The Chains of Fear

I have been experiencing an intense inner battle lately.  It is stirring up my system and creating anxiety I haven’t felt for a while.

Don’t get me wrong, it was normal for me to feel this in the past.  I am grateful my anxiety has dissipated in recent years.  But it’s hard to find appreciation for my growth right now because I am inundated with this latest battle.  It takes most of my energy.  I think it is unusually strong because the controller is fighting for their life.  They do this often when new inner parts reveal themselves.  But something about this latest freedom fighter is making the controller extra nervous.

I named this new freedom fighter “the passive one” when I first met her.  She was relegated to this role because that is what society tells us to do with the feminine.  The feminine is weak and vulnerable, even lazy.  And so she became that.  But she is none of these things.  She is compassionate, but she is fed up with this world which takes the masculine too far.  She is a creator and a destroyer.  She is my Mother Mary, my Quan Yin and my Kali all together.  She is the feminine to my controller’s masculine.  She is the yin to my controller’s yang.  Yes.  They are twins and her power is as big (if not bigger).  She was suppressed from years of personal and societal attacks.  But she is no wilting flower.  She will no longer be suppressed.  She is the goddess. And she will never be passive.

Her message indicates big changes, the kind of changes that make a controller feel very unsafe.  She believes that nothing matters.  This started out being an entirely futile message.  “It doesn’t matter what I do because nothing will ever get better.”  But it is starting to transform.  It is starting to shift directions as I express from her.  It is still the message that nothing matters.  But it is different.  It is more grounded now.

“It doesn’t matter if you are five minutes late.  Don’t stress about it.”

“It doesn’t matter if some people don’t like you or your message on Facebook.  There will be plenty who do.”

“It doesn’t matter if the house is clean when friends come.  They will like you anyway.”

Not surprisingly, my controller is not having it.  To the controller, things need to be perfect.  Approval and acceptance needs to be all encompassing.  Details cannot be ignored because things will go wrong.  We will be punished for the smallest mistake.  And so goes the battle in my head.  But this week, the battle is taking a different turn.  It is becoming a battle of visibility.  With the work I do, this battle is not new.  But this is going to new depths.

Through the Detox Program, I have seen an uptick in visibility because of the great response from all of you.  You are so dedicated to healing and you really do understand the process of healing.  But folks are wandering into my program who have never read my blogs and have never tried to access their inner parts before.  And honestly, some don’t get it.  They are controller-enmeshed and they want me to stop it!  And my own controller is reeling from the disapproval.  My own controller wants to be loved by all.

But my goddess says, “So what?”  Get the message out there.  If they don’t like it, they can move along.  People need to know this.  People need to read this.  People need to understand that healing happens when we go deep.  If you keep it a secret, who does that help?  Staying small isn’t the answer.

And so the battle goes.  It deepens my discomfort, but it keeps me questioning.  What is my next step?  How big is it?  Can I handle it?  Can I handle the negativity and disapproval from a controller-enmeshed world?  It takes faith on a massive scale to venture into visibility.  The reminders of the old world are always knocking at the door.  In that world, there was punishment, rejection and abandonment.  In that world, the childhood world, those things were synonymous with death.

But I have power now.  I have power that the controller-enmeshed don’t have.  That power comes from intuition.  That power comes from living outside of a fear-based belief system.  That power comes from the understanding that I will be supported as I travel my purpose.  I don’t have to be afraid of the “nay-sayers”.  I don’t have to be afraid of those who claim to be more degreed, more knowledgeable, more practical or more sane.  I have lived that life and it was hell.  I have lived in the fear that makes me want to tear others down because they scared me.  And I was truly miserable.

Somehow I will find a way out of this battle and be the better for it.  I will find my way out of the fear-based maze my controller created to keep me “safe”.  I know there is a different way to live, even though I am not fully embodied in it.  I can sense it right below the surface.  Living a life of chains doesn’t end when we leave our childhoods.  Freedom isn’t physical in nature.  We chain ourselves from the inside out.  We become slaves to the fear.  We run from that which lives inside us and we are never free.  And while I may be scared as hell, I am done with the chains.

Note:  If you are a man who reads my blog, thank you for embracing your inner parts.  I want to stress that this part exists in all of us.  All genders hold the masculine and feminine.

Written By Elisabeth Corey, MSW

The Chains of Fear was originally published @ Beating Trauma and has been syndicated with permission.