Sometimes the fear of the thing is greater than the thing itself. This is a phrase I use often in talking with a variety of people in a variety of settings. The gist of it is this: sometimes I get myself all worked up and anxious about something I have to do that has the potential to go badly. I fuss and fret, wringing virtual, metaphorical hands as I prepare myself for this event, playing out what I was going to say or do and what the other person would do in reaction, spinning out stories and scenarios until I’m filled with dread. Then the event I’ve been anticipating comes; and while it often isn’t pleasant, whatever I had imagined would happen turns out to be far worse than the reality of what actually occurs. Paradoxically, as it turns out, it’s been the things that I haven’t expected, that have hit me out of the blue that turned out to be much worse.
The other day I had a conversation with a person whom I had to give some difficult information that I wasn’t entirely sure how he would take it. I grew up being very conflict-averse and had no interest in delivering “bad news” to this individual. I was worried he wouldn’t take it well and I’d find myself in a difficult predicament if I couldn’t find a way to talk with him. Though I hadn’t allowed myself to get into a full-blown tizzy about the conversation, I was still a bit nervous going into it. In the end I decided to be myself, do my best, and offer my input from as helpful a space as possible. Fortunately, he received it in the spirit in which it was intended and was able to take in what I had said and be helped by it. I still have some work to do in reporting the outcome of that conversation to another person who is waiting to hear from me about how it went. So in that sense it isn’t quite over yet, not until I close that loop. But all things considered, I’d made it far worse in my mind than it was in reality.
I have been thinking a lot about what frightens me, makes me lie awake at night fretting, or wake too early in the morning with my mind reeling. I realize that much of what I’m afraid of is of relatively little importance in the greater scheme of things. When I look back on some of my life experiences that caused me the greatest pain or difficulty, they make some of the things I’m sweating over now look very minor in comparison. I am just now coming to understand Richard Carlson’s advice, “Don’t sweat the small stuff…and it’s all small stuff.”
This is one of those nights when I’m not fully articulating the message I want to get across. I guess I would say this, that when I think about my greatest fears–the things that really could keep me awake at night, striking terror into my heart–very few of them are connected to the small stuff that troubles me now. Don’t get me wrong, the “small stuff” sometimes brings unpleasantness and discomfort into my life and in that regard are often things I’d rather avoid than endure. But in the scheme of things, they are not the kind of life-altering events that my vivid imagination makes them out to be. I am grateful to be reaching this realization.
A couple of years ago I took a class on mindfulness-based approaches for dealing with depression and one of the key factors in contributing to a depressed state was what the instructor referred to as “catastrophic thinking.” This is when the mind spins out all kinds of terrible scenarios that could befall you if certain things were to happen. It usually starts out as something small, but by the time your mind gets involved and your imagination runs wild, you’ve built it up into an insurmountable obstacle that drags you into all kinds of unnecessary drama. The fear of the thing is greater than the thing itself. The key is for me to see this thing for what it is and not make it any bigger or more dramatic than it really is. And while that’s easier said than done, it is definitely worth the effort.
When my kids were little they used to be afraid of the grim reaper, yes, the tall, bony, figure shrouded in a dark, hooded robe carrying a massive scythe. They’d seen it on television and it had freaked them out. One night as I sat at my son’s bedside, his dark brown eyes wide with worry that the grim reaper might come pay him a visit, I walked him through a visualization (at the time it took the form of a story). “Imagine the grim reaper is standing there,” I told him, being sure to hold his little hand so he knew I was right there and he wasn’t facing the GR (as we called it) alone. “And as he approaches you he reaches up his bony hand and pulls back that black hood. And underneath it is a beautiful, bright light with the face of an angel looking down at you. It isn’t scary at all, it turns out that there’s really an angel underneath.” Somehow, at least for that little while, the grim reaper had been transformed from this fearful creature to a being of beauty and love.
I need to remember that when I am confronting the various “grim reapers” of my life that I similarly transform them from what I’ve made them up to be into what they really are–that I can see those things that seem so difficult, so frightening and catastrophic in a completely different light. I am grateful to be coming to this realization. The things I face in my life these days are challenging in their own ways, to be sure and yet the same mind that could spin out stories that make these experiences worse than they really are can also be harnessed to transform those difficulties into angels. For that I am exceedingly grateful.
