Widows & Widowers Support Group
This community is dedicated to those who have lost a husband, wife, or partner. Anything is open for discussion here, with the hope that we can focus on grief, bereavement, life after loss, and continuing on after a great loss.
Most of us have faced fear since losing our spouses, me included. Today I was thinking about that alot. I'm having cataract surgery and was thinking about how I'll have to face it alone. Yes, I have a step-daughter who has offered to take me. But her schedule is full and I don't want to be a burden. So, I sat there fearful, thinking about the possibilities, imagining myself falling after the surgery.
I also sleep with a door blocker to keep intruders out. So, here I am living with fear, then I remembered Mary Thornberry.
Many of you may have heard of her a few months back. She was the 76 year old elderly woman trapped in a hotel in Cairo, Egypt. She was there during the uprising. She lived alone in a building that was being ramsacked. The frail woman taped a knife to her arm and boiled water. she also armed herself with a rolling pin. All through the night and day, insurgents came to her door, peering in at the woman, and Mary sat ready to fight.
She was eventually rescued and sent home to her waiting and very worried son.
So I thought of this feisty woman today and her seemingly fearlessness. She was living all the way across the world, in a strange land, and she was not young. She was frail, arriving in the US in a wheelchair. She wants to go back after everything is settled in Egypt. So, I wondered, how does she do it? How can she transplant herself to another country without a single family member nearby?
And here I am shaking and scared because I've got to figure out a way to get myself to surgery. Yet there are taxis everywhere and I can afford them.
So, what I've got to do is to learn to live my life fear free. The bible tells us that fear is not of God. Shakespear tells us how many times a coward dies, but the hero dies only once. And Mary teaches us that no matter how old you are, you can still live life on your terms. And you can do it fear free.
Tru
I also sleep with a door blocker to keep intruders out. So, here I am living with fear, then I remembered Mary Thornberry.
Many of you may have heard of her a few months back. She was the 76 year old elderly woman trapped in a hotel in Cairo, Egypt. She was there during the uprising. She lived alone in a building that was being ramsacked. The frail woman taped a knife to her arm and boiled water. she also armed herself with a rolling pin. All through the night and day, insurgents came to her door, peering in at the woman, and Mary sat ready to fight.
She was eventually rescued and sent home to her waiting and very worried son.
So I thought of this feisty woman today and her seemingly fearlessness. She was living all the way across the world, in a strange land, and she was not young. She was frail, arriving in the US in a wheelchair. She wants to go back after everything is settled in Egypt. So, I wondered, how does she do it? How can she transplant herself to another country without a single family member nearby?
And here I am shaking and scared because I've got to figure out a way to get myself to surgery. Yet there are taxis everywhere and I can afford them.
So, what I've got to do is to learn to live my life fear free. The bible tells us that fear is not of God. Shakespear tells us how many times a coward dies, but the hero dies only once. And Mary teaches us that no matter how old you are, you can still live life on your terms. And you can do it fear free.
Tru
Best wishes,
Kathleen
Concerning fear I think what is the worst that can happen and what can I do about that.
Wow about the woman in Egypt.
Hugs
I was told by a friend to think of fear
spelled backwards RAEF means nothing -
Fear is a strong unpleasant emotion caused by expectation or awareness of danger. If we look at that definition - face the expectation: 90% of our fears(worries) never happen - so look at the 10% of the expectations that do, and face those - 10% of expectations is better than 90?
Danger often comes unexpectedly so as a human those fears of sudden danger has to be dealt with than and only than. So wait til you are in that danger. Until than there is no danger.
SO looking at it that way it diminishes the thoughts of fear. It does help - thinking of it that way, to me anyway.
FOR me I think I have had such a jolt to my inner being I am under confident in myself who was a normally over confidant self. And that is even a harder jolt to face...
yeah thats it.
Which you have recognized and that is a good thing
The difference is the amount of fear you feel and how it affects you.
Does it make you react to keep yourself safe or does it cause you to sit and freeze when you should be reacting.
I'm a strong believer in God but with that belief also comes the necessity to keep myself safe by myself.
It's all very well to get advice about rying this or that but what you might be thinking of as fear could be a form of anxiety that causes you to worry. It's something you might want to discuss with your doctor. When you are calm you look at and deal with fear in a completely different manner than when you are anxious.