Embracing the Fear

For many, worry stems from a long-buried pain. One way to stop the worry is to feel the pain wholly . It can be a difficult journey, but the power of embracing that pain, of bringing it into the light of awareness, can work absolute wonders in changing a worriers self-control.

In one sense, the notion of coming to grips with your hidden fear is simple. The idea is that regardless of the thing thats making you worried, underneath the surface is an unresolved fear. By isolating that fear, examining it a bit, acknowledging that it is a part of you, you will be more in control of your worry.

The real challenge, however, is in allowing yourself to experience it. Recall that Hartley was clear that there were two aspects to his situation: the tangible business problems, and the emotions that accompanied them. Hartley wanted to deal with the emotional aspects. He astutely resisted the temptation to blame the outside world for his problem. He knew that his business problems could be resolved, but he wasnt so sure about the vulnerability inside himself. He knew that others in exactly the same circumstances might not be so worried. He owned his own worry.

In our third session together I asked Hartley what he was afraid of. ˜˜Im afraid I wont be able to make payroll, he said. ˜˜Okay, I replied, ˜˜and what would happen then? ˜˜Well, people would be mad at me and I would feel just terrible. ˜˜What would be terrible?

Hartley winced and tightened his shoulders. ˜˜They would be mad. I could go bankrupt.

˜˜And what would happen then? ˜˜Well, I would disappoint my wife and my kids and my employees . It would be horrible.

I had to nudge him along. ˜˜Tell me more. ˜˜I would feel worthless! It would hurt. Now he was getting to the nub of it. He was locating the fear. ˜˜My world would be falling apart, he said. ˜˜I would feel so empty. So alone.

Hartley began to cry. He was a little embarrassed about crying in front of me, which was too bad, because a good cry was exactly what he needed.

I asked him what that hurt reminded him of. He paused for a minute or so, but that was okay because it was a big moment. He said he remembered being in his early teens sitting in the living room of his family home with his parents. His mother was sitting in a chair, upset, and Hartley was sitting at her feet feeling terrible. His father sat in another chair with his head in his hands.

˜˜Why did you feel so hurt in that situation? I asked. ˜˜Because my world was falling apart. My mother was declaring that she was going to leave, and my father was helpless to step in and say what had to be said.

˜˜What happened next ? Hartley began to cry again. This time he could not hold it in. He explained, ˜˜I begged her not to leave. I had to beg her. And she got up and left anyway. She left. My world was falling apart. I tried to keep it together. I hated that moment. I still hate that moment! I cried so hard. My mommy was leaving me!

I let him have another good cry. It gave him relief. When things calmed down, he was able to connect the dots between his current worry over business matters and the fear that he felt when his mother left him. For him, there was a direct link. As a young teen in his living room that day, he felt his world was falling apart; as a mature adult, he was carrying with him the constant fear that his world was going to fall apart.

That single occurrence was not the sole cause of Hartleys worry. As our relationship went on, I learned that he had been exposed at a young age to multiple fear provocations. He interpreted each of them as reminders that things can easily come unglued.

This is indeed how things work sometimes. When a person experiences hurt, the nervous system builds a defense to avoid a recurrence of the hurt. Needless to say, this programming in the brain has served the species well. By learning to avoid things that cause us problems, we increase our chances of survival.

Hartleys system was doing what it was automatically programmed to do: defending him against that hurt. As an adult, when he saw situations that could devolve into his world falling apart, a healthy fear stepped in. It was trying to warn him to avoid this problem at all costs. The regrettable part is that though the mechanism is healthy insofar as it is doing its job, it is also mistaken. It is a little hypersensitive. The fear pattern was understandable, given the pain that he was seeking to avoid. But it was not really serving him well.

By increasing his awareness of the direct link between his childhood and his worry, Hartley was able to gain some control of his problem. When worry struck, he would know why it was happening. The next thing to understand was how to manage it, using his knowledge of his basic fear, so it would not be so controlling. He had to ˜˜own his fear.

In a later session Hartley once again reconnected with the insecurity of his life circumstances. He got as close to the genuine feeling of fear as he could get. It was an authentic moment. He was raw. He trusted me. His eyes were wet. He sat looking at me quietly .

˜˜Hartley, this fear, this emptiness, is part of who you are, I said. ˜˜It is not something to be disposed of. It is something to be welcomed into your family of personality parts . It is a part of you and it would be good to embrace that part. The effort to put that part somewhere else, to maybe even get rid of it, is only making it cry more loudly to be heard . You must instead nurture this part of you. Put your arm around this hurt, fearful little boy and assure him you will handle lifes challenges and that its not his job.

It helped Hartley see his worry as a distinct part of his personality. When he was hurt as a boy, some part of his personality was hived away from the core personality and left on its own as a little boy. He didnt mature along with the other parts of Hartley. He became a closet-ridden, fearful part of his being. He would speak up whenever Hartley was in trouble, ever so innocently doing his job. He was always craving to be heard. Frankly, he still wanted his mommy to give him unconditional love.

Of course, this description is a model of what is really going on. There is no little boy inside Hartley in any physical sense. But Hartleys recognition of the little boy as separate from his grown sense of self became the key to solving his chronic worrying. It helped him separate the worry from who he is. Whenever Hartley became worried, he ˜˜became the worry. It engulfed him. Now he was benefiting from realizing that he may have worry, but he was not the worry itself.

Hartley needed a tool that replicated the experience of being told by an outside source what was going on in his head. I asked him to write himself a note that he could access easily in the future. This is what he typed and carried around with him on a handheld computer for easy reference:

There it is; I am feeling it now. I must embrace, own this fear. I have a part of me that thinks his world is falling apart when certain signals are perceived. I must feel that little boys feelings. I must see the link be tween his fear that his mother is leaving him, that he feels his world is falling apart, that he feels empty and unlovedand the present feeling of fear. By drawing that link, by feeling it, and then by saying, ˜˜I have these feelings, they are part of who I am, they directly link to my angst, toothen the angst will wane.

Hartley reported that reading this when he was fretful had an immediate, alleviating effect. When he combined this with some of the practical tools outlined in the previous section, he considered he had accomplished the mission of coming to terms with his worry.