Fear and My Precious Time (Marnie)

I was watching something I taped a while back from the Lifetime channel and it went to commercial. Before I could grab the remote, a commercial played for a movie that had Ricki Lake in it. It was called Matters of Life and Dating and it is about a single woman who is diagnosed with breast cancer. One of the clips from the movie was quite poignant (yep, I used the word "poignant" in reference to a Lifetime movie!). Ricky Lake's character says, "Fear has been a waste of my precious time."

That really hit home. Because for MANY years, dating equaled fear for me. In essence, I have wasted much of my precious time. And it's something I've worked hard to change.

What where those fears? The unknown, the known, the potential loss, the potential gain, the heart broken, the heart not even being touched at all...oh! the list of fears goes on and on when it comes to dating!

And it doesn't get better when you are in a relationship. The risk gets deeper and the potential fallout can make you go numb if you dwell in that fear.

So why have I been so afraid? What's the worse that could happen from dating? Well, let's list them:
1. Heart broken
2. Feelings hurt
3. Rejection
4. Loss of a loved one that doesn't love you back
5. Being vulnerable and having that person hurt you or exploit that vulnerability
6. Taking a risk and looking stupid
7. Saying something you regret

I could keep going, but that pretty much covers the gist of it. The fear is real. But it can keep you from something really important - and I don't mean a husband. I mean an experience. Because maybe that experience is necessary to go forward! Maybe that experience - and yes, you can get hurt when you take a risk - helps you make a better choice and carve out more room in your heart for the great man that is up ahead!! If we don't face that fear, we don't go anywhere!

We Mormons are always looking for the miracle (the man of your dreams comes from nowhere, you both suddenly realize you are perfect for each other and get married quickly). But alas, often life is about hard work and patience. As I've continued with my "50 Dates to a Mate" program, I'm finding that it's not just a date I'm getting, it's experiences and some of them aren't that fun. I would REALLY love to be that girl that sets that goal and meets "the one" at date #26. But as I've reached #39 with no good potentials on the horizon, I realize this could go on all the way to #100. That in itself sounds depressing but I at least can see now that each of these dates has taught me something I needed to know - how to improve a relationship skill, humble me, give me confidence, teach me what NOT to do in a certain situation, help me make better decisions about who I date and deal with confrontation. All those things will help me be a better catch and helps me make a better decision and see what I really want in a spouse. And I've been very fortunate to NOT have gotten what I prayed for in the past when it has come to the few relationships I've had. Those matches that seemed so great at the time really weren't and I can see now from these experiences it's good they ended.

So what about fear? Even though I know those experiences are important, I've let the fear creep in again and it's made me very discouraged with my dating situation this last little while (thus the reason I haven't posted anything for so long). I've thought, what is the point??? I have put my heart and soul into everything that I have control over to find more dates, meet more men and to try to find a guy that works for me. And what I've gotten has been disappointing. Mostly that I don't have much to show for it but some painful dates and some hurt feelings from taking a risk with some of those dates. And when you make a goal and seem SO far from it after what feels like you've put your whole heart, soul and faith in, it's very easy to succumb to the fear and just walk away.

But I can't. The reason I want to walk away is only because I'm scared my biggest fear of never finding someone will come true. But listening to that fear is the very reason it WILL come true! Thus, the dichotomy. (I think I used that word right?!)

So what am I going to do about it? Not give up. Not succumb to my fear. Get back out there and keep searching for dating experience #39 - even though it's scary for me.

Tonight I'm supposed to go to a singles dance - the scary kind. And all my friends have bailed out on me. What should I do? Stay at home on a Saturday night because going alone will make me feel vulnerable and uncomfortable? It's scary! There will be times where I will feel out of place or even feel like a sitting duck with some less than great hunters taking aim. But it's better to take the fear head on and go. Face that fear! I've done it before! I can do it again!

And hopefully, this will help empower me, overcome that debilitating fear and stop wasting my precious time!

Making Sense of Feelings (Leah)

I woke up not happy. Does that ever happen to you? I could blame it on staying up late – but that doesn’t always make me unhappy. You know what did it? I’ll tell you. I stayed up late thinking of unhappy things. Then after sleeping on those unhappy thoughts, and likely having unhappy dreams, I woke up unsettled. So what do you do when you wake up all unsettled like? Well, I need to process my feelings. I need to get them out of me so I can face my day. I don’t do well dwelling on unhappy things. So I pulled out the journal and did some scripture reading. It helped. But I noticed my first period suffered a bit because of my mood. They weren’t as engaged – first period rarely is – but today I noticed they were acting the way I felt. I really believe that people go around reflecting each other more often than not. My unsettled mood left them a bit distracted. Anyway, I want some of your input on the topic that left me a bit confused last night. I was trying to understand my emotions in relation to dating. I was trying to figure out why it is people feel fearful and insecure about dating. Why is it that we fear rejection – even before there’s a sign of it? In all my opportunities of dating and breaking up I’ve learned how to get over the feeling of rejection. I’ve learned how to fight it. But still, when I’m in the middle of a good relationship, feelings of fear creep up. Like sitting at the doctor’s, watching the nurse move about, and fearing the impending needle poke. Usually the poke is manageable. Usually I get over it just fine – maybe I’m sore for the day – but I recover. Just like a relationship that doesn’t work. So why do I fear it? I don’t think nurturing fears is good AT ALL. I think fear feeds fear. I think it only muddles things up – so how does a person refuse to hear it? And isn’t fear sometimes a good thing? Isn’t it a good warning sign at times? I fear going Latin dancing – I think that’s a pretty good fear to pay attention to. I know that dating has always led to a degree of heart break, but I don’t regret having done any of it. The pain has probably caused me to build up some fear, but I don’t think it’s the good fear that’s worth listening to. There were other positive results from those many heart breaks.

I’ll tell you what I came up with this morning. After spewing a bit in the journal I opened up the scriptures and read about healing. It was the section of the index that came open and it seemed mostly relevant. I turned to a passage in the D&C. It talked about how healing requires tenderness and love. Can’t argue there. Then a couple verses later it said something about weeping for those who die. Having experienced this sort of loss I could relate to it. I could see that it is more than okay to weep for someone who has died. Then it said something like how much sadder it is when someone dies without the hope of the resurrection. I know that when I’ve had to process the grief related to death I’ve been extremely grateful for the hope of the resurrection. I wondered to myself then, how a breakup is like death. It’s the death of a relationship you shared with another person (I like to believe it’s like a third person – there’s you, him, and then the “us”) – the “us” has died. Usually in terms of breakups we lack the hope of resurrection. I always force the hope of friendship – I think that’s my way of having a resurrection of sorts, and after all, there’s the hope of a new “us” with another “him.” But the scriptures said it is okay to weep for death. We all fear the time we will be sad, but since death is inevitable wouldn’t it be better to just accept it and give yourself permission to weep? Just have to be sure you have a hope of the resurrection. Now don’t get me wrong out there in blog land – I’m not going through any breakup – I was just wondering about the fears that creep up in relationships and how to distinguish between those feelings to find truth.