In Charles Dicken’s classic story about Christmas, Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by three different ghosts. Each one has a different message and showed him something new about his choices.
Soon after finishing with one, Scrooge was face to face with another challenge. Each one had its own frightful elements.
I find that ghost are a good metaphor for discussing affairs. You have a lot of emotion and limited substance. Rather than discuss all the ghosts you’ll face in recovering from the affair, I’ll focus on just one.
The first ghost you’ll encounter is that of fear. From the moment your brain realizes what is going on, the first sensation that hits you is fear.
Fear is powerful, long-lasting and fast. To give you an idea of how fast, researchers have found that fear reaches your awareness 10 times faster than other emotions or material.
The impact of that speed is part of what makes the news of the affair feel like a powerful blow. When anything hits you as fast as fear, it makes an impact.
When the fear hits, your brain quickly scrambles in reaction to it. In those first milliseconds, your mind totters between fears of smothering to fears of abandonment.
It’s at that moment that what you are afraid of is just as real and tangible to you as a chair in the room. Your mind starts thinking that the fear has come to pass.
Within moments, due to the fear, your mind starts bringing up memories from your past that reinforce what you fear. You start thinking those things ‘prove’ your fear is real.
You body may even start shrinking as you literally become less of a person than you were before. Those actions reflect what you’re experiencing. It’s during those shrinking moments that you back down and entertain thoughts of isolating yourself.
Fear is also contagious, spreading from you to others. You are also more vulnerable to catching fearfulness from others as well.
Those thoughts are powered by fear. Acting on them only gives them more power in your life. At Restored Lifestyle, you’ll find ways of confronting and moving past fears like these.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
