F.E.A.R.

Fuck Everything And Run

Face Everything And Recover

I have done both. And despite years of working much, much harder on the later, I still have the first one set as a hard default that I return to…despite knowing better.

Life is hard now. I am just going to own that. I am faced with difficult circumstances, which I guess is life’s job. I have been trying to avoid it. I have been running. I have not wanted to deal, to have to be an adult. I have wanted to close my eyes and pretend it is going to go away.

I have been here lots of time in my life.

It never works…so I am really clueless as to why I keep doing it. However, so far, I do come around. I do see the futility of my default coping strategy. I do see around it, finally, and I then begin to face the hard circumstances, and then, and only then, do I get any kind of recovery. Not just from the obsession of addiction, but from my own self centered fear.

It amazes me still that I am who I am and still operate from such a fear based place. I know that I am fearful yet, I have this ego that jumps in and says, “No way, you are not afraid, you are a badass and can handle anything. Keep going.” And that thought prevails until I hit a wall. Sometimes, I spend a few days in my bed sleeping and watching Netflix (this happens maybe once a year) but more usual, I just pretend it isn’t happening. Pretend that everything is ok. I get up, I go to work. I am by all accounts normal. However, I pay a heavy fucking price for that charade.

And the price is finally high enough that I am no longer willing to pay it. Things are not ok. My home life is intolerable. And I have to face that fact and then sit with it long enough for some new solution to present itself. I am not sure how to do that but I know that my time on the cushion has given me an ability to sit with unresolved problems instead of throwing solutions at them. I can just be still and allow whatever is supposed to happen to happen.

And that is what has been going on in the background while I am running as fast as I can in full flight from reality. I silently know. I feel it deeply. I am here in this place where I know that I cannot outrun this issue. I cannot shop it away, eat it away, date it away, exercise it away. It is here, literally sitting in my living room and I must deal with it.

So I am facing it. I am willing to do whatever it takes to deal with it. I am setting on a course that will allow for whatever happens to be what is in everyone’s highest good. Fucking everything and running is a strategy that keeps me forever stuck in a place that I do not want to be: life on Erin’s terms. Facing everything and working towards recovery gets me to somewhere new. And opens me up to Divine solutions that are not available to me when I think that I know anything at all.

So today, I admit defeat. I’m afraid. I do not know what to do and I will allow that to be a beginning towards ceasing to run. I am going to stand right here and face my familial truth. And perhaps, then, a new solution for a long term problem will be available to me that wasn’t available when I was running at top speed in full flight from my reality.

Face Everything And Reality is supported. And reality always wins…and I do know that by now.