Just breathe

It never ceases to amaze me, how much fear rules us all.

I am not the only person on the earth that is running from fear. Fear is in all of us.

Now that I am running WITH my fear, as apposed to running away from fear, (hoping to eventually stop running and FACE fear), I can look around me and see that there is a whole marathon of fear runners, some of us are jogging at a nice calm pace, some running full out, sweating and out of breath, ready to collapse from their exertion.

One of the greatest realizations I have had, is that fear comes out as anger sometimes. My Dad, love him, is a classic fear/anger guy. When he is in a moment of total fear he lashes out in anger, always has, always will. Knowing that, I can step back when he is lashing out at me and see him for who he really is, someone that has lived the same painful life as me, more painful because he didn't have a childhood where things were pretty easy, he battles his own fears in his own way.

I also realize that I scare the shit out of him. I am his only surviving family member, THAT IS pretty terrifying. I am the least secure one of our family, as in, when he makes me scared or angry I do a disappearing act. I don't call, I don't write, I ignore him and cease to exist, for a long period of time. Just writing this now, I just realized, I am scaring my dad, and that hurts me, because that hurts him. I am scaring the person in the world I am most afraid of. WOW!

Why am I scared of him? He never physically hurts me, he controls his temper enough for that, but when he feels scared or trapped, he says the meanest things he can think of to push me away. All the self-hate that resides in me, in my head, hear his insults, his anger and his distain and they feed on it. I grow to hate myself, and I fall apart, I spread my hatred into anger, and I push everyone I love away from me, because I no longer believe I deserve love and I actually don't want it.
We all have felt this way. I know that. We ALL have someone we think is judging us, and they probably are, and we take that opinion and we let it override our own opinion, let it destroy our inner peace, the self love we have built and the confidence we have worked hard to rebuild.
Damn, that’s horrible. Why are we judging each other? Why is this concept even happening?
Such crap.

This needs to stop. We all do it. I think we do it to divert attention away from ourselves, to give people something else to look at. "Don't look at me and all the crap I am carrying...look at THAT person!”? This is a cycle I would like to stop. It won't be easy, because it's there to take focus away from my own flaws, but its time to see them, answer them and leave others alone to do the same thing.

I am guilty of judgment, not often, but I do it. Although I usually only judge my judgers, I have accidentally shot an innocent down with my biting comments. That’s not fair. I don't know the story behind why they are making mistakes. Who am I to expect perfection from anyone? It is impossible. It is hateful to make someone try harder to be accepted by you. It is hateful to predetermine someone is unworthy of love by some mistakes they have made. Probably the same mistakes we would make if we had the same story.

Oh I won't stop calling people on their crap if I don't think they already know it, because sometimes people do the things they do because they have no idea it's harming others. So I will let people know from time to time that they are hurting others, but I will try to keep judgment out of it and try to find out why this person is struggling instead. So they don't have to fear me, so they can stop running from the fear, so they can breathe.

Being fearless is not possible. I wish it were. Before I breathe my last breath, I want to be rid of it all, take that final breath without the constriction of fear, without the worry of judgment, without hesitation.

I just want to breathe and fill my lungs and take peace.

Just Breathe.