Fear

I've had a couple of opportunities in the last few weeks to face one of my greatest fears: public speaking. It's a fear that goes back at least as far the 7th grade, when I took a zero rather than present an oral report in front of the class. It's a fear that gives me so much anxiety that a couple of years ago, when I was presenting to a group of around 50 new part-time employees to teach them how to use the website on which they would sign up for shifts, my hands shook so badly I couldn't log in. I had to be rescued by a coworker. And now, I've twice spoken in front of my organization's executive staff to resoundingly positive feedback.

As Virginia Slims used to tell women of the '70s, I've come a long way, baby.

I just completed a 9-month leadership training program in my organization, along with 9 other people from across multiple departments. It culminated in an intensive class project, a proposal on how to make improvements to a major component of our organization's mission, presented to a group of people who are not just high level players within that organization, but in our industry nationally.

The person I was two years ago would not have applied to this program, and I certainly wouldn't have helped bring it to completion without losing a single night's sleep.

Something happened to me. Some of the changes have happened slowly over time. Some of the changes happened about a year ago, almost in an instant, an instant that I can remember clearly. I don't know how it happened. There have been at least two times in my life when change has come to me in lightning strikes, changes I had talked about and struggled to achieve for years without success until suddenly they came almost effortlessly. I can't explain why or how, I can only relate the story.

The first of these changes was quitting drinking of course. I've talked about that before. I tried without success for years to quit, until one day I did. The right combination of circumstances came together to give me the right motivation, or a new understanding, or a new acceptance in my heart of a reality I had understood intellectually for my entire adult life but had not acted on. And then, suddenly, a switch was flipped and I changed.

The second happened about a year ago. I was struggling to accept the end of a romantic relationship that had been a central part of me accepting the changes in my life that divorce brought crashing down on me. Everything that I thought I was, that I thought I wanted, that I thought would continue to define my life for the rest of my life, was suddenly gone. I was certain for a time that I would never love or be loved again. I was afraid that I would not be able to find my way back into the full-time workforce after 8 years as the primary, full-time caregiver for my son. Much to my shock, a close friendship exploded into a romantic relationship, helping me to develop a new vision of myself post-marriage as desirable, valuable, and entirely capable of navigating the rest of my life. When, after less than a year, that new relationship crumbled, I was right back in the middle of that fear that once again, the impossible had happened and I'd completely screwed it up.

Now, of course, I know that I didn't screw it up; it wasn't for me to make it a success or a failure. It just didn't fit. We weren't a good match. And it ending was a good thing for us both. But about a year ago, I was swimming in a swamp of fear and regret and anger and sorrow. I was doing what I'd always done: turning over every detail in my head again and again, trying to figure out what I'd done wrong, what I could have done differently. Just as I had after the destruction of my marriage, I spun around and around in mental circles, re-imagining conversations and actions, some of which had really happened and some of existed only in my head, trying to craft a scenario in which I could hold on to what I'd lost. Again.

So I wasn't sleeping. One night, after about 3 sleepless days and nights, while sitting with friends at a show, I heard, quite distinctly, the popping sound of my head detaching from my shoulders at the base of my neck. I felt the stomach-lurching feeling of a roller coaster cresting a peak and falling again as my head floated up into the air. It was rising up away from my body.

I knew in my rational mind that it wasn't actually happening, of course. I knew that it was a hallucination. I was overcome with a panicked need to get out, to get away, so I mumbled my apologies, stood up, and ran away. I hadn't had anything to drink but Topo Chico, but my thoughts were confused. I got lost trying to go home. I remember feeling certain that to go north, I had to go south. To get home, I had to go the other way entirely.

When finally I made it back to my apartment and lay me down upon my bed, I listened. I heard nothing. There was a silence I'd never experienced before. My head was empty. The incessant inner monologue had stopped. I had never heard such utter quiet. It was peaceful. It was soothing. I slept.

Something changed that night. It's not that I do not have an inner monologue any more. I do. It is as endless as it ever was. And it's not that I do not sometimes go in circles thinking of things said that shouldn't have been, or things unsaid that should have been spoken out loud. But since that night, there is a level of detachment that I've never had before. I can let it go. I can tune it out. I can smile at it, turn the volume down, and sleep to wake to a new day.

That relentless mental grind, that incessant critical voice, is fear. Somewhere, somehow, I've learned that I don't have to give it much weight. It's there, contributing to the conversations that go on in my head about my life and my choices, but it's a member of the committee that talks a lot without adding much. It doesn't help move the project forward. I don't have to take what it says to heart. It still talks. Not as much as it used to, thank God, but it does still talk. I don't have to listen, though. I have known that. It's a platitude, a cliché, that everyone knows: you do not have to give in to fear. But there's a difference between knowing something and actually doing it. I always knew I shouldn't smoke, but it took me until 2006 to actually quit. I always knew I shouldn't drink, but it took me until 2015 to actually quit. I always knew I shouldn't let myself be limited by my fear, but it took me until 2016 to actually quit.

I know that this space, this little corner of the global human network, is filled mostly with me talking about myself. There is value, though, in me adding my voice to the chorus of people repeating the things we all already know: be kind; love yourself and others, even when it's hard; when you are afraid, do it anyway.