How To Turn Fear Into Resilience and Start Living Freely

How we can turn fear into resilience and start living freely.

It was a cool, late night in the summer of 1994. The streets threatened an air of restlessness as we sliced through the night air on high alert. My mother and I sat shamelessly in her dishonourable green Skoda as we navigated awkward conversations to avoid the reality of what we might find.

We spoke about Blur’s new song Parklife or how funny we found the movie ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral” - anything to distract ourselves from the impending question –

Is he dead or alive?

My brother had run away from home again and at the tender age of 13 we wondered how he could survive alone. He was a quiet, innocent, child with a gentle soul who had become involved with a local drug dealer and his gang members. Maybe to find acceptance and admiration amongst his peers or maybe – just maybe to distract himself from the internal pain of our tumultuous home life. The gang held a heavy presence in his life but despite all attempts to groom his innocence my mother fought back with all her maternal love.

After several hours of searching, I felt my mind wander from thoughts of school and the exams I had the next day, back to my mother’s tear-stained face. Mindlessly eyeing the road, we watched for any sign of him as time slowed to an unbearable pace.

As the night grew longer our hope diminished. We searched every nook and cranny - Friends’ homes, areas he hung out, the YMCA, the local shops, park benches and even the alley ways and benches where he had been seen before but exhaustion loomed at the promise of sleep and defeatedly we halted our search.

We both sat – Surrendered and empty, embracing the unknown and praying for a miracle.

I was almost 15 at the time and although my adolescence gave me an air of feminine prowess, I was still a child in all rights. In this moment, however, I felt more woman than you could possibly imagine. I was more protector and nurturer than any 15-year-old should ever have to be, and this role became the backbone of my identity. I was the ‘fearless protector’ whose needs came last.

We don’t always realise how these moments store beliefs about ourselves and our world. We don’t realise how they create programmes that play out subconsciously in our thoughts and lead to our feelings and behaviours.

As a result of this experience, I stored a paradigm of helpless warrior somewhere within me. I learned that it was my duty to protect and support the needs of others and put my needs last, but I also learned that my needs shouldn’t matter and that I didn’t deserve love.

This paradigm led me to attract all sorts of challenging and turbulent relationships. My belief was ‘my needs don’t matter’ AND ‘I am not worthy of love’ so I attracted all sorts of relationships that mirrored these beliefs: narcissist, commitment phobs, emotionally and physically abusive people, materialists and people with control issues. All because I couldn’t state and truly believe this one simple statement…

MY NEEDS MATTER AND I DESERVE TO BE LOVED FULLY AND COMPLETELY.

I built my resilience from this awareness and with this one simple thought in mind and I repeated it daily as an affirmation.

MY NEEDS MATTER AND I DESERVE TO BE LOVED FULLY AND COMPLETELY.

As a result of this newfound awareness, I started to build my resilience with some simple tools.

I observed my thoughts of unworthiness and surrendered to them. I didn’t try to push them away, make judgments or feel shame because of them - I just watched and noticed them.

I now trust that these experiences are valuable and make me who I am. I have found gratitude for them no matter how painful they were at the time, and I have reframed my internal dialogue to make it more conducive to a happier, healthier life. I started planting new seeds for my life and future that validated my sense of self and learned to value and respected who I am fully and completely.

I recognised old thought patterns that went something like this...

They are not available for me

I am not lovable

There is something wrong with me

TO…

They’re not available for me

I am lovable

I deserve someone who want to commit time and energy into our relationship

I then started to take responsibility and ask myself where I had made mistakes in my relationships and take responsibility. I saw how my patterns of insecurity and lack of self-worth had sent me into spirals of reaction and lashing out. I accepted responsibility, apologised, and forgave myself.

I realised that my perception of myself and others comes from me and if I keep planting the same old dead seeds, I will simply get the same old dead results.

Then I took my power back!

I asked myself: what do I want to feel and how do I want to show up in my life and relationships?

I want to be strong and resilient but also open hearted and compassionate to my own needs and the needs of others.

This became my goal and daily intention which I wrote on a post-it on my mirror and used as a daily intention.

I started to develop a daily practice of reframing EVERY TIME I noticed myself slipping into old patterns of negative automatic thinking, I asked myself four questions...

1 - How do I see myself?

2 - How do I want to be seen?

3 - How can I take responsibility of my thoughts, beliefs, and behaviours?

4 - How can I stop giving power to these thoughts and reframe them?

It is my firm belief that if we want to start living from a place of inner strength and resilience, we must take our power back - away from our social conditioning. We must recognise the paradigms that are stored within us. The programmes that were created in childhood and reframe them to match our goals and desires. Living freely comes from a place of awareness and acceptance of what has been- it comes from honouring these experiences as valuable lessons and in knowing we can choose the life we deserve by planting new seeds conducive to our health and happiness.