And the most annoying part about this whole concept.
I Missed the Most Important Word
Have you ever had one of those moments where something finally clicks… and it’s so obvious you almost get annoyed?
Like you’ve been trying to solve something for years… turning it over, analyzing it, trying to understand it from every angle…
…and then suddenly you see it.
You feel like ancient wisdom has been bestowed upon you.
And then you realize… it’s not new. It’s not even a fresh perspective.
It’s something you’ve heard
your entire life.
“Irrational fears.”
I’ve heard that phrase forever.
Fear of being alone.
Fear of not being good enough.
Fear of being intrinsically wrong.
Yeah, yeah. Got it.
Except I didn’t.
Because every time I looked at those fears, I was looking at them when I was calm.
When I could systematically put them all together link by psychological link.
Thinking clearly.
Being logical.
“I know I’m not alone.”
“I know I’m good enough.”
“I know that’s not true.”
I could see how these irrational fears made sense from a biological or environmental perspective…
I can see how maybe my parents did X and that lead me to feel Y, leading to irrational fears of Z.
Or I can see how biologically we need to have X to be safe, so we have evolved an instinct for Y, leading to tendencies for irrational fear of Z.
And now that I’m armed with the information of why these irrational fears arise, I should be good now, right?
Thanks for that education.
~Smooth sailing from here on out.~
Anger won’t trigger anymore because now I understand myself.
And then it happens again…
I snap over something stupid. Yell at my husband over forgetting a rotisserie from Costco.
Or my daughter for asking for a drink of water when my hands were full and I was running late.
Because that feeling of being alone…
~and never being able to catch up~
got triggered but I didn’t see it…
until after I raised my voice and compromised the evening’s peace.
I’m baffled as to how I had allowed an irrational fear get triggered so completely.
I’ve done the work. I know better.
More work. More X+Y=Z. How can I apply my powers of logic this time?
And then it happens again. And I always see it 10 minutes later. In retrospect. Why can’t I catch it real time?
As if… I could just sit my fear down and go:
“Hey… let’s walk through this logically.”
And it would suddenly go:
“Oh wow, you’re right. I’m completely rational now. Thank you.”
This is the head slap moment.
Because then it slapped me.
Hard.
Did I just… miss the word?
Irrational.
These aren’t fears that show up when I’m being rational.
They’re fears that bypass it entirely.
They show up in the moment.
In tone.
In timing.
In a look.
In a split second where something in me goes:
“Something’s wrong.”
And suddenly I’m not responding to what’s actually happening.
I’m responding to something old.
Something automatic.
Something that doesn’t care what I know to be true.
So of course I couldn’t reason with it.
That was never the point.
It’s not a problem to solve.
It’s simply a reaction to recognize.
And the shift wasn’t:
“oh, I don’t have these fears anymore.”
It was:
“oh… this is that.”
That’s it.
That moment where instead of:
“What’s wrong? What do I fix? What do I do?”
You go:
“Oh.”
“Hey.”
“Yeah… this is one of those.”
And you don’t argue with it.
You also don’t believe it.
You just… let it be there.
And somehow, that works better than everything I tried before. I remember the tape all the way through. I remember to breathe. I ground. We sit together.
I don’t know how I missed it.
I guess I do.
It was too simple.
But yeah.
Turns out…
irrational fears are… irrational. Go Figure. Today years old and all that.
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