Acting out of Fear

 

The things people do when they're afraid.  A strange thing that's emerged from my EdD studies, but perhaps an important one.  I've been writing about it in my thesis this week.  But something else happened this week on a personal level that I wanted to take time and document.  

I'm not good with endings.  I'm terrible at saying goodbye.  I'm much more the kind of person who, when faced with a situation like that, I'd often prefer to fade into the background than be confronted with loss or change.  I mean it's stupid the lengths that I go to.  This will probably sound stupid, but n December 2019, when the old college building I worked in for so many years was closed for the final time and made ready for demolition, I sat in my car and cried at length over a building.  Maybe because it represented the end of an era, or maybe it was expression of my fear of what lay ahead being different from the familiarity of my surroundings.  In hindsight it seems so stupid.  But I remember the feeling of sadness, exhaustion and trepidation I felt knowing the future wouldn't be the same.  

I suppose that's my long winded way of saying I can't cope with change.  It fills me with fear.  

The last six years have been filled with massive changes, frightening events and lots of learning.  I suppose the identity work that I've been doing as part of my EdD has helped me realise that change isn't bad when it represents growth.  Change is less productive when it prevents growth, but what I've come to realise only in the last few days is that acting out of fear stunts growth.  Growth is about feeling the fear and embracing growth anyway.

I don't know if any of you out there listened to any of the videos or read any of the books by Dr. Julie Smith @DrJulie.  They're nothing short of brilliant!!  I've written about my own personal struggles so many times, but just in the last few days I watched her latest video and it stopped me in my tracks.  I actually had to stop and recognise that what she's talking about was me.  She was able to put into words, feeling that I had struggled to articulate for so long.  

In her video she explains that our brains aren't programmed to make us happy, they're programmed to keep us safe.  That part made sense to me.  I'd read about trauma being the fundemental belief that the world was unsafe and how that fear response can lead us to one of three general responses - fight, flight or freeze.  What I hadn't stopped to think about was how those different responses manifest, at least not in my own life.  I'd seen those responses manifest in the behaviour of my students.  But I hadn't turned that same analytical lens on myself.  

However, just a few posts back in my blog, I wrote about my inclination to run away from conflict or situations that made me feel unsafe.  What I hadn't recognised was that my brain was so conditioned to a chaotic reality that the unfamiliarity of a safe, healthy and stable situation felt peculiar, abnormal and therefore unsafe.  So I normalise and run back to the familiarity of my chaotic life.  

It's taken me years to understand that part of myself and, now that I see it, how could I have been so blind.  When I think about all the relationships and friendships I've lost or sabotaged by acting out of fear... it makes me sad thinking about it.  When I think about what a different person I could have been if I hadn't been so busy running away and instead embraced growth and change.  I tried journalling, counselling, meditation...  I can't tell you how many rabbit holes I went down trying to understand this part of my behaviour.  I could see the patterns, but I could not understand them so I struggled to change them.  It wasn't for the effort of trying to understand and change, I wanted to be a better friend and a more stable partner - I simply didn't know how.  

I was convinced for so many years that there was something wrong with me.  Fact is that there was something wrong.  It was a trauma response rooted in the psychology of classical conditioning.  I had been conditioned to think that when the world is unsafe, retreat to the safety of solitude, return to the familiarity of family.  I see it so clearly now - my definitions of safe and unsafe were cross-wired with the familiarity or unfamiliarity of my environment.

           

Honestly this sixty second video brought me so much clarity words can barely express the relief I feel this morning.  Now at least I can begin to move on with an awareness of my patterns, an understanding of the trauma that motivates my behaviours.  More importantly, I now have the tools to try and change them.

Thanks @DrJulie.