The Magnifying Mind

The Magnifying Mind

Understanding Fear through False Focus

Personal reflections from a fellow traveler.  Not AA approved literature.  Shared in the spirit of Experience, Strength, and Hope.

What if they…?  What if I…?  I won’t be able to…

Fear knows me by name.  Sometimes its whisper speaks softly, telling me I’m not enough, I won’t make it.  Other times it screams so loudly nothing else is audible.  Fears’ incessant pestering can leave me anxious, worried, and unstable in all I do.

I’m slowly learning how to identify the voice of fear and separate its falsehoods from fact, although it appears there is much more internal work to do in order to find freedom.

What does the internal work look like?  For me, it begins with a thought that creates a scenario with the worst possible outcome.  I’ve learned that my brain does this for two reasons: 1. To fill a gap of the unknown.  2. To illicit a response that will protect me from this worst possible outcome. 

It’s here that the work begins.  The ‘work’ in this sense is to understand that the scenario my mind has created is NOT reality.  It is fiction.  It is false.

There is actual clinical verbiage that identifies these unhealthy thinking patterns.  The broadest term for this is called ‘Cognitive Distortion’.  Experts identify this as “a habitual, inaccurate pattern of interpreting reality. The thought may feel entirely reasonable because it is being generated by fear, shame, anxiety, past experience, or insecurity. 

The key word here for this individual in recovery is “Feel”.  It feels entirely reasonable…

Not only does fear need to be separated from fiction, but feelings should also be examined in the same way. 

When fear pops up it’s worth asking myself, “Where is my focus?”  Is it centered on reality?  Or is it intent on shifting me into fear?