Walking Beside fear

Learning to welcome fear without letting it tell the whole story

I have just got a delivery of books from Ireland. It has come at the perfect time, a particular book was enclosed I've been waiting for, by a favourite author who I have read and read again, sought out his soothing accent on podcasts and even listened to him on audio books to put me to sleep while I had an extended stay in hospital last year. His Belfast accent had an uncanny way of making me feel safe.

The book -Gareth Higgins-“How not to be afraid “

It has brought me to thinking again about fear.

Not the dramatic kind of fear that announces itself loudly, but the quieter fears that seem to sit underneath so much of what brings people into my counselling room.

The fear of losing control.

The fear of being judged.

The fear of death.

The fear of being alone.

The fear of not having enough.

The fear that something will go wrong.

The fear that this time, we won’t be able to cope.

Sometimes, beneath the presenting problem, there is simply a frightened human trying very hard to make sure that life doesn’t hurt them again.

And perhaps one of the things we need to learn is not how to get rid of fear, but how to sit alongside it.

Fear is not always the problem. Fear often has a purpose.

It alerts us. It protects us and asks us to pay attention.

It can also become an unhelpful storyteller.

Something happens, and almost before we have had time to process it, our minds begin filling in the gaps.

“This always happens to me.”

“Everyone is having a better time than I am.”

“Nobody understands.”

“Everything is against me.”

“I’ll never be able to cope.”

“What if something terrible happens?”

Notice the words:

Always. Never. Everyone. Everything.

These are the words that can turn one difficult moment into a whole frightening story about our lives.

So perhaps a helpful question is not:

“How do I make this feeling go away?”

but:

“What is actually happening right now?”

Instead of “Everyone is having a great time without me,” we might ask:

“What is really happening?”

Perhaps two people are laughing.

Perhaps someone hasn’t replied to our message.

Perhaps we are feeling lonely.

Perhaps we are tired.

Perhaps we don’t know what is going on in somebody else’s life.

The question brings us back from the story to the present.

From what if? to what is?

Gareth Higgins writes about the relationship between fear and the stories we tell ourselves. Having grown up in Belfast during the Troubles, like myself, Higgins knows something about living in a world where fear can become woven into ordinary life.

His invitation is not simply to pretend that fear isn’t real, but to consider the stories fear creates and whether there might be another story available to us.

Because sometimes our circumstances really are frightening.

It isn’t about telling ourselves that everything will be fine when we have no idea whether it will be.

It is about asking:

Can I face what is happening without allowing fear to tell me what it means about everything?

I think this becomes particularly interesting within a context of faith.

For many of us, faith communities have unintentionally taught us to become uncomfortable with difficult emotions.

“Don’t be anxious.”

“Just trust God.”

“Give it to God.”

“Have faith.”

And underneath these well-intentioned words can sometimes be the message:

If you really trusted God enough, you wouldn’t be afraid.

But this can become a form of spiritual bypassing, I will write about this in a future blog.

We become used to stuffing down our fear because we think faithful people shouldn’t feel it.

We pray instead of grieving.

We quote Scripture instead of admitting that we are terrified.

We try to believe our way out of being human.

The Bible doesn’t promise us a life without fear, grief, illness, loss or uncertainty.

Again and again, the promise is something much more humble:

“I am with you.” Jesus promises in Matthew 28

Perhaps courage isn’t the absence of fear.

Perhaps courage is the ability to remain present while fear is sitting in the room.

I love that Higgins doesn’t reduce fear to something we simply need to conquer. His work points instead towards vulnerability, tenderness, connection and the possibility of choosing a different story to tell ourselves.

Perhaps that is what sitting alongside fear looks like. Just making a little room for it.

And perhaps this is where hope begins.

Not in the promise that nothing painful will happen.

But in the possibility that whatever happens, we can meet it one moment at a time.

We can ask:

What is actually happening?

What is fear telling me?

Is there another story I can tell?

And, for those of us who carry faith:

Can I trust that God is here, even when I cannot see what comes next?

Maybe faith isn’t the absence of fear.

Maybe faith is learning to sit beside fear, breathe, stay present — and discover that fear is not the only thing in the room.

Peace

Amanda