Okay so it's the middle of the night and I've been awake for over an hour. It happens.
After a conversation with someone last evening I got to thinking about how the things we fear most MIGHT happen, we create without even realizing it.
Take poor Job for instance. He was so afraid that his kids would do something wrong (thought process: if they tick God off, He'll shorten their lives and then I'll lose them) that he was off every day to make sacrifices for their mistakes to appease God in CASE He got mad. Huh. When calamity struck and he DID lose his kids, he said ... well, he said a lot of things for which he's famous ... but the thing that few people realize is that he also said this: "That which I feared greatly has come upon me."
What a statement. The book of Job is reputed to be the first book written in the Bible, predating Moses. The statement he made was one about self-fulfilling prophecies. He had created what he feared most. Perhaps not for the reasons he thought - but it happened. Anyway, I'm thinking that this is some sort of parent/child rule or something. Let me explain.
The dad (let's say) has an upbringing where he's dirt poor, has to leave school when he's just learned how to read, in order to help increase the family income. He's never shown any attention except the unhealthy, smothering kind - or the in-a-rage kind. He believes himself to be a good-for-nothing. He becomes a dad and his worst fear is that his child will be like him. So at the first mistake his kid makes, he says, "What are you, stupid? if you keep this up you'll never amount to anything." Translation - I'm so afraid you'll be like me. I want so much better for you.
But that's not what the kid hears, not what he takes into his heart. He says to himself, "I'm dumb. I always screw up." And that belief shapes his life. Every time he makes a mistake, he hears the same words from his dad and thinks the same thoughts. It becomes the way he defines himself. The father's fear becomes the child's reality. The sad part is, it is totally NOT based on reality. Kids make mistakes. It doesn't mean they're stupid. They need someone to show them how to do it right, so they'll succeed - to encourage them when they do it right and say, "See? I knew you could do it!"
Sustained and unrealistic phobias like that produce the very objects of the fear. I've seen it happen in my own life and in the lives of so many others.
A mom is brought up in an alcoholic, abusive atmosphere. She survives it by believing that she has to be perfect at everything and sets about to hone her housekeeping and caretaking skills. By the time she has moved away and had kids, she has perfected her skills to the nth degree. She is so afraid that her daughter will be a lousy housekeeper, thinking that this is what makes a successful wife (a wrong assumption).
So she alerts her daughter when she is not doing something right. Every time. Never the successes, just what the daughter forgot to do or didn't do thoroughly enough. Usually in a tone of frustration (born from fear.) "Can't you do ANYthing right?"
The daughter grows up thinking that she never does ANYthing right ... ever. She might just give up trying, after years of wanting to please but never hearing anything positive. So the mother's fear has come upon her; her daughter IS a lousy housekeeper and guess what - Mommy made it happen. The constant criticism has made her daughter think, "You know what? if the only person who can do it right is you, then maybe YOU better do it. I'm done." Then the mother's fear changes. Now it's that the daughter will be a lazy person, and never get a husband. And the message the daughter gets? "I'm lazy. Might as well admit it, nobody will ever want me. I'll always be alone."
That cycle of fear is hard to break. The only thing I've found that can break that vicious vortex of pain ... is TRUTH. The person who realizes that his or her life has been shaped that way has two choices: continue to live as a victim or ... the harder choice: tell that little child inside the truth for a change. It is possible to refuse to believe the lies, the projection of fears to which he or she has been subjected, those self-fulfilling prophecies. But it takes time and a LOT of desperation and willingness to trust in God for the strength to do it!
It is possible to be the parent that the child never knew - to give oneself the lacking affirmation - even if it feels self-indulgent (and it will) - that was never given. A person does not have to live the rest of his or her life with that kind of condemnation. It is okay to feel good about oneself. Someone else's fear is that person's stuff.
It is possible to help that stunted child start to develop and flourish. Truth plays such an important role in that, but it needs to be repeated over and over (because the fear-based lies were repeated over and over).
I know because it happened with me; I have healed from many of those things and the process is still ongoing. It was difficult at first - but I figured nobody else was going to do this for me and it was high time I stopped expecting other people to play nice and pay me back for all the years they stole from me. So I learned to say things to myself like: "I can do things right. My feelings are important. I am worth knowing. People can like me for who I am. I don't have to pretend to be someone I'm not. I am allowed to be good to myself. I am allowed to make mistakes sometimes. I am smart. I am a decent person." Slowly - very slowly - those old beliefs and self-condemnations started to drop off me. They're still in the process of being reversed. I'm feeling more comfortable in my own skin, and am finding that as I do, I am better able to let go of those old hurts.
Fear doesn't control me the way it did; other people's fears have largely lost their grip on me and I can let go of my own fears more easily as a result.
There is hope.
After a conversation with someone last evening I got to thinking about how the things we fear most MIGHT happen, we create without even realizing it.
What a statement. The book of Job is reputed to be the first book written in the Bible, predating Moses. The statement he made was one about self-fulfilling prophecies. He had created what he feared most. Perhaps not for the reasons he thought - but it happened. Anyway, I'm thinking that this is some sort of parent/child rule or something. Let me explain.
The dad (let's say) has an upbringing where he's dirt poor, has to leave school when he's just learned how to read, in order to help increase the family income. He's never shown any attention except the unhealthy, smothering kind - or the in-a-rage kind. He believes himself to be a good-for-nothing. He becomes a dad and his worst fear is that his child will be like him. So at the first mistake his kid makes, he says, "What are you, stupid? if you keep this up you'll never amount to anything." Translation - I'm so afraid you'll be like me. I want so much better for you.
But that's not what the kid hears, not what he takes into his heart. He says to himself, "I'm dumb. I always screw up." And that belief shapes his life. Every time he makes a mistake, he hears the same words from his dad and thinks the same thoughts. It becomes the way he defines himself. The father's fear becomes the child's reality. The sad part is, it is totally NOT based on reality. Kids make mistakes. It doesn't mean they're stupid. They need someone to show them how to do it right, so they'll succeed - to encourage them when they do it right and say, "See? I knew you could do it!"
Sustained and unrealistic phobias like that produce the very objects of the fear. I've seen it happen in my own life and in the lives of so many others.
So she alerts her daughter when she is not doing something right. Every time. Never the successes, just what the daughter forgot to do or didn't do thoroughly enough. Usually in a tone of frustration (born from fear.) "Can't you do ANYthing right?"
The daughter grows up thinking that she never does ANYthing right ... ever. She might just give up trying, after years of wanting to please but never hearing anything positive. So the mother's fear has come upon her; her daughter IS a lousy housekeeper and guess what - Mommy made it happen. The constant criticism has made her daughter think, "You know what? if the only person who can do it right is you, then maybe YOU better do it. I'm done." Then the mother's fear changes. Now it's that the daughter will be a lazy person, and never get a husband. And the message the daughter gets? "I'm lazy. Might as well admit it, nobody will ever want me. I'll always be alone."
That cycle of fear is hard to break. The only thing I've found that can break that vicious vortex of pain ... is TRUTH. The person who realizes that his or her life has been shaped that way has two choices: continue to live as a victim or ... the harder choice: tell that little child inside the truth for a change. It is possible to refuse to believe the lies, the projection of fears to which he or she has been subjected, those self-fulfilling prophecies. But it takes time and a LOT of desperation and willingness to trust in God for the strength to do it!
It is possible to help that stunted child start to develop and flourish. Truth plays such an important role in that, but it needs to be repeated over and over (because the fear-based lies were repeated over and over).
I know because it happened with me; I have healed from many of those things and the process is still ongoing. It was difficult at first - but I figured nobody else was going to do this for me and it was high time I stopped expecting other people to play nice and pay me back for all the years they stole from me. So I learned to say things to myself like: "I can do things right. My feelings are important. I am worth knowing. People can like me for who I am. I don't have to pretend to be someone I'm not. I am allowed to be good to myself. I am allowed to make mistakes sometimes. I am smart. I am a decent person." Slowly - very slowly - those old beliefs and self-condemnations started to drop off me. They're still in the process of being reversed. I'm feeling more comfortable in my own skin, and am finding that as I do, I am better able to let go of those old hurts.
Fear doesn't control me the way it did; other people's fears have largely lost their grip on me and I can let go of my own fears more easily as a result.
There is hope.
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