My Worried Mind

Be concerned... not afraid...

6:21 am... Fear. We struggle against it constantly, so much so that our awareness of the struggle itself dims. Fear of being late to work, fear of doing poorly on a test, fear of not being loved - just a few of the ghosts which haunt my thoughts. Sometimes a fear of something is so constant and persistent that it has to be knocked into focus for us even to acknowledge it. Here's a big one... Fear of spending the next ten years of my life trying to be a professional writer, and utterly failing at it. That's something scary for me.

Some people are just terribly afraid, you can tell by the way they talk. How often do you actually say the "afraid" on a daily basis? I had a boss who used the word all the time, even after I pointed out the negative impact of it. His fear showed in his every action, it was sad. Studies have shown that the words you use have a huge impact on your emotional state. Individuals who use the word "concerned" or even "worried" exhibit much less hesitancy toward committing an action than those who say they are "afraid" of the outcome. Changing the way you voice your emotions can actually change the emotions themselves... That's one tool to keep handy, especially when you are "concerned" about something.

Little Man has always been afraid of some things - the dark, being alone, strange sounds - pretty typical stuff for a toddler, especially once their imagination begins to flourish. But recently everything which he doesn't like - picking out clothes in the morning, taking the same medicine we take every day - is now "scary" to him. The logical part of my brain understands that he is beginning to separate out his emotions, and simply doesn't have the vocabulary to describe the actual emotion taking control at that point in time. But the emotional part is me is concerned about the grip of fear which has taken hold of him, and wonders what to do about it... Parenting can be tough... But this too shall pass... 6:40 am...