The fear prompt I posted the other day really resonated with people. I received many amazing emails from people out there facing and engaging their fears.
I recieved the email below and was blown away by it. Not only by the excellent writing, but also for me, it encompasses our condition to a T.
I asked the person who wrote it if I could share it all with you, and she wanted to share it, but wanted to share it anonymously.
I hope many of us frightened folk will take comfort in this woman’s extraordinary vulnerable strength.
And I hope you will see the beauty and power of being a survivor. We are all survivor’s of one thing or another and most of us are afraid to die and yet are unsure how to really live.
I hope you will leave the writer some comments in the comment section here.
The 21.5.800 community is turning out to be a powerhouse of inspiration and connection.
Maybe that’s a beacon in our confusion of how to really live fully with however much time we have with each other.
“I’m afraid.
Every time I do something brave, and every time I do something selfish, I experience strong fear and anxiety.
13 years ago, when I was 33 and my daughter was 3, I was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer which had already spread to the lymph. No family history, no ‘reason’, no warning. Just a sledge hammer which told me I’d been doing it all wrong and needed to try something else. At that time I was the only woman I knew who had – or had had – the disease. Except for my mother-in-law, Joy, who was in ‘palliative care’ as a result of recurring breast cancer at that time. She was dying.
6 weeks earlier I had miscarried my second child.
Amazing as the human spirit is I didn’t fold. I had a bad day and then I got on with it. We said goodbye to Joy the day after my radiotherapy finished. We went to Paris 2 weeks after my chemotherapy finished.
Increasingly, this is not now such a strange story. Thirteen years ago it was. I wasn’t expected to survive. The nurse who treated me in hospital used to cry. I tried to approach the whole experience and the years thereafter with courage and optimism. I still do. But the fear is only just under the surface. It was all so unexpected, so sudden, so unprecedented. It really shouldn’t have happened at all. There was no logic. Why me? And because of that I can’t stop worrying that, just as suddenly, it will come back to get me a second time.
No matter that I’ve re-trained as a nutritionist, changed my life, reduced the stress, aligned my goals and values, larned how to smell the roses along the way… I’m still scared that I can’t control the activity of my cells.
5 years ago I discovered a strange patch on my tongue. They cut it out and it was ‘pre-cancerous’. Since then I’ve had more pre-cancerous patches cut out. It’s called proliferative verrucous leukoplakia. The typical profile for this problem is men over 50 who smoke and drink. I’m a woman under 50 who doesn’t smoke are rarely drinks. I don’t understand. I’m scared. Of the surgery, which is very painful. And of the thought of the patches turning cancerous.
Whenever I try to reach for my dreams these underlying fears come to the surface, challenging me, threatening me, suggesting that it’s not worth going through the pain of achievement because I might not be alive to see it.
I’ve spent quite a lot of time telling myself that it doesn’t really matter if I live or die. But myself doesn’t believe it. I want to live, live, live. But I’m so afraid of dying. Of being wrong about healthy eating. Of having damaged myself in some unfathomable way that is my fault. Of having too many negative thoughts that turn my DNA cancerous. Of paying the price for the risks I took in my youth. Of deluding myself that following my dreams and invoking the law of attraction and surrounding myself with love and light will, in the end, make no difference at all.
I feel as though no one understands. I feel I should be ‘over it’ by now. I get very very grumpy when I’m stretched beyond my energy and comfort zone. Sometimes I think other people’s worries – money, career, romance – are trivial compared with mine. Underneath it all I sometimes wonder if, when I’m an old lady, I’ll look back on it all and bitterly regret all the time I’ve spent being afraid of dying. I hope so.
Don’t ask what the world needs, ask what
makes you come alive. Because what the
world needs is people who have come
alive.
{ 21 comments }
I wish I had guarantees to offer, or some wisdom …
I can only imagine what you experience.
There are some things I have learned from my best friend, Marty, who is battling cancer:
She does her best to practice compassion for herself, to treat herself gently.
She has banished what she calls the “blame the victim” mind set. Not just the ideas, but the people around her who tended to reinforce that somehow this is all her fault.
She gives voice to her grief, her joy, her fear, her hopes — she tells me she is learning to embrace all of her self.
She has been my best teacher.
I too, deal with fear on a daily basis. Everthing seems tinged with it. And I’m so so tiered of wrestling with it.
I can offer you my love and compassion. I can offer you an attentive ear.
Thank you for sharing your story with us.
.-= Kimberley McGill´s last blog ..Fear, Come Sit Beside Me For A While =-.
Thank you so much for posting this letter – it spoke to me. Twelve days before my daughter’s first birthday, I was also diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer that had already spread to my lymph nodes. That was 3 months ago. I start chemo tomorrow, and I’m a little scared of that, I’m even more scared of dying and not being there for my daughter.
What I’m trying to do is focus on really living. This letter helped me immensely.
.-= CoffeeJitters (Judy Haley)´s last blog ..215800 – Fear =-.
Moving letter. I am glad the writer was open enough to share it at all. One thing that has been driven home to me in my life is that we aren’t promised even another second. So I do my best to LIVE now…right now. I work hard to be sure those I love know that they are loved. I allow myself to feel, but (usually) don’t allow myself to wallow in feelings. I allow myself to be as good as I can be, and have learned to be content with that, for now. I don’t fear dying, but I hate the thought of being dead. I fear not living more than dying. I spent over 20 years not living…I was too busy living for everyone else. But not anymore. The take away from any life changing diagnosis, IMO, is to learn to live in each moment as best as you can. Don’t worry about the future, it doesn’t exist until you get there and often works itself out for the best.
.-= Gurl´s last blog ..41 Ways To Break Your Own Heart =-.
“Sometimes I think other people’s worries – money, career, romance – are trivial compared with mine. ”
They are. 11 years ago my little baby daughter was in the CICU of a children’s hospital. I used to ask the doctors if she was starting to heal or waiting to die. They couldn’t answer me. After two months in the hospital, the night before she was to go home, she died.
Life within intense medical trauma teaches you a lot of things. The inside of that dimension is something the rest of us spend our daily lives ignoring. We aren’t aware of the lives that change on a dime, sometimes several times a day, right down the street in the local hospital or clinic or research facility.
When my baby was there and I was by her side for as many waking hours as I could be, I used to call friends who had many children and say, “please just set your phone down and let me listen to a normal day for a few minutes”.
Our little day-to-day dramas are luxuries of sorts. Those days I was sure I’d never stress over a “normal” problem ever again. For a long, long time I didn’t. Maybe with long-term illness it’s different….death brings a level of closure that changes the dynamic from “waiting for something to go wrong”. I waited in fear for years for my other children, my other babies. Eventually enough healthy years closed the fear. In your case, with subsequent health threats, you never get that chance.
I would not compare my fears with yours. My fears that hold me back today are something I can overcome. They are, or at least their effect over me, within my control to a large extent. I can at least endeavor not to give them energy. That is a luxury and it puts my problems into a different realm. Overcoming fears for things that are beyond our control is where the true inspiration lies. It takes real courage, which you obviously have in strong measure. May your efforts be blessed and may one day soon, you have the luxury of worrying over something small and trivial.
.-= Tia´s last blog ..The annoying, self-defeating habit of the turtle-shell retreat. =-.
Such a beautiful post. Raw and honest. These words really touched me: ‘Underneath it all I sometimes wonder if, when I’m an old lady, I’ll look back on it all and bitterly regret all the time I’ve spent being afraid of dying.’
I think we are under the illusion that we are entitled to and should expect to be happy all the time. That somehow a fearless state is the exemplar of human existence, that we flawed and messy beings fail to reach.
I lost my mother suddenly and without warning. And then a year later my husband left me suddenly and without warning (well he left me a note!). I didn’t understand either losses for years. I was haunted by the idea that anyone I loved good die or leave at any time. This fear paralysed me in many ways and I felt like a failure becasue I couldn’t get over this fear.
These days I am happy, joyful, loved and in love. And I have days where I feel I am completely white-knucking it. I have days where I am sad and angry. I am not broken any more, I am just human. I have made my peace with this fears by allowing them to share my space. Sometimes they overwhelm me, sometimes they are warning me about something. They have taught me so much about myself.
On my strongest days I am grateful for them.
I identify strongly with the thought that something bad might happen to me, and it will be my fault, the result of some past behavior or choice of mine. I have those kinds of thoughts often, and they increase the darkness of whatever fear I’m experiencing.
I make a practice of saying to myself, “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
My partner’s business has been adversely affected by the recession, and my earning capacity is stunted by the fact that, in spite of many attempts, I have not been able to complete a bachelors degree. I’ve made a decision to believe and to act as if I believe that we’re going to be okay, as if we’re going to have what we need.
Sometimes, when the bank balance gets low, or an unexpected expense arises, icy fear grabs a hold of me. That is, until I remember that I’ve made a decision to act as if we’re going to have everything we need. I liken this process to that of meditation. I re-direct my thoughts away from fear and towards the belief that we’re going to be okay as many times as I need to.
I’ve been doing this for months now. Thus far, we have managed to meet our mortgage and bills, and, as we head into the leaner summer months, my fear and anxiety levels are much lower than they ever have been before.
Finally, thank you for the final line of your piece, this line, “Don’t ask what the world needs; ask what makes you come alive. The world needs people who have come alive.” It reminded me that “alive” is how I wish to live my life, whatever it takes. The line encouraged me. Sincerely, laurie
The strength you show in writing this post is probaly much further reaching than you realize. When I wrote my last post I briefly touched on some of my fears, but kept my deeper feelings private in journal form. I always saw expressing my own fear or asking for help as a sign of weakness, but in other people view it as a sign of strength. I have always seen myself as a strong woman, so I’ve been scared to state my fear outloud. You are a pure example of strength and power, to write your thoughts for others to read and learn from. I currently have a very dear friend at 38 battling cancer, I often don’t know what to say or do for them, so I simply lend an ear, a smile or be a distraction for a few moments.
I do not pretend to know what you’re struggling with and don’t want to be patronizing in what I say, but your words and strength are comforting to me. I have experienced death in the loss of some very close friends and seen the pain and anquish it caused as I worked as an ER and flight nurse, but I have also seen the incredible things people survive in incredible ways. I have seen the amazing strength people have and did’t realize it. In the last year I have started to take control of my health and fitness, but I everyday I’m scared(almost in panic form sometimes) that I will die young and fat, that I will somehow be punished for the choices I’ve made in my past and leave my kids without a mom. Scared that I started to change too late, that if something bad happens I deserve it, I push myself through each workout, scared each time it will be my last. I know this is not the same as what you dealing with(and my situation is in my control), but I can understand the emotion in it’s purity. Know your words are comforting and show your passion for life. You are inspirational. Sorry for such a long comment:-) Many hugs to you.
Tammy
.-= Tammy´s last blog ..Body and Mind Disconnect =-.
So beautifully there. If there are any niggling doubts about doing this project, or for you Bindu to have initiated it–you have your answer. The ability to share, to touch and feel others’ pains and joys–stumbles and growth–horrors and courage is invaluable. We all gain, all of our hearts grow just a little bigger. Thank you, thank you.
.-= Julianne Fuchs-Musgrave´s last undefined ..Response cached until Mon 14 @ 15:42 GMT (Refreshes in 1.31 Hours) =-.
Thanks to both of you for sharing this touching heart-felt letter. I am so moved by the courage of this person to share her deep fears and courageous outlook on life. It is a reminder to not get caught up in the daily rat race and drama we think our lives depend upon. We have such a short time on Earth, regardless of how long we live. None of us are guaranteed another day, another hour. It is hard to hold that awareness because it can be so frightening. But it really is an illusion, this idea we have that we will live to an old age, and even that that will be sufficient.
I hope this letter will encourage us all to practice meditation to come into contact with the present moment (if you are so inclined). That is the only reality where there is peace. Thank you for the reminder of our fragile condition, you have helped break me (hopefully many others) out of their slumber of illusion.
.-= Anne Tyler Lord´s last blog ..Yoga & Write Challenge: Creak & Moan =-.
I have been blessed beyond measure all of my life to know , beneath the fear and anger, in the quietness, that this will pass and I have the strength and that the world is a beautiful place. Faith that the universe is wise and that we ARE strong and that every moment is an opportunity to feel and be open and to grow wiser is the mantra I try to hold closest. I have not always looked at my crisis and challenges as lessons and opportunities but I can see from here that they were and now at the end of the hardest year of my life I am distilling the lessons that I had been storing up in the form of fear and pain.
I love your quote -“Don’t ask what the world needs; ask what makes you come alive. The world needs people who have come alive.” – Thank you for it. It is a fabulous distillation of your lessons and if you perhaps use it as your mantra I believe it will guide you to where you wish to be and free you from your fear.
you speak of fear and yet what i see is courage. the things i’m afraid of are nothing compared to what you’ve dealt and are dealing with. your ability to be courageous despite fear is moving and inspiring. thank you for sharing.
.-= amanda´s last blog ..things i do not like :: 12|52 =-.
You’ve lured me out of the closet
Thank you everyone for your amazing and moving comments. Thanks most of all to Bindu for creating a fantastic new tribe. It seems that fear is there for all of us, defined by our worst experiences to date. I love this quote from Kahlil Gibran and remind myself of it regularly:
‘The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.’
Sending love to you all to soothe our fears, great and small.
I adore that Gibran quote, and think of it several times a day. Sending you love.
Dawn, dear,
I can not fully express what I think in English, so I will only say this: you are a wonderful example of fearless woman, the fact that you are honest with your self and admit your fears, your wish to live and your worries makes you a very corageous person in my eyes.
Love & Love
.-= Francesca´s last blog ..Switch Off Sunday & 25/100 =-.
Thank you for sharing that – it was very moving – with a strength that shines right through the fear. Much love to you.
.-= Rhiannon´s last blog ..Monday Moodboard =-.
Dawn,
I read your letter this mornig, and I’ve kept it in my heart all day. Thank you for sharing your story, it certanly made me see my live through a different glass.
Is amazing what happens when someone just opens their heart an let others take a peek inside. We connect in a very deep level with each other. In my case, all my cells want yours to heal .
Much love to you dear.
.-= carolina´s last blog ..Carta a 30 de mis libras =-.
Wow very powerful. All I can think of to say is your fears are very real, as real as they are for people afraid of the outdoors, afraid of the unknown, afraid to be happy because it can all change in seconds, of those stuck in the mire of depression, and those that are addicted to drugs fearing they’ll lose control and die the next time.
Fear is a a strong as we let it be I think … it will take hold and not let go because we’re holding on to it as strongly as it hangs on to us.
.-= C…´s last blog ..#215800 Challenge Day 4 of 21 =-.
In 1996, my doctor found, through a circuitous and weird way, a tumor in my lung. I’d never been in the hospital except to have babies. I’d just started a magazine two years before and suddenly I was preparing to have my chest cut open on April Fools Day with no idea what the result would be. It turned out to be cancer but a less frightening kind called a carcenoid tumor. I was lucky. I required no treatment or followup except regular xrays and checkups. But it doesn’t stop me having that vague worry always at the back of my mind and a bit of superstitious survivor guilt that I got off too easy. So I understand a lot of what you’re saying. It’s been 14 years and the magazine is still going (Skirt! for women) and I am too. Still scared, still scarred but still grateful for one more day.
I feel so blessed by all your caring comments and so connected. Thank you.
Thanks for the letter. It set me thinking and I’ve written about it on my blog at the link above. I hope you’re coming alive with this writing challenge.
.-= Tom´s last blog ..Love cluster bombs and grass eating men =-.
This challenge really touched everyone very deep. It is inspiring to feel all the energy and support in the air! Onto discipline (I’m catching up
)