Episode 29: The Fear of the Unknown is Consuming Me

We are going to be talking about the dreaded fear. Fear is a robber it steals everything, the joy, the happiness, the peace, it makes up stories, it controls our mind and our life and our anxiety. It is a destroyer. And I despise fear. It just really took a hold on me for so many years. And it was so much I had to work through. And really, it was the cause of so many other things. If I was angry, and an out of sorts, and crazy in my mind, if I could look back and uncover what the underneath root was.

It always came from a place of fear, the stress, the anxiety, even sadness, if I look at it, fear was usually present. There's so many things to think about with the unknown. When we're living our lives, and we're just going day to day, we can't control the future. And we can't even control what happened in the past. And so we're left with this place of uncertainty of, of how do we manage?

How do I get through this? Am I supposed to heal from this? Am I supposed to forgive this? Am I supposed to mourn or grieve? Or set boundaries? What does this look like? What does this mean for me. And with all of those things, it causes so much mental exertion. It's like running a marathon in your mind and your body. Who wants to do that? right all the time, every single day, it's exhausting. And I felt emotionally drained. I felt like I had nothing left.

Probably around 2013, maybe beginning of 2014, I was experiencing so much pain in my stomach, kind of like maybe right under my ribs. And this is kind of where I figured out that anytime I was stressed or anxious or sad or fearful or anything that it would be like this rock ball of craziness kind of stuck right in my diaphragm. But at this particular time, there was this pain that I had, it was kind of on my right side, just below my ribs, and it would just come on.

So randomly, it felt like anyway, I can be sitting at a restaurant with my husband, and all of a sudden the pain would just hit and I couldn't even sit up straight, I'd have to kind of start bending down and sliding under the table a little to even have some relief, I would push on it and rub it and try to get it out. And I didn't know what it was, but it was causing me so much pain on a regular basis. And even when it wasn't manifesting, I could still push on that area and it felt bruised.

I don't usually visit a doctor's office very often. I like having them I like to know that I can go if I need to. But I didn't grow up going very much. We didn't have insurance with my dad's work. And I have only had insurance sometimes in my life. And so every time I go, it costs so much money, that I would wait things out for a while just to see, because a lot of times our body just heals itself, or it would just work itself out. But at this particular time it had been going on for months. And I was just like there has got to be something in here.

Something is wrong. I felt peace that it probably wasn't anything serious. But at the same time what could be causing me this pain. So I went in for an ultrasound and they're doing their thing and I'm watching it, you know on the video picture of it and they're just going along and and not saying anything, of course. And then when the tech would hit that spot, I would say yes, yes, it's right there. It's right there and they would just keep moving it around in that spot. I could feel it. I'm like, okay, they're gonna definitely find something.

Well, I get the results back and there is nothing, not one single thing. Nothing's inflamed. There's no tumor or ulcer or, or anything that I thought possible could be there. There was nothing, nothing at all. And so I started to think about what my body was trying to tell me because clearly something was wrong. But it wasn't medical. At this point, it wasn't very long after that, I started seeing my energy worker. And she would share with me things about how our body works and how we manifest things in our body through illness or pain.

When something's wrong, I had huge shoulder issues during these years. And she shared with me that my shoulder, the one that specifically hurts the most, it's like I carry a lot of feeling in there of this burden is too heavy to carry, I have to carry the weight of the world, the weight of the world is on my shoulder, things like that, which made sense to me, because I had that pain there.

Because I was carrying so much pain and my shoulder was bearing the weight of my inner emotions, I did end up having shoulder injury, it did, it did prevent me from doing certain things, because not only was I emotionally hurting, but now I was physically hurting. And so she could do her work and clear some of the emotions with the spiritual side of why I feel like I'm carrying all of the weight on my shoulder. But I still had to do the actual work to heal it physically, because there was now an injury. So for me, energy work, that didn't just clear it and fix it right away.

But it did help me. And not only that, but it taught me that when I'm noticing something in my body, that I can pay attention to what it is, what the feeling is surrounding that pain. And sometimes I can heal it before it actually turns to an injury or an illness or a sickness of some kind. So for me, it works. I like that. But as far as the fear goes, and this ultrasound came back with nothing, I realized that where it was coming from a place of anxiety, and fear, and that fear was through the roof for me.

There were so many fears, I don't even know that I can even name them all or remember them all. But some were the fear of the unknown. The fear of what my husband at that time was doing the fear of what if he's not telling me the whole truth, which he wasn't, I didn't even know half of it at that point. The fear of what is going to happen in my relationship? What would happen if I actually had to get divorced? What would happen if he didn't choose me that the fear of financially supporting myself, how to raise my kids?

How do you co parent I mean, the fears, I'm sure you're with me, I your your heart might be racing, I'm not sure. I hope I'm not causing you any trauma. But let's look at it, let's pay attention to our fear. Let's pay attention to what our body is telling us. So that we can start navigating and managing it. Between the years of 2012 and 2014 to 15. My fear was present every single day. And the anxiety that I experienced was also there, my heart would be racing all the time, I could always feel it in my chest, where right now, I don't even know that it's there.

It's just doing its thing doing its work helping me and fully functional on its own. But at that time, I could wake up in the morning, and the anxiety would already be there. And so my heart would be racing, I would go to bed at night, and I would lay down and it would be pumping out of my chest. And it would take me a long time to calm down and go to sleep, I would usually need to use the calm app or something that would calm my mind, sometimes really soft, soft music that was kind of calming to my soul. In order to be able to even go to sleep.

I didn't get restful sleep. It was hard it was it was stressful sleeping next to someone who I didn't even know really who they were, I thought I did, but I really didn't. And that was something that my mind and body did not know how to navigate through. It was hard. And I didn't recognize at the time that I could let go of these fears that I could let go of the control of the possibilities of the what ifs that whatever happened would be part of my life, regardless of how much I feared it or controlled it. There's nothing I could do with my fear.

Worrying over and over and over day after day, night after night was not going to change whatever the outcome was going to be. I didn't know that then I thought somehow, some way I'll be given the right exact answer to make all of this okay. And to make my marriage work, and to know that he would recover. And he would choose to recover and not want this addiction anymore. Well, that didn't happen. We all know that. If you've been following my podcast, if you've read my book, if you've watched my social media, you know it didn't work out that way that it ended in divorce.

I can tell you today that I am so grateful that it did I know that sounds weird because there's the one part of me that wishes none of it ever happened. And that I could be with my family, my original intact family and my children. So we could experience all the great things that we sign up for when we get married, raising our kids together and going to all the games and taking them on vacation, watching them get married, sharing grandchildren, and being able to do family holidays together, none of that gets to happen anymore.

That's the part that is so terrible, and you grieve it on a regular basis. However, the gift that divorce brought was that surrender, the feeling of Wow, I really need to let go of what I fear and what I think I can control by fearing, I lost so many hours of sleep, so many years of happiness. Because I was so stressed trying to manage. Letting go of that fear brought peace back into my life. It brought me a new outlook. It brought me new work, and a job that I absolutely love. It showed me who I was what I was deserving of how to set boundaries, and how to become the me that I've always wanted to be.

I felt like I was this person years ago. But finding out about addiction and betrayal. And the infidelity that comes with that is so heartbreaking. It shattered my soul. And I honestly did not know if I would ever find me again. I thought I would be permanently fragile and broken. I thought there is no possible way that I can heal from something like this something so devastating. So heart wrenching, so utterly impossible to even comprehend what I experienced. And I don't share a lot of it, just some of it, but what the depths of it that I experienced, were absolutely abhorrent.

I shouldn't have had to know those things I didn't I shouldn't have even known that those things existed. But that's not what happened. And so what's the alternative? To live in that place of fear of pain, of sadness, of regret, of resentment, and bitterness, and hope, and just keep hoping and hoping and hoping that he'll change even when he wasn't, I did have hope for a really long time, I had hope and faith that the programs would work, I had hoped that he would want to recover and want to choose himself so he could choose me.

One of the things that I had that misconception about which I have shared before, and I did share it also in my book cutting ties is that I felt like this somehow, all had to do with me, if he didn't want to recover. It meant that he wasn't choosing me, if he wasn't going to do the work, it meant that he didn't love me enough, if he wasn't going to tell me the truth, it meant that I wasn't good enough. All of that was untrue. Those were lies that I told myself. And it wasn't until therapy and letting go and learning and healing, that I realized that that's not the case.

And what I've shared before was that in those moments of addiction, when you're in recovery, and you're you're learning the tools, you have a choice to make, you have to choose recovery for yourself, right. But ultimately, you have to go to your higher power. And if you do not choose your higher power. In my case, that's God, if you don't choose God, first, you can't choose yourself. And if you don't choose yourself, you cannot choose your family.

And that's where where it came to. And that was the release that I needed to realize that I was taking on too much control and, and having too much power of thinking that all of this was on my shoulders, that somehow all of it was my job, my fault. The reason I wasn't good enough, or whatever, that I would tell myself But no, it came down to if he wasn't willing to choose God and surrender, then he couldn't choose himself or choose me.

That's what happened. Now for me, if he's not going to choose recovery, if he doesn't want to choose God, to heal himself, if he doesn't want to get rid of something that is totally destroying his life and taking away his family, then I don't want to stay. It was harming me it was doing more harm than good. Once I realized that I cannot change another person. Everything started to change for me. And yes, that did mean divorce for me. But that doesn't always mean the case. I have several friends who did the same thing, who surrendered who did the healing work, who learned the tools who learn the boundaries and who who

tried to do what they had to do to take care of themselves, so that they could be in a place of feeling grounded and Living life happy even though the pain was going on alongside them, some of their marriages were actually able to make it because those husbands chose recovery. That's not what mine chose. And being a woman and being empowered and having strength and being a mother, I needed to make hard choices. And the only way I could do that

is if I let go of the fear, the fear consumed me so much of the time. And each day each decision each time a boundary wasn't met, or when the process of divorce happened. And new things came into play, and new things with lawyers and, and discussions about who who has the kids and all those kinds of things. Put my fear into full motion again. And I would constantly have to take it to my counselor, take it to God take it to my energy workers so that I could stay grounded, and remember to surrender, that the fear was not going to give me any added benefit.

To make the situation any different or turn out any better for me, the situation, our circumstances, our experiences are going to happen anyway. So the letting go just allows us to be able to ebb and flow and move through so we can gather inspiration so we can feel what we need to do that we can feel those things that nudge our heart and soul of what to do next, how to move forward. And even sometimes, to give us some insight into what's going to happen next. Letting Go didn't save my marriage. But it wasn't going to anyway. But it did save me. The fear of financially supporting my children was so big.

I would have to question many times, I don't know that I can leave because how am I supposed to support my children. That's a real fear. For so many of us. It's actually one of the leading causes of why a woman won't choose divorce and would rather stay in an abusive situation, because of the financial situation that they're in. We don't want that. We don't want fear to control us. A lot of times, that is Satan's tactic to keep us somewhere that keeps us held down, not happy and miserable. We don't want that we want to be okay, we want to thrive.

We want to show our children that we can do hard things, we want to teach them that they can do hard things. Because it's likely that they're going to go through things in their life as they grow. And as they have relationships when they're adults, when they have children, that they will have to know how to manage hard things. We don't want them sitting in it and staying because of fear that they might not have enough money to do it.

We want them to know that it all works out if we take the steps. I was inspired to learn new things and learn about mortgages and learn about bank accounts and how to go about things. Things that I never actually needed to do. I thought okay, well maybe I'm going to be buying a house in the future. Or, or maybe I'm going to start a different kind of business. But that's not what happened. But it got me thinking and it got me moving. So I wasn't stuck. And by taking the steps of learning and growth, I was able to be given more insight and more inspiration.

Every time I moved, meaning I stepped out of the fear and did something took an action. Something else unfolded for me. A few different jobs that I had when I was single brought me to the next level or or introduced me to people that I would need for things that I was doing. Later in life. It brought relationships that brought happiness because I was around other people so many different good things that came from me taking the steps. I

f we let fear rule, it paralyzes us. It makes us question things, it makes us go into a spiral of why is this happening to me this, I can't do this. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to navigate, there's no way I can do any of this. None of this is going to work out. But if we stay looking at it that way, we're going to keep feeling that way. So instead, we need to look at it as what is going on with the fear. What is it that I'm actually fearing? What is this fear trying to teach me because it's trying to teach you something about yourself?

What is it that's happening inside of you that you feel unprepared to navigate what is your present situation, the sooner you can look at what the fear is, the sooner you're going to be able to uncover it, unpack it, heal it, work on it and move forward and then it's not going to consume you. There is so much freedom in letting go. Imagine being in the summer heat. I used to live in St. George Utah, it's around 110 there right now I don't live there now but imagine being in 110 degree heat outside with the sun shining down on you.

Wearing all your ski clothes, your hat, your gloves, a ski coat, a sweater underneath. boots, everything and standing out in the sun, you would be like, Oh my gosh, I have got to get this off of me, I can't be out here, it would feel constraining, it would feel threatening, it would be scary, you'd be fearful, you'd be sweating, your heart would probably be racing, out of nervousness.

And you would not be able to get those layers off fast enough, you would want to feel the freedom and then you get to walk inside, and that air conditioning hits you in the face. That feeling of the air hitting you in the face after being so hot, is the biggest relief ever. And you are so grateful. And you're like, Oh my gosh, this is so good. I can't even believe it.

Oh, my goodness, you're just feel so relieved. That's how this feels,as you learn to see what it is that the fear is, when you know what it is, and you can actually do something about it. And you can change and be different. It is a relief, it is a huge blessing. You feel so much gratitude well up in your soul, you can't even believe it. That is why it's so important. You've got to look at what it is. Otherwise, you're going to be held back until you do. It doesn't go away on its own.

Those wounds are real. The walls that you've built are meant to keep you safe. Holding on to the past, wishing it would be different, doesn't actually make it different. I wish it did. I so badly wanted mine to be different. It didn't change anything me wanting. It didn't change anything me telling him over and over and over to do his work to choose me can't you see, at one point I took a bunch of pictures out and I laid them all across the table to show him what our life was like, look at what you're giving up, look at what you're going to be missing out on, it didn't matter.

Those things in those moments may be touched his heart for a second. But if somebody doesn't want the same thing you do isn't showing you by their words and their actions, that they are on the same page as you that they want the same life as you that they want to treat you with love, kindness, care, respect, concern, just like you are to them, you can't make them. And the fear of change is not going to do anything to make that happen or be different.

That is why it's so important. You get to decide what your life is going to be like you get to decide what you handle, you get to decide if you live in a life like that. Or if you set boundaries, my hope is for all of us if we are still in our relationships that our partners will do the work to, because what is better than two people that have dug deep been through the trenches and the mud, and waited through it all turn to God and come out on the other side healing and happy way more love for each other than they had before because of the work that they put in. But if not, as in my case, both people aren't working toward the same goal. The way out is to let go of the fear and surrender to what the present situation actually is.

The way you move through fear is kind of like what we talked about, you have to uncover what it is you have to ask yourself what's going on. When your heart starts racing. Ask yourself, okay, okay, what's going on? What am I feeling? What am I thinking? What dialogue is running through my head? What is my body trying to tell me? And what does it want to teach me? That way you can start saying okay, well, maybe it's this. Maybe I am fearing that I won't know what's going on with my children If I'm not married, if they're just over at their dad's house, and I'm not there, I can't control what happens.

Maybe that's one of your fears. Maybe one of your fears is financial, maybe or one of your fears Is that who else is going to love you. I have all these kids who else is going to love me. I'm never going to find the love that I had here. But the love that you have here, if the other person isn't working on it is no longer what you thought it was. It's hard. It's a hard reality to come to. But that's the truth. So as you look at the fears and you uncover, I don't feel good enough than work on healing you. If I'm nervous about my kids talk that out in therapy.

If I never imagined myself divorced if my family won't allow it. If they won't welcome me back in if I'll have no help. Talk that through with God, bring it to therapy, schedule a mentoring session with me. talk to somebody who knows already who's been there before. People who have been there before have really good insight to share. If you're talking to people who have never gone through divorce or have never had to co-parent or have never been through addiction, they might not be able to give you insight or wisdom that is coming from a place that would make sense to you. They'll be coming from their own experiences and perspective.

They love you, but they might not know exactly what it is. that you're talking about how you're feeling or what you need. So seek out the people who get it. If you do have addiction in your family, look for the 12 step programs that are in your area for family support, and go to those meetings, you know, some of my closest friends are from those meetings, it is so amazing to have that assurance that you're not the only one, what you're doing is hard work. And I'm so proud of you for doing it. It takes effort and time and patience with ourselves with our loved ones. And with the situation. We can't learn overnight.

We can't make all of this Okay, by tomorrow. If there was something that you heard today on this podcast that said to you, okay, that's me, that's what I need to start doing. You're not going to be able to heal or fix that specific thing by tomorrow, it's going to take constant time and effort, you're going to forget. And then you're going to have to remind yourself because what you're used to doing is thinking only one way, your brain thinks a certain way. So you have to challenge it and start having it learn to think different. Just like you have to choose different, you have to teach your brain to choose different and to think different, it can totally be done. It happens all the time. It happened with me.

I worked hard, and I did I did what I needed to do. So that I could feel so good. It feels like so much weight off of my shoulders, when I chose to heal. So it really comes down to what do you want to do? Are you going to sit and let your fear consume you and own you? Or are you going to take the action that you need?

The tools are out there, the support is there, there is so many things that you can do to learn how to overcome to learn how to let go to unclench your fists, you can choose into doing this work, you can choose to let go of the fear, it is going to take effort on your part, it doesn't come easily. But it is so worth it. Everything in life that has value to where you feel it so intensely takes work. And this is one of those things. This is life changing, to learn how to navigate and manage fear, to be able to look at it for what it is to be able to start saying Oh hey, my body's reacting.

Before I go any further before I have a reaction before I yell at somebody before I freak out before I get in my bed and close my eyes and pretend this isn't happening. I'm going to ask myself the questions. What is going on with me? Why is my heart racing? Why am I feeling fear? What is it actually coming from? Where is it coming from? What situation is happening around me that's causing me to feel these things. By doing that you are taking responsibility for yourself, you are being accountable for your happiness, and for your future. It's going to help you live in the present moment. So much more free and able to see things more clear.

And even to be able to, to do what you have to do to make the hard choices to say the things you need to say, to keep the boundaries and to expect to be respected, loved cared for and all the other things that you have on that list of things that are important to you, that matter that you should be experiencing and having in your relationship. If you're not you have to provide those things for yourself. Learning to let go and surrender does that for you. It also builds your relationship with God, as you turn to your higher power.

When you turn to God. He shows you who you are, he gives you the strength. He doesn't take it away. He doesn't make it easier. Divorce wasn't easy, just because I was following what he told me to do. It was so hard. But because I was listening to him and turning to him, I wasn't doing it by myself. And it made me open to the insight and inspiration that he would send me either through him that would touch my heart or my mind, or given to me by other people because he would inspire them. If I wasn't open if I was holding on to the fact that my life shouldn't have been this way. This should not have happened which is resentment and bitterness. If I was holding on to that,

I wouldn't be able to be free. I wouldn't be able to have learned what I did to move forward. It's hard you've got to take the steps you have to actually step into the dark you have to make some of the hard decisions before you know what the outcome or the answer is going to be. The answers will unfold. They will come it takes time and effort and patience but they do come there is so much healing ahead

of you as you choose into doing this work. I am here with you. You are not doing this alone. please reach out if you need something. Please keep listening to the podcasts, the ones that help you so much. Share it with your friends and I will see you next time.

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