No big decisions for me today. The 28th of August is an anniversary of sorts, but the 27th is always wrapped in the feeling of impending doom of what happened on the 28th. It’s a lizard brain thing at this point, I don’t know if it will ever be completely gone and I’ve learned to accept that. Managing the fear is one of my biggest challenges as August rolls to a conclusion.

Fear goads us to do something. But without a threat, we search for a reason for our fear. We can go so far as manufacturing a crisis, or 3. Our instincts tell us that something is wrong. Eons of evolution designed us to pay attention to our heart rate and our adrenaline, because our entire system has a cascade of chemicals that begin to flow in order to keep us alive. This can lead to a host of bad decisions when our life is not threatened. When this cascade begins in our nervous system it creates the classic fight, flight, or fawn, response cycle. This is highly useful when deciding whether to stand and fight that bear that’s currently assessing you. It is not helpful, however, when the biggest danger of the day is whether the laundry will get done. To have to sit in the fear while going about the daily chores is difficult because the system wants to default to 3 options for everything.

My brain likes fearing the future. It’s on that roll already with the impending doom scenario being the path of least resistance. I am writing this with my heart pounding in my chest. As I sit surrounded in safety, I am experiencing the fear of a small child who thinks they saw a monster in the shadows. There isn’t a light switch to take the shadows away, nor a parent to call who will reassure me that there are no monsters. I know there are no monsters and although I’ve been the one to answer that frightened call, I’m still expecting monsters.

Since this has happened every year since 1988, I’ve learned some things about myself and fear. Fear without discernment has led me to jump from frying pan into fire more than once. The fear is the frying pan, it’s terribly uncomfortable. I feel a certain kinship with those poor dancing chickens in their electrified cages. I’m writing this so obviously I have survived those jumps into the flames. The flames were worse than the frying pan. There has been a pattern of this leaping into the unknown. Whenever I jumped, I was in flight mode. I was trying to get away from my own limbic system. This is also the place where people turn to behaviors that numb the mind with either pain or pleasure. For years I turned to cigarettes, my vice of choice because alcoholism runs in my family and is extremely harmful to the family of the drinker. This fails with time as well.

When the fear is coming from within the mind and body, we take it with us wherever we go. When we try one of those 3 options and it fails, we eventually try the others. Fight mode brings arguments, yelling, outbursts in an attempt to exert control on our external environment. We can create crisis after crisis just so we can fight the crisis we created and feel some amount of relief from the fears that we can’t fight. Now that sounds like a twisty mess and it is. Unless we realize that we aren’t making progress we can stay in this one a long time and cause long-lasting harm.

Fawning is a wily one. This was my final boss battle. I doubt anyone who is operating in this mode realizes it. I didn’t spend my time attempting to please, as far as I could tell. What I did want was for the fear to leave me alone and I pursued that by trying to get everyone’s needs taken care of so I could control outcomes. Amazingly, people are never satisfied. We can supply every need, grant every wish, wipe every tear and there will always be more needed. I thoroughly understand why there’s a traditional limit of 3 wishes among Genii.

*Edited to replace broken link

All fawning does is allow us to put off the inevitable and when it becomes useless against the fear, we are left with the option of starting the cycle allover again or sitting at the bar while our mind and body pour us another tall glass of discomfort. And here I am today back at the bar while the bartender makes me my usual minus the pinch of perfectionism that kept me from giving up sooner on the fawning. I no longer try to grant wishes, wishes require perfection. I am just fine with good enough.

Big decisions should never be made while under the influence. Sit in the discomfort and don’t make choices that are based on getting away from something. If change is needed, choose moving towards something. I try and think of my fear as a very smarmy used car salesman. They always push for fast decisions, use manufactured scarcity, and all the tricks to get people to make poor decisions that benefit the salesman. The best thing I’ve found is to act as if everything is normal, since it is, and ground myself in my routine. No escapism, nor special pleasantries, and not a single uproar will help this feeling to go away. The only cure will come at dawn on the 29th.

Thank you for reading. It’s really appreciated.