the path where my feet have not yet walked

the next layer

avoidance. it's huge with me. i've been avoiding the issue i need to be dealing with next. each time i sat to blog for the past month i knew i needed to write about this, but i set it aside for easier topics, safer topics, topics about places i've travelled before on my journey.

this is a place where my feet have not walked. a journey i am avoiding. this is a place where i'm not sure i want to go.

i've heard that when a child is broken they choose one of the three major emotions to express themselves. anger, sadness or fear. mine was sadness. we weren't allowed to be angry in my house growing up, and fear was a very uncomfortable emotion for me, so i picked sad. every negative emotion i had was expressed through sadness.

i couldn't tell you how many times my mother told me 'oh, you just need to have a good cry.' crying was the 'fix' to any problem my mother identified in my emotional trunk. i became addicted to it, comfortable with it, it soothed me and made me feel safe. it was a release of the pain/shame/anger/fear in a way that was so familiar that the true emotion was masked or numbed, crying was my outlet.

when i first started into counselling and recovery it was my sadness and depression that we dealt with. it was the first layer of my onion so to speak.

next, with my violent outbursts and fits of rage directed at liam, i knew that i was in need of intervention in regard to my anger. that's when the abuse memories surfaced and i was able to truly begin an abstinence and find real healing.

guess what's left... yep, fear. yuck. i know i need to go there. i know i need to face it, i know it is something that i MUST do, but this layer of the onion is the most bitter, the most horrible, the most engulfing that i can even imagine. i am terrified.

i know from my own past experience that i truly will have the strength to face it when i finally take that step, and that my anxiety is only making things worse. but i have been coasting and resting, i guess building up for this climb. facing my fear is the highest hurdle i've yet to cross.

i've mixed metaphors and been all over the road, and i apologize. this is one of those posts that's more for me than for you. i knew if i didn't write it i would keep avoiding. keep stalling and pretending. it's time. i need to 'get off the pot' and stop dragging my heels.

i know that my massive control issues are based dead center in my fear. i've mentioned before that i am going to begin compelled to control by keith miller. i know that not wanting to deal with my fear is the reason i avoid finishing my other work book.

i am a firm believer in the fact that you are not responsible for information that you don't have. so right now i am in this 'state of grace' that allows for my insane control freak behavior and explains away my issues. but it's time to move forward. to stop avoiding and really sink into this next layer of the onion and my psyche. breathe... breathe... lord, help me to be willing to be willing...