other ways to quiet ourselves.

Equally important is having the opportunity to process our feelings with a safe person. This is called co-regulation. Sometimes, simply being heard, understood, and accepted by someone we trust can help us feel less alone with what we’re carrying.

When I first came into recovery, I had a lot of shame. My therapist was the safest person for me to begin talking about it and loosening the hold it had on me.

Doing shame work was life-changing for that little girl inside me who had learned to hide her shame. As I became more comfortable with my therapist, I began sharing parts of my story that I had never talked about before. Little by little, healing was taking place.

It took time before I felt comfortable sharing in meetings, too. But once again, what a gift it was to find my voice and speak my truth.

My parents had shut down my voice as a child. I learned to keep things to myself, to be careful about what I said, and to hold in feelings that needed to be heard.

Recovery helped me find that voice again.

I began to understand that I didn’t have to hide my story or feel ashamed of my feelings. I could share them with people who were willing to listen without judgment.

There’s something powerful about being able to let down our guard with someone safe. We don’t have to carry everything alone.

Sometimes healing begins with simply allowing ourselves to be heard.

Making My Own Choices

 Too much of my life has been based on what other people wanted, how they felt, or what their needs were.

There is no blame behind my words. I have come to understand that, at a very young age, I learned that in order to survive in my childhood home, I had to put my own needs aside and focus on my parents and theirs.

Over time, that became a pattern throughout my life. I became accustomed to considering what everyone else needed before asking myself what I wanted.

And even though I’ve been in recovery for a long time, it took me years to give myself permission to focus on my own needs and desires.

Today, I’m pretty clear about what those needs are. I also understand that what I want or what feels right for me may not always align with what other people think.

And that’s okay.

I’m learning that making my own choices doesn’t mean I don’t care about others. It means their opinions and expectations don’t automatically take priority over my own needs.

I don’t need everyone to agree with me. I don’t need to explain every decision or feel guilty because someone else might choose differently.

I’ve spent a lot of years learning to listen to others. Now I listen to myself.

Today, I’m choosing me. I’m trusting my decisions and believing that I know what is right for my life.

And that is a freedom I’m no longer willing to give away.

Continuing to Learn About Myself

 This past September, I celebrated 31 years in recovery.

When I first came into recovery, I had this crazy idea that I was going to be done doing the work in six months. Boy, was I wrong!

I’m still learning things about myself, even after all these years.

One thing that stands out to me right now is that I can still be naïve and impulsive, especially when I’m feeling afraid. Teaching that part of me to slow down, pause, and think things through carefully is still a work in progress.

For example, since my partner passed away, I’ve made some quick decisions when it came to getting things fixed around the house. I didn’t always take the time I needed to think things through, and I ended up being taken advantage of.

As I look at this pattern, I am recognizing that when the little girl inside me feels afraid, she wants to find a quick way to make the uncomfortable feeling go away.

I can have compassion for that part of me without letting her make the decisions. I can remind her that we don’t have to rush, that we have time to think, ask questions, and get another opinion. We don’t have to solve everything in the moment just because we’re uncomfortable.

After 31 years, I’m still discovering new things about myself. Maybe that’s what recovery is really about. Not reaching a finish line, but becoming more aware, more understanding, and more willing to keep growing.

And sometimes the most important tool is simply learning to pause.

Experiencing Loss

 One of the things we begin to understand as we become our authentic selves is that we may lose people along the way. Sometimes, those losses can even include members of our own family.

As we grow, change, and begin honoring who we really are, our relationships may change, too. The choices we make may not always be understood or accepted by the people who have known us for years.

And that can be painful.

There may come a time when we have to make a difficult choice: Do I lose myself trying to hold on to someone else, or do I risk losing that relationship in order to remain true to myself?

I don’t think there is any greater pain than losing ourselves.

For many years, we may have learned to keep the peace, make others happy, or set aside our own feelings so that we wouldn’t disappoint someone or risk being rejected. We may have confused keeping a relationship with keeping ourselves safe.

But what does it cost us when we continually silence our own voice, ignore our needs, or pretend to be someone we’re not?

Becoming our authentic selves doesn’t mean we stop caring about others. It doesn’t mean we walk away from every relationship that challenges us. Relationships take patience, understanding, and sometimes compromise.

But there is a difference between compromising and abandoning ourselves.

Sometimes we can work through differences and find a new way of relating. Other times, we may have to accept that a relationship cannot continue in the same way.

There is grief in that. We can love someone and still recognize that we need something different. We can miss people and still know that choosing ourselves was necessary.

Perhaps one of the hardest lessons in growth is accepting that we cannot always take everyone with us.

But we can stay with ourselves.

Waiting to be Rescued

 Did you have fantasies as a child, such as believing that Prince Charming would someday show up and save you in some way?

When we have a difficult childhood, these kinds of fantasies can offer comfort. Perhaps imagining someone coming along to protect us, love us, and make everything better helps soothe some of the pain and fear we carry.

But what happens when we take that fantasy into adulthood?

I hopped from one love relationship to another, looking for that person. I wanted someone who would make me feel safe, loved, and protected. Somewhere inside, I was still waiting for someone to come along and give me what I had been missing.

It took many years and many experiences to reach a different understanding.

I began to realize that the person I had been waiting for was, in many ways, myself.

The hero in my story, as it turned out, was the woman I was becoming.

There came a time when I stopped looking outside myself for someone to make everything better and began looking inward. I started discovering the parts of me that needed attention, understanding, and love.

That didn’t mean I no longer wanted love or companionship. It meant I was beginning to understand that I could feel whole while still wanting someone to share my life with.

I could learn to stand beside myself. I could become the person who offered that frightened little girl the safety and reassurance she had been searching for.

Perhaps the greatest turning point was realizing that I didn’t have to keep waiting for someone else to make everything better. I was learning to offer myself the love and care I had been looking for all along.

Buried Dreams and Desires

 Do you remember how you felt as a child when you thought about the future? Did you have big dreams? And if you did, have you worked toward fulfilling them?

The first dream I can remember having was in my late teenage years. I thought I would like to join the Peace Corps. At the time, I didn’t really understand why that idea appealed to me. I didn’t yet recognize that I had a deep desire to help others or know how that desire would eventually find its way into my life.

Recovery helped me discover that part of myself.

Early in recovery, I found that I loved sponsoring others, even though I didn’t have much confidence in what I was doing at the time. I simply knew that helping someone else find their way in recovery meant something to me.

Since then, to my surprise and delight, I have found many different ways to pay it forward. Through sponsorship, teaching inner-child work, supporting women, and sharing what I have learned along the way, I discovered that helping others was not just an idea I had as a teenager. It was a desire that had been waiting for the opportunity to grow.

Looking back, I wonder how many of our dreams and desires get buried along the way. Sometimes life takes us in directions we never expected. We may set aside the things that once excited us, or we may not yet have the confidence or understanding to pursue them.

But perhaps a dream doesn’t always have to happen in the way we originally imagined.

Sometimes it finds another way to come alive.

Meeting More Parts of Ourselves

 Just when I think I know myself well, I catch a deeper glimpse of the little girl who still lives within me.

She is the part of me who was punished as a child and somehow came to believe she deserved it. That was never the truth, but it became part of her story.

This morning, I spent a little time talking with her. I wanted her to know something she may have needed to hear all along.

She did not deserve to be punished. She was a child who needed love, safety, and understanding.

I told her that I will love and care for her forever. She doesn’t have to earn my love, prove herself, or live in fear of doing something wrong. There will be no punishment from me.

I wonder how many parts of ourselves are still carrying old beliefs, even after years of healing. We may understand something intellectually, yet a younger part of us may still be living as though the past is happening now.

Perhaps meeting these parts of ourselves means slowing down enough to hear their stories—and gently helping them discover that things are different today.

I am not that helpless little girl anymore. I am the woman who can stand beside her, protect her, comfort her, and remind her that she is loved.

And perhaps, as she begins to trust that, something inside me can finally loosen its grip.

It’s time to let go of the old pain.

Not by forcing it away, but by giving that little girl what she needed all along: love, reassurance, and the freedom to know that she is safe with me.

When Life Unravels

 I came across one of my old blog entries this morning, and it was timely. I needed to hear my own words.

The quote began:

“There comes a time when things start to unravel. It’s called GRACE. This kind of grace can be illness, loss, despair… Sometimes the only way we are willing to change is to first be humbled by our experience. When grace is fierce, it smashes through our denial.”

I sat with those words for a while.

I usually think of grace as something gentle, but perhaps grace sometimes arrives in ways we would never choose. Life brings us to our knees, our usual ways of coping stop working, and we find ourselves facing things we cannot control.

My physical challenges have brought me to one of those places. I am learning new tools, practicing compassion, and trying to meet pain and uncertainty differently. Some days, it is harder than others.

I have spent many years in recovery, yet I am still learning. Perhaps that is how growth happens. We learn something, and then life gives us another opportunity to practice it more deeply.

I don’t believe we have to suffer to grow, or that every painful experience has a purpose. But I do believe that something meaningful can emerge from difficult seasons.

This morning, finding my own words felt like a message from an earlier version of myself to the woman I am today.

Perhaps the unraveling isn’t the end of the story.

Perhaps it is an invitation to let go of what we can no longer control, meet ourselves with compassion, and remain open to what comes next.

And maybe grace is not asking us to understand everything.

Maybe it is simply asking us to surrender it all.