The things that scare us
Over the past couple of years I have posted a weekly blog usually about a mental health topic that’s come up in a session in the last few weeks, but sometimes just in response to anything that’s been rattling around my head. For blog #100 and with halloween just around the corner as I write this I when better than to think the things that scare us?
I’m not necessarily thinking about phobias (which I’ve already written about here), but I’d like to have a think about this week about the things that scare us day to day.
What is it that scares you? Maybe it’s the thought of speaking in public? (A common one!) We might be self conscious about our body in certain settings. Maybe we’re scared of getting bad health news. Understandable, right? The thought of losing someone that we care about is another one that affects us all.
But once we accept that it’s something that scares us, what do we do with that?
Is it something we decide we’re simply going to avoid forever? Avoiding drowning by simply not going in the water is easy enough, but are we always going to be able to avoid public speaking? Getting to grips with spending and managing money isn’t something we’re able to avoid as adults without potentially getting into a lot of trouble.
We’re also not immortal so at some point we’re going to have to come to terms with our bodies failing us, and losing our friends and family members as we get older.
What experiences are e missing out on because of that fear? The beloved Paul O’Grady (or Lilly Savage if you prefer) once said, paraphrasing, that losing a pet is heartbreaking but you don’t think about the hangover when you’re at the party. And the party’s worth it.
Sometimes that fear can motivate us, sometimes even in positive ways. We might want to accomplish important goals in our lifetime. We might choose to be more present with our friends and family, and do more with them. But we might find ourselves becoming isolated as we focus too much on our goals, or becoming controlling out of trying to keep people safe.
In the Halloween spirit, some of cinema’s most iconic villains are defined by not being able to accept the loss of a loved one; Darth Vader, Pamela Voorhees (grieving mother of Friday 13th’s Jason) and many many more.
How realistic is it for us to hold on to our fears and how they impact us instead of doing something about it?
Counselling is a safe space for us to do this; giving us somewhere we can dig into why something scares us without that overwhelming us, and develop a way of addressing it and moving forward. It’s fun to be scared in small does, and I do love horror movies myself, but living with fear every day holds us back and means we don’t have the life we could have.
If you’d like to work with a BACP accredited counsellor on your mental health, you can get in touch with me via the website or directly at mckellar.scott@gmail.com
