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Ignite Blog #4 | Fearful Thinking

Writer's picture: Anne HughesAnne Hughes

Fearful Thinking



 

Storm Eowyn certainly threw a lot of people into some fearful thinking this weekend. Even yesterday the supermarket still hadn’t replenished its pasta supplies. Obviously so many of us were triggered by the pandemic days when we had no idea what lay ahead and so we panicked about everything. But I was slightly mystified that people were stockpiling even though we knew it would most likely pass in 12hours or so. The pandemic might be fading into the past now, but it seems it left many of us with a lot of trauma and trauma responses – showing up in our lives when we least expect it.

 

Without any judgement at all on others and their reaction to the impending storm, it did make me reflect on what our own fearful thinking can do to us.

 

Nowadays I’m getting good at catching myself in my own destructive or scary thinking – not always straight away, but usually within a few hours, days, sometimes weeks.

 

The fact I remind myself often and even say to myself in the mirror for effect (I’m way too dramatic) just because I think it doesn’t make it true!

 

Yes – I’ll admit that sometimes I think a whole lot of shite! I think things that seem true even though they’ll never come to pass. I think things that are ridiculous that eventually make me laugh at myself.

 

My biggest realisation that I think things that aren’t true came at some point in the last few years when I was listening online to a speaker I really respect. This moment of clarity took me back to a belief that was imbedded in me at the age of 13 and one that I carried every day of my life until I had this moment.

 

My mum died of leukaemia in 1989 when she was 48 years old. I don’t know exactly when I picked up this belief, but it was as real to me as my eyes being blue and my hair brown. The paradigm that I carried for more than 35 years was that I would die young too – most likely in my 40s.

 

And in 2017 at the age of 41 it seemed to me that this was being lived out. When I woke up out of a coma in the aftermath of a brain aneurysm, I wasn’t even remotely surprised I was in hospital and that something major, almost catastrophic had occurred in my life. I’d always known it would. And I didn’t necessarily believe it was over.

 

Fast forward to the moment of clarity and my whole world shook. That was never true! I just made it up and then believed it for more than three decades. I was shook!

 

Then the next thought that rolled in… if that wasn’t true what other stuff do I believe without question that is in fact a lot of rubbish???

 

I knew in that moment, as I do now that I can’t trust every thought I have and I need to make space to question myself to myself.

 

So, was it true on Friday that I had to stay home, make sure my kids did and wait it out – yes!

 

Was it true that my roof could blow off – sort of! But would I still be okay because I’m not going into my loft? Yes.

 

Was it true that if I followed the advice given that I’d be okay? Yes.

 

But is it true that the shops were going to run out of food and toilet paper because of a one storm day? Absolutely not.

 

And pulling away from the bold Eowyn…

 

Is it true that given my pension provisions are poor that I’ll live in dire poverty as a pensioner. Nah I don’t think it is.

 

Is it true that someone is annoyed with me? Again, not necessarily – they might have a lot on their page just now. And even if they are – what can my thinking possibly do to influence that? Nothing! So is it worth worrying about – absolutely not!

 

Is it true that as a freelancer every piece of work will dry up and I plumet my family into poverty? It really isn’t – I’ve always got more opportunities than days available to take them on. And even if it does – I’ll get a job!

 

Is it true that I’ll die in my 40s – given I’m 75 days away from my 50th birthday and fit as fiddle – I’d say probably not.

 

And so I stay in the process of questioning myself like Cagney and Lacey and making sure I’m not bull shitting myself with my won fearful thinking on a daily basis.

 

So, my encouragement to you is that the next time you get stuck in some fearful thinking that you question it a bit. Work out if what you think is real, or if like most of us, sometimes you’re making a whole lot up, believing it and then walking through life carrying it on your shoulders like the weight of the world.

 

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