Pretending to be fearless worked great until it didn't

Try this instead of just-trying-harder

The light is changing. The days are shifting.

My new rose bloomed:

The farmstands are full of pumpkins:

And I pulled out my first heavy sweater. (I need to find that pill-shaving gadget and give it a go. This sound nerdily satisfying.)

In all these changes, I feel the coming of the dark season. It’s a gentle darkness, a promise of rest and quiet.

But that is not the only darkness upon us.

These days require courage. And they’re going to require more.

I have spent so much of my life pretending to not be afraid, which is not the same thing.

I have successfully impostered a confident person—

chin up, smile on, open and close your hands so they don’t shake—

while being bone-achingly, teeth-chatteringly, shudderingly terrified.

Like most bad habits, pretending to be unafraid was an early coping skill that served me well once upon a time. I first developed it as a child who navigated some actually scary situations and learned that a brave front is a useful bit of armor.

I honed it as a young woman when I learned to just grit my teeth and do things even though they scared me. On some level I understood that because I was afraid so much of the time, which is to say basically all the time, I’d have to push through my fear if I was going to do anything at all.

So I got on trains and planes, made phone calls, and stepped into rooms that scared the pants off me.

I introduced myself and volunteered to do things that made me want to faint.

I laced my keys through my fingers and held my pepper spray as I walked through the dark streets with my head up, like someone you wouldn’t want to mess with.

I eventually learned to alchemize fear into fuel, to turn myself from a shy kid into an actor and public speaker, to use the terror racing through my veins as adrenaline. My greatest role was as a smart capable competent adult who didn’t have to take deep breaths before she put on her shoes every morning.

I always thought this was a good thing. Without that fierce inner push, I could see myself holed up in a tiny room forever, wrapped in blankets, shuddering and trembling.

Life would have been very small without that grit.

And in some ways, it served me well.

I’m the most social and outgoing terrified introvert you’ve ever met.

I’m afraid to get out of bed every morning but I’ll happily get up on stage in front of a thousand people.

Routine tax correspondence makes my heart race, but I can step into a conference room full of bullies and hold my own without breaking a sweat. I actually kind of like it.

Even now, I still push myself to do terrifying things. For instance: get a library card. Call the dentist. Find parking.

These things feel sooooo, so hard!

I just assumed they always felt hard for everyone. And that everyone else was just better at pushing through?!

(One time, I was reading through someone’s description of their diagnosed anxiety, and I yelled out to Nick— “Wait! Babe! Do you think I might actually have anxiety?!?!”—and he laughed so hard he started coughing. I was like, “Wait, what?”)

Anyway, I always thought that my path forward was to get better at pushing, forging ahead, to fake it harder and harder til I might someday, finally, make it.

But I have come to notice something.

I notice that all this push-push-pushing leaves me exhausted. That I crave relief.

And that all I want to do when I go away on my solo retreats is cocoon, collapse, sit still in the quiet. One of my great solo retreat indulgences is to literally hide under the covers.

Yes I have five kids, yes life is chaotic, and yet— it occurs to me, dear reader, that perhaps this deep yearning for collapse is a sign that things are ever so slightly out of balance.

Might there be a more sustainable way?

My fear isn’t going away. If anything, it’s more justified than ever.

(All you wise tuned-in folks who are writing me saying, “everyone around me says I’m overreacting,”— you’re NOT. You’re just paying attention. I’ll save that for another post.)

So lately I’m trying a new way of being with my own fear. Instead of obliterating it— fuck you we’re doing it anyway, watch me put on a brave face, roaarrrr— I’m trying to be WITH it.

I talk to my fear like the small child it is.

Hi honey, I see how scared you are. I’m right here. I’ve got you.

It is quite embarrassing, but also quite wonderful.

Because when I stay with my scared self, I magically activate a part of me who has comfort to offer. Who has grounded presence. Who is sturdy.

Which is a feeling that I never ever got to by pretending— a strange magic indeed!

And of course it’s all very confusing, because sometimes you do have to fake it til you make it. You act like the thing you want to become— brave, kind, an exerciser, someone with a settled nervous system— until it becomes an authentic part of you.

But I’m coming to think that maybe all that pretending was only ever supposed to work in short bursts. Because it does, actually, work really well in those situations: stepping onto a stage, stepping into a dark parking lot— a little bit of pretend bravado is a fantastic thing.

However, as a long-term strategy, it burns me out. It makes me feel brittle and exhausted.

And maybe, too, I’ve simply outgrown it. Maybe I finally got big enough and old enough to be a grown-up enough grown-up to offer all those scared parts safe harbour in my own presence.

What a funny thought: that at almost 50, I’m finally an adult, but with a bunch of scared five-year-olds still running around inside me.

I want to do better than pretending and then collapsing. There is a deeper-down sturdiness I want to embody. It’s a grounded humanity that translates into deep courage.

Here’s what I’m finding.

When I can stay with myself (I’m right here, hand on heart, you’re safe with me) there’s a great sense of relief.

And the gift of that presence is a softening.

It’s the very opposite of brittleness.

Which is so ironic, because I was so afraid of my softening, afraid it would leave me a collapsed puddle on the floor forever, a child hiding under the covers from her own life.

And I do collapse.

I do cry.

I do sometimes hide under the covers.

But when I can let myself do that, for five minutes or five hours, something always wells up inside of me again. An urge to emerge.

(If nothing else, eventually I always have to pee.)

I’d never practiced sating my own need for comfort and cocooning. I was too afraid of it. And maybe it wasn’t safe to.

But I’m trying it out.

I have to tell you that it feels incredibly delicious, like sinking into a pool of warm water. Like melting onto a heated mattress pad. Like a hot cup of tea on a cold morning.

So far, I always emerge.

I come out nourished deep down. I come out softer, but stronger. It brings me into my maternal power, which is powerful indeed.

(If this feels self-indulgent and privileged and spiritual-bypassy, I want to be clear that my goal here is to help anxious shaky people like me who CARE SO MUCH but can HARDLY GET DRESSED SOMETIMES figure out how to translate their deep empathy and care from frozen overwhelm into grounded, courageous action. Our goal here is to make a better world for us all. Cocooning is not the end, it’s the way through.)

So if you are exhausted from just-trying-harder, try letting yourself hide away for a minute. Try deliberately cocooning. Try wrapping a sweater around yourself. Sit in your closet. Whisper tender embarrassing maternal things to yourself, like, I’ve got you honey, I’m right here.

Really stay with the part of you who is freaking the fuck out. Nod. She’s not wrong. But let her know you’re with her. Offer her your presence. Don’t try to make her pretend. Give it a minute. (I recommend doing this in the bathroom, especially if you’re at work. Deep raggedy breaths help when you can’t afford to cry and ruin your face right then.)

As you give your compassionate attention to your own fear, notice that it is also you who’s bringing the compassion. Who has arms to hold. Who has presence to bring. Who knows how to comfort, to step alongside, to stand with. And then watch yourself stand up strong as a mama bear. A force to be reckoned with. With the softness and the power that are truly yours.

love,

Katherine

P.S. Thank you to all of you who joined me earlier this week for our autumnal equinox ritual! If you couldn’t join us, here’s a recording— half an hour to pause together as we tip over into the next season.

Here is how my bed looked by the end!

At the end of the ritual, we wrote down some things we’re looking forward to, inspired by Sophie Blackall’s beautiful book, and we’re sharing them, here. I’d love to hear yours! And let me know if you enjoyed this ritual and would like to do more. Happy Autumn, darlings. May you find beauty, softness, and courage in it. I’ll be back next week.

xo,

K