Fear IS Illusion - Told You So

The only reason I repeat that fear is an illusion is to remind myself.

I have been an anxious person for as long as I can remember. It is in my nature to chew over every future possibility of any action and get stuck on being so totally prepared for all the logical outcomes that I end up doing nothing except wringing my hands or pacing the room. Or blogging as an excuse for being 'busy', of course.

I'm sure that logically if I really started taking action on selling everything in my house that I needed to clear, that six weeks would be more than enough time. But instead I feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of different items that I need to shift, worried that I won't find the best opportunity to get the most money for them and too hung up on the Big What Ifs: What if it comes to moving day and I still have too much stuff? What if I give my month's notice and I cannot find the 'right' place to stay?

Too many questions: Will I have enough space to take my TV? If so, do I keep the cabinet? If I don't keep the cabinet then when do I sell the cabinet? When do I stop cooking meals in bulk so that I can defrost the fridge-freezer in the back room? How long will that take to sell? When do I sell my saucepans?

Of course, added to this is the total and utter inconvenience of the process of moving - packing everything in to boxes, eating out of packets, arranging the forwarding of mail, booking the van. Oh, and finding a place to live too. Minor detail.

You can see how much I get stuck in the present or the past, rather than remembering the benefits that will come from all of this effort in the future...

Underlying this hand-wringing exercise is the deafening silence from the MD, who had yet to respond to my email. Logically I feel quite calm about the whole situation. Physically I am a mess, jumping involuntarily every time a new email notification comes through or every time the phone rings. I have been feeling for the past couple of days as though I am about to walk in to an important interview and I am sure that is not healthy. Of course it's not healthy. Or necessary.

Here's the thing - I stated at the start of the post that it was in my nature to be anxious. What I turn in to a Nervous Nelly over, others would find a breeze and handle the situation without batting an eyelid. Others would look at my current situation with excitement - I have a friend who loves to move house, is not at all bothered by the chaos and who would sell her house contents and more without any sign of smoke emerging from her ears.

Put her in the driver's seat, though, as she suffers from terrible road rage. She gets angry at things which do not bother me at all. We are all here to change our nature - whatever that might be. Everybody has a reaction (or more than one) that is tough to overcome. And mine is anxiety. Somehow in this lifetime I need to transform from Worrier to Warrior. And I will get there - Awareness is key.

So how did the Universe deliver that awareness today?

At 1pm, another email appeared from the Postmaster - 48 hours after I emailed the MD - to say that my message had not, and could not, be delivered.

After all of that self-induced stress, I'd entered his email address incorrectly.

So for the past 48 hours I have been feeling the tension grow, worrying about what he will say about the contract, and in reality there was absolutely no possibility that he could have even read it. What wasted time and energy!

So, time to at least start listing out my stuff. I started on the vinyl, which may be useful to a D.J. friend, and came across a white E.P by a band called "Susan And God". And I have no idea how it got there. Life is full of little surprises....

What do you fear?

Okay, so I lied. Maybe I am not yet ready to blow the lid on my deepest darkest secrets. Not just yet. Why? It's simple. What is the reason for anything we choose not to do in our lives? Fear.

Fears and phobias interest me no end. Fear is ultimately an illusion set by our Opponent. Fear is never real - it doesn't exist. Only our perception of fear exists. Fear keeps us from doing the things that we want to do, from being all that we can be. As Eleanor Roosevelt said "You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face"

Our minds are programmed from birth to help us survive. Our parents (hopefully) teach us the limitations of our mortal being and our brains record the warning message for future reference in a file marked "keeps me in one piece". Which is very handy if you want to avoid regular trips to your local Accident and Emergency Unit.

Unfortunately our brains also store a whole heap of other messages using the exact same methods which do nothing more than offer us the illusion of being safe. What messages we build in to this internal belief system greatly determines how we live our lives.

A large part of my fear, which I believe that is shared by so many others - such is human nature - is the fear of rejection. Funnily enough, when researching the topic of fear and phobias, I have found that there isn't actually a name for fear of rejection. I feared that might happen. The closest recommendation in naming is Kakorrhaphiophobia - the fear of failure or defeat. Well I certainly failed in finding a name for the fear of rejection, that's for sure (although I can't say in this instance that I actually feared it).

So what else do I fear? Probably high on my list at the moment are:

Chronophobia - fear of time

Peniaphobia - No, not phallophobia - Peniaphobia: the fear of poverty!

Rhytiphobia - fear of getting wrinkles; and

Monophobia - fear of being alone (which is also bizarrely defined as the fear of menstruation - a fear that I have long since overcome).

All I can say is: I am so lucky. Who would want to suffer from the following?

Anablephobia - the fear of looking up. Derived from reading Chicken Licken.

Anthophobia - the fear of flowers. Derived from watching Day of the Triffids.

Arachibutyropiaphobia - the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. Hmm.

Aulophobia - the fear of flutes. But there is no mention of fear of oboes. I would be much more wary of oboes.

Asymmetriphobia - the fear of asymmetrical things. Is this a tessellation issue?

Cathisophobia - the fear of sitting. Is that why psychiatrists have couches?

Cnidophobia - the fear of strings. Thank heavens for sticky tape.

Geniophobia - the fear of chins. Just chins in general? Just one chin or multiple? What about turkey neck?

Genuphobia - the fear of knees. Knobbly Knees competitions have a lot to answer for.

Lutraphobia - the fear of otters. No mention of stoats or pine martens. What did the otters do wrong?

Metallophobia - the fear of metal. This would make life a tad difficult.

Namatophobia - the fear of names. This would make life even more difficult.

Numerophobia - the fear of numbers. Mainly experienced by women approaching birthdays.

Ostraconophobia - the fear of shellfish. Perfectly reasonable after a plate of dodgy prawns.

Pogonophobia - the fear of beards. Is this really a fear of chins in disguise?

Selenophobia - fear of the moon. Fair enough.

Even worse, you could suffer from Panophobia - the fear of everything, or from Phobophobia - the fear of phobias.

The list goes on.

Every fear has an underlying cause. What seems ridiculous to one is perfectly justified by another, so despite the list above, I do not mock.

Unlike the person who invented the term Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia - the fear of long words. Cruel. Very cruel.