A few weeks after my Enneagram discovery, I was having dinner with one of my adult daughters. I don’t remember much of what we talked about, but I do remember saying to her, “You know, I think I have anxiety.” She looked at me, puzzled, and said, “You didn’t know that?”
I laughed and said, “Well, I do know!” Looking back, I think I had low-level anxiety for at least ten years before I arrived at that moment of sight.
I don’t know the clinical definition of anxiety, but the best way I can describe it from personal experience is to say that fear took up residence in my body. As a result, my body lived in a state of perpetual alertness and decided on its own when to set off the internal alarm system, often without me being aware of anything triggering it.
There were other “non-anxiety” ways that fear shaped my life too. One of the more obvious examples, in retrospect, involves my first book. When ReCreatable came out, I promoted it for a few weeks, but never really went all in. I can see now that I was afraid my book would be a failure, that I wouldn’t “make it” as an author, and that I would be ridiculed or attacked for my work. It was easier not to really promote it than to do so and have a bad result.
Just a couple of months after the book came out, I decided to leave the job and city that had nurtured it and return to a previous job in my hometown. My previous employer welcomed me back enthusiastically. Our mutual understanding, however, was that I was to be fully engaged in my new role rather than promoting my book. Looking back, it’s easy to see how fear guided this decision. I perceived my previous job—which included leading, writing, and teaching—as safer, more comfortable, and more financially secure than pursuing a solo writing career. It also offered a built-in excuse if my book flopped.
My book didn’t flop; it did rather well for one by an unknown, first-time author, who did limited promotion. It’s hard to say what might have happened if I had stayed the course. What I do know is that the next few years at my new/old employer were the most difficult I have ever experienced anywhere. It was during that time that my anxiety really spiked—and eventually, with the help of my friend Darrin, I began to recognize the role fear was playing in my life.
As a lifelong Christian—even a professional Christian, so to speak—I knew literally all the Bible verses on fear. I could have given you a pretty accurate guess as to how many times the Bible said to “Fear not” (roughly 100 times, depending on how you count and what version you use.) I knew that “there is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18). As far as I could tell, I was “all in” with my faith. Why, then, was fear such a huge factor in my life?
Over time, I began to recognize that, to my surprise, my fear had its roots in my religion. Believe me, I’m not one to blame the church for everything. For most of my life, I have considered myself an unworthy representative of the church. So, it was a bit of a shock to see how the Church I loved (I’m talking the big “C’ church here, not any specific local church) had instilled me with a spirit of fear.
That’s where I’ll pick up next time.
Continue to The Fear of Losing Community (Faith over Fear pt 3)
Return to Faith over Fear (Series beginning)