Sometimes Being Still is Fear, not Faith

If I don't move, maybe no one will notice

Our dog Cam had a lot of quirks. One of the things he’d regularly do when he was caught with food from the trash or something else he knew he wasn’t supposed to have would be to stand as still as possible while not making eye contact. You could call his name from a foot away but he would be as still as a statue for longer than you would think possible. It was as if his refusal to acknowledge you also rendered him invisible.

Being afraid can make a creature do some quirky things sometimes.

Like Cam, I’ve inadvertently been wondering how still someone has to be before the people looking at you eventually give up and move along? It’s strange to find yourself completely frozen in the season where the world is waking up. But alas, I am ready to name that I have found myself smack dab in the center of the fear response known as freeze.

To be fair, some of this has been the busyness of my season of life and the activities and sports and events of three school-aged children. But I know in my heart that when it comes to the way that I show up here on Substack, I have been a proverbial deer caught in the headlights, staring at my computer screen, at my phone, at my own reflection and I have been unable to move.

A few months ago, I accidentally left the safety known as “pretend you don’t have dreams or goals so no one will know when you give up” and started down a path of risk and vulnerability.

I have had so much momentum and energy over the last few months. I have been writing and creating and dreaming. I have begun to do the things I have been longing to do for years. Next month, I’m going to a conference in another state for other women entrepreneurs. Who even am I?

I’ll tell you who: I am Jessie Spano from Saved by the Bell: I am so so excited. And I am so scared.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have completely stalled out. Fragmented. Blanked. Lost my ability to write anything or think clearly. The longer I don’t do anything, the harder it gets to return.

The good news is that I know what is happening.

I know I am afraid (of course I am, I’m trying things I’ve never done before),

I know I am limited (I am a person, not a machine, and I am a person with significant anxiety and panic disorders),

I know I am in an intense season of parenting (good Lord, have mercy)

and I am committed to tending to myself, my family and my health above my work.

Even in my freeze state, I have been able to remind myself that these are values that ground me. When I fragment and can’t figure out what to do next, I steady myself by remembering what matters most to me, even though it often feels really bad to not be able to access my creativity or endurance in other areas. I know I am able to return to those foundations because of the hard work I’ve done in the past and the muscles I’ve built over time. I’m really grateful for that.

And I’m still disappointed that I’ve lost my creative momentum and confidence over the last couple of weeks.

An earlier version of me would have heaped shame and criticism on myself for not accomplishing the tasks on my list, for not writing on the schedule I’ve set, for not being able to push through and work harder and figure it out.

This version of me isn’t much kinder but she’s trying to be. She hears the voices of shame and recognizes them for what they are. She’s still disappointed in her limitations and longs for more capacity, more drive, more endurance.

But she knows she isn’t lazy and she’s doing her best to fight against those voices of condemnation.

She knows she works really hard and that no one can tell anyone else what their best looks like. She knows that what looks like someone else’s hard work and ability to be more productive and successful might be their form of avoidance or escape. She knows there is no one size fits all measure for what a healthy pace of existence looks like because everyone has a different story and capacity and set of tools and skills. She knows there is no use in comparison.

Even though she still does it.

An earlier version of me would have quit all of it, called the whole thing off, decided she wasn’t really a writer, wasn’t really as smart or creative as others or maybe she just wasn’t ready yet. Wrong season, bad timing, wait it out a little longer.

Average, apathetic me has always been a safer person to be. Keep the expectations low, keep the big emotions tamped down, play it cool and breezy. No one can hurt you if you never cared anyway.

This present version of me is welcoming rather than rejecting her tenderness. She cries more, sometimes even where other people can see her do it. She’s much softer and dare I say it, sweeter. She’s traded some of her armor for openness and let herself risk the waves of grief that come with cracking open the iron plates of protection that kept her heart locked up. But it’s painful out here admitting that you feel things.

Feelings can really slow a girl down, especially when she’s got shit to do.

Earlier versions of me thought she could read a few parenting books, follow the rules and the formulas would all equal happy, adjusted kids. She didn’t really need anyone else. Present version of me realizes that she is her own beautiful complex combination of genetics, trauma, mental, emotional and physical health issues and all of these things affect me and my children every single day. Present me realizes that parenting in the connected, grounded and attuned way I want to parent will often take everything I have. She also knows that there is not much better than admitting to a few safe people that you actually do need some help and realizing the gift of bearing each other’s burdens and carrying one another’s fears.

Present me knows that healing from my own trauma while parenting kids with trauma while trying to minimize additional trauma while being a person who has her own limitations because of said trauma is exhausting and depleting and the work I am called to do first and foremost. More than anything, this is the way I would like to change the world: one safe, connected child at a time. And that journey, hate it though I may, always starts with reparenting and caring for the child within.

The thing about being stuck in proverbial headlights, about staring back at what you’re sure is a predator, is that you eventually realize that the powers that have frozen you are your own. The meanest voice of all is often the one inside of you. But what if you got a little curious and tried to figure out what she was actually saying under that sarcastic, biting tone? What if you invited that part of you in for some hot tea or a Diet Coke and asked her what she was so upset about or so scared might happen? What if you let her know that it was okay to be afraid and she could rest when she needed to, that she didn’t actually have to be on such high alert all the time, that maybe she could let someone else stand guard every once in a while?

I think this whole earthly deal is about learning to trust that we are loved and held so that we can love and hold others, of trusting the slow steady work of stepping into the light, of being willing to take a chance that the shaky ground will hold not because of how hard you work or how much you push aside your own needs but because you’ve learned that you have everything you need and all the time in the world. Our good work is to radically love and be loved. As my friend Tanner says, life is not a race and you are not behind.

These are things I tell myself because I need to hear them over and over again. I tell them to you because I hope someone else needs to hear them too.

I don’t have it figured out and I think past, present and future me will always feel a little bit behind. There’s so much I’d love to do and be and experience. I love life, I love the world, I love this human existence even with all of its pain and refuse to give up on the hope that we could, together, make this place beautiful. I think I will always feel a little bit resentful rather than content with my lack of control and inability to heal the whole world. The voice of God will always remind me that my work is small and good and meaningful, that it first exists between God and me deep in my tender little baby heart, that breathing in my own settled safe nervous system is the only real foundation for offering a grounded presence to anyone else.

And so I return to my good, small work. I breathe. I cut up strawberries for my kids and make sure their favorite yogurt is in the fridge. I take stupid walks. I work hard and hope that more work will come and that I can offer goodness and meaning to the world. I try to keep my hands open. I try to trust that God will provide what we need. I don’t like the frozen version of myself but I will honor her and sit with her until she’s able to thaw out a little bit and reenter the wildness of growth again one tiny step at a time.

As always, my favorite thing is to walk alongside others as they do their own good, confusing, holy and difficult work. Thank you for sharing your stories with me.