Fears

If someone told you to write a list of everything you're afraid of, could you do it?  How long would your list be?

Part of the AA steps is to write a fear inventory, which is just that: a list of fears, their cause, and how they've affected you or caused you to do.

When the topic of fear comes up in meetings, a lot of people say that when they came into the program they didn't think they were afraid of anything.  That was not the case for me.  I knew I had some very real, very intense fears.  But I really didn't realize just how long my list really was.  I told my sponsor it would be easier to list things i'm not afraid of!  When all was said and done I had a list of nearly 70 individual fears, with some broad ones like the "worst case scenario" fear of whatever could possibly go wrong happening.

The idea behind the fear inventory is that a lot of the way we act in life is based on our fears.  For example, my fear of rejection causes me to shy away from potential friends and not allow myself to get close to anyone.  My fear of being hurt causes me to get defensive around ppl, start fights, etc.  These used to always lead me to drink because they were so overwhelming.  Now I'm starting to be able to see them for what they are and not get too crazy overwhelmed.  It's actually been an amazingly freeing experience to read through all my fears with my sponsor.  I've started feeling a new sense of calm and a new ability to deal with struggles/fears when they arise.  It's another really amazing transition.

This fear inventory writing happened about a month ago.  Fast forward to this week and some of it's coming up again in an interesting way.

I work at an outdoor adventure summer camp.  This week we had a little boy (8 years old) who's medical information listed "mental illness: anxiety."  His mom didn't give us much more information except that he's worried about rock climbing (which lots of kids are so that's not a big deal).  From the very beginning this child was acting out like crazy.  He refused to do anything we asked of him, said he wasn't interested in anything about the camp and that all our games were boring.  We knew we were in for a long week.

But as the week wore on I realized that pretty much everything he was doing was out of fear.  Just like my fear caused me to be mean, manipulative, clingy, etc., his was causing him to be what we were considering difficult.  He was refusing to do things because he was afraid.  This really came out on our rock climbing day.  We were getting harnesses and helmets on and I realized that he had disappeared.  I turned around to see him hiding in the van.  I sent my co-instructor ahead with the other kids and I got in the van with him.  He told me he wasn't going, and finally admitted that it was too scary for him.  I told him that by getting a harness and helmet on he had already taken his first small step of bravery.  I promised him that I wouldn't make him do anything too scary, but we were going to spend the day taking more small steps.

I got him out of the van, and even the hike up to the rock climbing site was scary for him because it was on a hillside.  He stopped a few times and told me he wanted/needed/was going to, go back but I kept him going talking about taking more little steps until we eventually accomplish our goal.  We made it up and I found him a place to sit and had him be group photographer while others climbed.  Eventually I got him to help with the back-up belaying jobs (we run it as a rotation so the kids help out first with jobs and then get to climb).  When it got to be his turn to climb he said no and I said I'd just show him the knot to tie in and we'd see how that felt.  We got him tied in and I gave him my hand and asked him to step forward towards the rock.  He grabbed my arm with an unbelievable death grip but he did it.  I asked him to put both hands on the rock and I did, and we took his picture.  I asked him if he wanted to attempt a step up on the rock and he said no so we stopped there and congratulated him on his climbing.  Because really, that's what he did.  It may not have been climbing like the other kids were doing, but for a kid too scared to step out of the van in the parking lot, it was pretty incredible!  I know how scared he was by the grip he had on me, but he faced his fears enough to reach out and put his hands on the rock.  Later on you could see the pride in his face as he told ppl that he'd tried climbing.

On the hike back down we had more issues.  There were some steep spots, and you can't avoid looking down when you're walking downhill.  For the whole first part he insisted on holding my hand and we slowly made our way down.  We continued to talk about little baby steps.  I slowly eased my hand away from him where I could, without ever making him let go.  By the end he was actually running and jumping over things!

The change I saw in him in just that day was incredible.  You could see that some of the fear was gone from him and he was starting to feel confident.  That was on Wednesday.  For the last 2 days of camp we didn't have any issue with him refusing to go.  When he did get scared I could talk to him about it and help him come up with a plan, see that we were safe, etc.  It was just so amazingly cool to see this transition.  But the coolest part was on Friday afternoon when his mom came to pick him up.  She thanked us and said the camp had been amazing for him.  She said that he's always getting scared about everything at home too, but now he tells his mom "Ms. River says I can do anything as long as I take baby steps!"  Totally melted my heart to know I was really having an impact on him.  But then his mom went on to say that he's now verbalizing his fears more, and becoming more willing to talk through them.  Holy shit!  That means I did something life changing.  I gave him tools that will stretch way beyond summer camp.  Or at least the start of tools.  He really did change so much.  By the end of the week he was sitting with and interacting with the group and making friends.  He was far from perfect, and still a very difficult camper, but the change in him was very real.

I couldn't have done all of that for him if I didn't have so many fears of my own.  My co-instructor really struggled to do anything with this boy and just got frustrated.  But I knew how to talk him step by step through a fear because I know what it's like to feel that way.  I know that feeling of lack of control, lack of safety, etc.  His fears come from a very different place than mine, but our fears gave us a connection and allowed me to be in a position where he could trust me.  My fears are lessening these days as I begin to develop my new life and trust in my higher power.  I love that I also now have the ability to use my experience to help someone else.

I started this week of camp angry/frustrated to have another difficult, "bratty" kid, since I'd had a super difficult one last week.  But now I can look back and be grateful.  I'm fairly certain that this boy's week would not have been nearly so good without the right instructor.  Most would've written him out as just being difficult, as I almost did.