I realized something last night as a storm blew through. I have this primal fear about being able to keep my child safe, on my own, during an intense storm. It has become apparent since becoming a single mom, that this fear crops up when the electricity goes off in January and I worry about keeping Mina warm. It blows in when a wind storm swirls around the house and I feel like we might end up in Oz. You get the idea.
I turn into this mother bear protecting her young when I feel I can’t protect Mina in a situation I can’t control. The only thing that I can do is keep her close to me, so we pulled lots of books into my bed to read, snuggled up and went to sleep.
For those of you who know me, it might sound weird that I have this irrational fear. I have based much of my parenting on creating Circles of Confidence for Mina. The only way, for us, to teach Mina to learn to allow her a bigger circle of control within her environment; thereby, gaining confidence through success and learning through failure. Little by little her circle has gotten bigger and now she is capable of walking to a friends house and back up to a block away. Her independence and bits of self-reliance have helped her self esteem as she interacts with kids at school. She uses her strength to stand up to bullies of the littlest boy in her class and uses her voice with the girls who call her ideas “stupid.”
Fear can be paralyzing in many ways. It limits our beliefs and prevents us from moving forward. This theme spilled into my dreams last night: I was back in College and in a teacher’s office. Something I was being told, made me fearful and I escaped through the fire-door, setting off the loud alarm…So much for sneaking away! I also ran out so fast that I left my purse, wallet and phone on the teacher’s desk. I would have to go back and face that fear in order to reclaim my things. It wasn’t just me that was rebelling and resistant. Others were reacting the same way I was: escaping from the present. All of a sudden, the dream shifts to the outside campus with Alex walking down the street holding my purse. He asked me if I was listening to the air. No, my head hurt too much to listen. He said the my head hurt because I wasn’t listening. If I stopped to listen I would hear:
“I Am I. The fear I have in you began in me because we are all part of each other, mirroring each other.”
Fear is the beginning of learning what we need to work on most. The more we run away from it, the bigger the fear becomes. It is not just kids who need Circles of Confidence-We all do. If we tackle our fears, little by little, our confidence will grow just like Mina’s. Soon, maybe we will be as strong as her, standing up to the bullies in our own lives and using our inner voice!