Dad's Learning Part 18: My Own Worst Case Scenario
Preconceived - (of an idea or opinion) formed before having the evidence for its truth or usefulness.
Given the amount of unjust suffering and unhappiness in the world, I am deeply grateful for, sometimes even perplexed by, how much misery I have been spared.
Anticipatory Stress
What causes fight, flight, and freeze reflexes? Stressors, right? Maybe fear? But what about when that happens before… well anything happens? That’s weird. Honestly, that’s just odd. Why would I do this? I do, though. Whether I understand it or not, I do.
Getting a bit anxious before an event does make sense, but some of the responses don’t. Anxiety is a call to movement or to do something. So why is it that when I feel it at times, it causes the INABILITY to move?
Well, because it’s annoying and I hate it. Also, it’s because there’s a process to anxiety and fear where the body starts getting ready for the unknown. However, not moving is less than helpful most times. So it’s a portion of that preparation that must be gotten PAST in order to continue moving forward.
Or so it appears to me.
I am still working on anticipatory stress and anxiety, but I was left with a thought.
But we must remember this truth…
Life happens sometimes.
Those are the things outside of our control. Of mice and men, as they say.
Perhaps I should go ahead and say it all.
The best laid plans of mine and men often go awry.
The Fixer
There are few things I am truly good at in life. I think I am proficient at a great many things, and okay at even more. But I tend to be a generalist, doing an eclectic mix of things at any one time.
I get bored easily.
But one thing I have always been great at is fixing things. Not necessarily material items, but situations or problems. Perhaps it’s the way I think or my odd proficiency for pattern recognition, but I can.
Thinking about it, it’s likely because I am so damn good at breaking things. I am very good at allowing situations to get unmanageable. Situations that have no business getting that way as they have dire consequences. Well, there’s SOME incentive there to get that rectified, so then I get it done.
Either way, I have been able to fix a great many things so far and I rarely face something I cannot.
Which brings me to my children.
You don’t FIX children. So that’s a hurdle for me. You can certainly break them, but what the hell are you supposed to do after that?
But more specifically, if they get hurt there’s only so much I can do. I know that. So worrying about them getting hurt happens more than it should. They don’t get hurt all that often, even letting them just be kids. But I do worry about it an awful lot.
And that compounds with everything else I worry about.
So perhaps that’s a breakthrough. I allow myself to worry about everything which leaves little time to address anything.
Damn.
I am the fixer. I am the protector. But some things I cannot control. I cannot help my loved ones stop feeling what they’re feeling. Most of the time, anyways.
I need to allow them to become fixers themselves.
We risk dooming our children with the fears we hold. That fear has the potential to cause us to act in such a manner, with no APPARENT justification, that impacts our children in such a WAY they no longer trust those fears are rational.
And they may not be.
But if they are, and we have conditioned them to ignore the signs because we SAW TOO MANY, then we are dooming them to fall prey to whatever it is we were scared might happen in the first place.
An odd chain of thoughts, to be sure. But it seems reasonable to me.
The fears we have don’t NEED to manifest to negatively affect our children. We just have to continue to hold onto those fears and react to them more than we should for them to hurt the child. We end up becoming the monster.
Life is full of problems. Life itself is maneuvering through those problems. Without that, it isn’t really life.
I can only train and teach and show my children how to navigate.
Then I have to let them go.
Or see them run away unprepared.
Love,
Dad