u/Grouchy-Machine-3930

as i get older and experience more things (pain and suffering more often than not) i realized where all that triggers and strong emotions stem from is my ultimate fear of being alone. i would go to extreme lengths to tolerate disrespect, pain, being taken advantage of, and constantly people pleasing just to have those that i thought i need and want in my life to stay in my life. but i realized if i don’t overcome this fear it’ll keep creeping up in the subtlest ways in my journey to delay the healing of my body, mind and spirit.

everything i do its to protect myself from facing that single fear of being alone, of not being wanted by people that i love. but the more i focus on that, the more i lose my grip in keeping anything intact and eventually im going to have to face this truth.

do you guys have this one underlying thing you fear the most and so you would do things just to go around that and avoid facing the fear? and if you overcame it, what was the process? did you have to make the jump at some point into the void?

as i get older and experience more things (pain and suffering more often than not) i realized where all that triggers and strong emotions stem from is my ultimate fear of being alone. i would go to extreme lengths to tolerate disrespect, pain, being taken advantage of, and constantly people pleasing just to have those that i thought i need and want in my life to stay in my life. but i realized if i don’t overcome this fear it’ll keep creeping up in the subtlest ways in my journey to delay the healing of my body, mind and spirit.

everything i do its to protect myself from facing that single fear of being alone, of not being wanted by people that i love. but the more i focus on that, the more i lose my grip in keeping anything intact and eventually im going to have to face this truth.

do you guys have this one underlying thing you fear the most and so you would do things just to go around that and avoid facing the fear? and if you overcame it, what was the process? did you have to make the jump at some point into the void?

i used to count from 1 until i get very drowsy when i was little since i struggled falling asleep from time to time my whole life. now im all grown and still have a hard time falling asleep. i’d put on something calming to listen to and put a sleep timer on it but i find myself just listening to the entire thing and thinking in my head constantly and just replaying the entire video again and again. i take some supplements like vitamin B helped me a bit sometimes, l-theanine, magnesium, etc. but they all stopped working. i guess it’s just the constant thinking and hoping that’s keeping me up. any tips?

whenever we want something so badly that thing pulls away the harder we try to grasp it. but the second we decide we are going to let it go, it comes so naturally. it doesn't always work that way but some of the things that i wanted to achieve the most ive realized im better without.

letting go of someone i deeply connect with and want a future with is so painful. it almost feels impossible. every inch of me wants to stay just a little while longer to see if anything changes. but the longer i stay, the more i realize it’s just an empty nest. i imagine myself as this person who stays in the nest and waits and waits and waits and have built my whole identity around that to the point where my reality has been altered in such a way where it’s doing more harm on my wellbeing than good. this person i love so deeply and care for so much turns out to be someone im better off without. i get so scared when i think about my life without this person that it becomes so overwhelming sometimes it’s hard for me to get anything done or to even feed myself some days. i find myself numbing this feeling out by constantly spending time with this person and sacrificing more than what i can afford just to feel accepted and loved. but i know this is all temporary and i know the more i do this the farther i am from healing. i just can’t get myself to open up to this person and walk away. im afraid. of being alone. of hurting this person. of what’s on the other side.

we spend so much time living in our minds that our reality becomes what we have thought and imagined..what is the irony in that?

some of us find the need to suffer in order to build something greater and to come to know ourselves deeper but sometimes we don’t have a choice in how we suffer or what that suffering contains.

The title may seem pessimistic but hear me out. Will we ever wake up to our misery if we don't get knocked or teased in a way where it makes us crawl out of our comfort zones and see our bare selves looking right back at us? When we become oblivious to our suffering and just let the pain steer us wherever it wants us to go, it's fair to say we have lost total sense of control. When we look at ourselves naked, hopeless, helpless, shivering little souls just fighting for the next bit of temporary high, we are not only faced with our deepest fears but we are essentially given a blessing. That very soul that is staring back at us, looking for some sort of affection and reassurance is actually just a part of us trying to help us fix what has been broken for a long time. We all go out of our ways to inconvenience ourselves and suppress those deep rooted emotions but we never take that time to embrace our frightening little souls. At the end of the day whether it's love, affection, intimacy, substance, food or whatever that we may be looking for, absolutely nothing will be able to satiate our hunger or fill that void if we don't dig our deepest fears out and confront them. I think there is tremendous power in riding that fear out, both emotionally, psychologically, and physically. We have trained and programmed ourselves to react to everything our senses bombard us with constantly that we haven't got the chance to listen to the real alarm. It's there, quietly whispering to us in the background. It was always there. And the louder it whispers, the more we try to cover it up with our physical senses and the more we try to numb ourselves so we become completely ignorant of what we truly need. Essentially, nothing can be fixed unless we transform what we have as tools instead of misusing them. We also spend too much time finding fault whether that's in ourselves or others that we have become immune to these cues.

There is nothing better than sitting here in the silence with ourselves and understand where exactly that fear comes from and how we are benefiting off of it if we keep letting it determine our next move. Are we really benefiting from it? Or have we all just found our secret safe spot where we think we are thriving when actually it's eating us alive? We are digging ourselves deeper in the void. We are feeding into these emotions and thoughts that are stealing us of our healthy, lives, vitality, and peace.

But it's definitely not easy when that fear and anxiety takes over in the moment and you feel like you are left with a single option: give into it. It's digging yourself out of the years of what we have programmed ourselves to do that's the hardest. I will tell you one thing: it's harder to stay in the same spot for the rest of your life than it is to use that pain and transform ourselves. It's the moment we really understand no one is coming to save us, not even the very thing we have indulged in for years and years would be able to save us in the long run. Everything is temporary and we should know that things can change with a single thought. That's how powerful we have been created. We have these tools (thoughts, knowledge, positive social groups, etc.) to navigate us safely and not fall short again. Everything we do, we have a purpose, we can change that purpose at any moment and there is so much power in that. We just have to make it happen. Not just say it but taking an action.

So going back to the title, there is a lot to work with when we fall apart even if it doesn't feel like it in the moment. I've been stripped and torn inside out but that gave me the strength I need to get back up and the same goes for all of you.