Nature of Fear - November 1, 2009
I have always found Halloween an intriguing time of year. We decorate our houses in images of death and terror vying for the most gruesome scene on the block. Creatures that are synonymous with fear such as spiders, snakes and bats are carefully hung in doorways to attack unsuspecting victims. It is the one day a year when it is not only appropriate but encouraged to imitate demonic characters and try to scare the pants off of little children looking to score candy from strangers. It’s the one day a year when you wake up and get excited to confront the things that scare you most.
As Ghosts and Goblins started appearing on neighbourhood lawns I started thinking about my own fears. I think generally I am a pretty timid person. You put me around a spider and I am going to jump. If you rent a scary movie, I will spend most of it covering my face with a pillow or behind my hands. The rational side of me says there is nothing to be afraid of; the spider is surely more scared of me and it’s only a movie; what are you getting all worked up about? To which the irrational side defensively responds – Sure it’s not so scary when you put it that way, but where were you when the spider bared its teeth?
But what about deeper fears, what are things that day in and day out scare me. It’s not often that I feel afraid and when I reflected further I realized that my fears tend to manifest themselves in anxiety about tasks I need to complete. I have always had challenges with anxiety however because I was (or am) such a workaholic I attributed the anxiety to stress from work. I have been off work for 6 months and the anxiety seems to be persisting. I know the anxiety can’t be blamed on work but I still can’t put a finger on why I continue to be anxious. At the advice of my psychologist, I started paying more attention to my inner monologue when I began feeling anxious. Specifically, he encouraged me to try and determine how this inner monologue made me feel about myself. He wanted me to listen to the things I told myself, to determine the key themes that may be affecting my anxiety. He asked me to not just accept the inner monologue but to talk back and challenge potential comments or thoughts that may be unfair. I thought it was an interesting proposal and left the appointment ready to get to know my inner Alyson.
Over the past few weeks, I have been listening to the inner monologue. If you think “outer Alyson” talks a lot, you don’t want to spend any time with inner Alyson. She is NON-STOP. Constantly making lists of things she wants to, things she should be doing, and things she needs to do, she even goes over and critiques things she has already done. At most times the monologue is motivating helping me stay on top of important to-dos as well as challenging me to finish tasks that will help me reach specific goals. Although sometimes I do feel anxiety during these motivating monologues, I can most often relieve this feeling by telling the monologue to quiet down. Because I know how to manage my anxiety with this “motivator” I don’t think it’s these motivating thoughts that are at the route of my anxiety.
I paid closer attention and discovered another voice I had never noticed before. This new monologue contradicts the motivating monologue I first heard. The newly discovered thoughts would describe all the barriers that stand in my way of completing a task and would actually talk me out of completing a goal that the day before my motivating monologue had gotten me so excited to finish. For example, there is a conference upcoming at the U of C that a colleague is running. I believe I would be a great keynote speaker for the conference and decided after the September rush I would follow up to make a proposal. End of September came and went and for the last month I have contemplated emailing her with some ideas and to have her consider me as a keynote. A month ago my motivating monologue had me rehearsing my opening remarks and thinking about content but when it came time to move forward this new monologue interrupted and changed the subject from why I would be a great keynote to why the colleague would never consider me. A cynical voice explained that they probably already had a speaker, and that I don’t have enough experience; it even challenged my work ethic indicating that I would probably leave it to the last minute and do a brutal job so I should spare myself the embarrassment by even suggesting I should be considered. All of the cynical comments sent a clear message that this idea of being a keynote was at best, a terrible idea. The motivating monologues would attempt to challenge back however the cynic just got louder with more reasons not to move forward and would ultimately squash any residual excitement I might have about speaking. In this moment of conflict between my inner motivator and my inner cynic, my anxiety would rise to its highest level and I realized this cynic might be at the route of the problem. I took my psychologists’ advice and listened to the inner cynic to determine why emailing a colleague was making me so anxious.
When I stepped back I realized I was creating barriers for myself to mask that I was actually afraid of two opposing negative outcomes. First I was afraid of potential rejection. The colleague was a person I really admired but I wasn’t sure what she thought about me. I feared she would find my request potentially laughable or that when she presented the idea to other colleagues they might think it was absurd that I thought I could take on such a prominent leadership role. Conversely, I was afraid she might think I would be a great speaker and I was actually worried I would get the gig but that I wouldn’t prepare well enough, would ultimately present poorly at the conference, and embarrass myself. I realized the cynic was making excuses to hide the real fears that were holding me back; which were that I was ultimately afraid I wasn’t good enough. Moreover, I was afraid if I emailed I would put out an opportunity to validate this fear. My anxiety peaked when I articulated this fear and I knew that I was on to something.
When I looked at other projects I had on the go it became evident that this underlying fear that “I wasn’t good enough” was holding me back from a lot of things. Even thinking about confronting this fear would bring up anxiety and discomfort and I would hear the cynic again making excuses to help relieve the knots in my stomach. However this time the motivator had new arguments. It started to challenge why I was afraid and moreover told me the fear was really all in my head. The motivator reminded me of the type of person the colleague was and that the only absurdity was I would think that any of my colleagues would laugh at my leadership skills. The motivator reminded me I would have months to prepare and that all the writing and presenting I am currently doing would only set this presentation up for success. Moreover, the motivator called me to task to be accountable for my own sense of self-worth, to stop looking for external validation, and quite frankly, to just get on with it. Just like my fear of spiders, this fear of inadequacy was not only irrational but just plain silly and it was time for me to squash it and move on. I found the courage to send off the email and of course, the response was nothing like I had feared and was everything I had hoped for.
Yet there are still some fears that silence both the motivator and the cynic. I have a lot of new thoughts that come up which revolve around my mortality and none of my voices know quite how to handle these yet. Most of the time I am confident my treatment will be successful and my prognosis will improve but there are moments when the severity of my diagnosis sets in. I will remember how my grandfather, who died of a Grade III Astrocytoma, so quickly deteriorated and how my mom and Aunt Carol had to take care of him during his final months. I remember the woman who was across from me after my surgery and how she could not communicate with her family or nurses what she needed when she needed it although I knew that she still had a good mental capacity to know what it was that she wanted. I remember what doctors and statistics have told me that a good survivor rate is 10 – 15 years – which would make me 47 at the tail end of the curve. With these thoughts there is no inner monologue; just a scary movie playing in my head where the heroine knows that the killer is coming for her, she just doesn’t know when or how. She races through the field in a desperate attempt to save herself, but she knows the inevitable is coming. Typically at this point in a movie, I would change the channel for a moment, let the inevitable happen, then come back for the next scene however with the movie inside my head I can’t seem to find the remote. I play over the images of what is coming and all I can do is hide my head in the pillow to try and avoid my fear of dying.
Recently this fear of death really gripped me and I started to get pessimistic about my future. I was focused on all the negative things I thought were going to happen to me and was stuck on all the things I thought this cancer was going to take away from me. With my head figuratively in my pillow, I would replay the images of all the things I thought I would never get to do and moreover all the things I might never get to share with loved ones. It was a horrible scene that would only get worse each time I watched it. I needed to change the channel and knew the only way to do that was to take my head out of the pillow and find something to help me confront my deepest fear. I remembered a part in the book ``Anti Cancer`` where the author addressed the fear of dying, so I went back to that resource and reread his thoughts. Specifically, he shared a quote from Dr. David Spiegel who conducts research on how support groups help those with serious illnesses. Dr. Spiegel recommends that “What’s most important is to always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst.” Dr. Schreiber(author of Anit-Cancer) elaborated, indicating that for the most part people aren’t afraid of dying but rather people are afraid of the things that came along with dying – pain, leaving loved ones unsupported, not saying things that need to be said, or not being able to communicate what you need or want. With this new perspective, I realized that my greatest fear wasn’t dying but that I was afraid of not being able to die with dignity. Rereading Dr. Spiegel’s quote my inner motivator spoke up and told me to drop the pillow and for the first time really articulate what this fear looked like. I began to journal honestly, with the opening line “I’m facing my mortality head on today and it’s terrifying. ..”
I took my time and I confidently wrote out all the things I needed to do to prepare for the worse. I confronted images of loved ones taking care of me and thought about what I wanted that care to look like. I allowed myself to be selfish in my requests and for the first time put my needs in front of others. I allowed the cynic and motivator to talk without judgment and I started thinking about what action I could take to face my greatest fear.
My journaling soon became a list of concrete things I needed to prepare. Articulating specific tasks helped me deconstruct my fear of death and refocus this energy on things I was confident I could control. On this to-do list, an interesting idea arose – I wrote “Create a list of the things that I want to accomplish” I then crossed out the word “accomplished” and wrote, “Create a list of the things that I want to DO.”
I had never thought about things I wanted to DO and that idea knocked the fear right out of me. It was exhilarating. I grabbed onto the excitement of this idea and grabbed yet another journal. The opening quote on the journal says “First it begins inside your heart. Something moves then opens, then frees itself. And now you feel a rhythm breaking its long silence. This is going to be good.”
On the first pages, I faced my fear that cancer was going to rob me of time and ultimately rob me of experiences I felt I deserved. However, I also articulated that just like my fear of scary movies or my fear of inadequacy, this fear of loss of time again is also irrational. Everyone knows that ultimately we are all going to die and no one is guaranteed time on this earth, cancer or no cancer. When I deconstructed my true fear I found the confidence to face it and not let it beat me. I had finished preparing for the worst and now was ready to hope for the best. I wrote
“I can be what I want – enjoy life and all the parts of it, happiness, love, friendship, pain, grief, loss, with an open heart and courage. Cancer may steal time from me but it can’t steal the time of my life. My time may be shortened – but my life just got extended. Here is what I have gotten to do...``
I made a vow to consider daily, the tasks or events I do that I never would have done if I hadn’t gotten cancer. Things like on September 16th I played cards with my parents and a lifelong friend of my dad, Brian Cowan, and got to hear stories about what they did when they were all my age. On Sept 13/Sept 20th I attended a Christening for my friend Amy and a Baby Shower for my friend Mel. On May 23rd I had a party in my honour where 174 people came to tell me they loved me. ‘April – Ongoing` I receive emails, messages, phone calls, and gifts from people who tell me that I have positively impacted their lives. I started the journal on September 13th and to date, I have over 30 entries. The goal is not to be grateful for this disease but rather to recognize that I can refocus the energy I spend being afraid of what cancer might take from me and turn it into a great opportunity, which is a legacy of memories that will survive me in my friends and family.
It’s human nature to have fears however exceptional people have the self-awareness to understand that most fears are irrational emotions that hold them back from achieving their wildest dreams. It really is true that “there is nothing to fear but fear itself” and that “you gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face” It is still a daily struggle to find the confidence to confront my fears. I know I will have good days and bad days. Some days the cynic will win holding me back from taking a chance but I know most days my motivator will find a way to squash the spiders that stand in my way. Some days I will need to hide in my pillow to protect myself from the scary parts of the movie but I now know how to change the channel and take even my darkest challenges and turn them into my brightest opportunities. And I am confident I will find the courage and strength to look my fears in the face and I know this is going to be good.
Update – Alyson made a personal choice to not submit a keynote proposal for the conference described in this post. However, continues to speak for Alberta Cancer Foundation and will be starting a Professional Speakers Program in January of 2009. Alyson still continues her special events journal and has over 9 pages of entries.
