Fear Scale

Fear can be a good thing. It prevents us from putting our hands into an open flame. It makes us think twice before acting on something that may be dangerous. It’s that little voice in our head telling us to turn left or right or to not turn at all.

I believe there is a “fear scale”. At one end is the mild feeling of apprehension – like crossing a busy street. At the other end if full blown paranoia – like believing the boogey man is hiding in the closet. Too little fear can be just as dangerous as too much.

As the wife of an alcoholic, I can tell you that I have many fears that range all up and down the fear scale. Here is a sampling.

The fear that my husband will make a miraculous recovery and go back to drinking;

The fear that he will make the same recovery and not go back to drinking;

The fear that he will die a painful death;

The fear that he will never die;

The fear that I will die before him;

The fear that I will never have a sane, happy, loving man in my life;

The fear that I will have someone in my life that will become ill and I have to take care of him;

The fear that someone will come into my life and I will be the one who becomes sick;

The fear of living out the rest of my life alone;

The fear of trust;

The fear of not trusting;

The fear of losing myself by being what someone else wants;

The fear that I’m deceiving myself by thinking I really know who I am;

The fear of being unacceptable or not being accepted;

The fear that becoming accepted means I have to change;

The fear of not being heard;

The fear of being heard but misunderstood;

And the list can continue on and on…

What has worked for me is to take each fear as it rears its head and address it in the moment that it is happening. But, I’m a procrastinator so my timing is often way off which means I just plunge head first and worry about the consequences later.

I refuse to let all my fears rule my life. I have a fear of cutting myself when chopping vegetables, so should I never include vegetables in my recipes? No – I chop the damn vegetables and keep a box of bandages close at hand. I weigh my options. Is the fear of doing something greater than the fear of not doing something?

The point of this post is to suggest to you that you not let your fears stop you from fulfilling your dreams. Sort out your good fears from your bad fears, keep track of where they are on the fear scale and then live a full and complete life.

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