The Insecure Writer's Support Group, Fear

Hi everyone. It's time again for another addition of the Insecure Writer's Support Group. IWSG. Brain child of Alex J. Cavanugh, writer and blogger extraordinaire.To read what others are saying go here.

Last month I read a post that talked about another writer's fear. Since then I've done a lot of thinking about fear and so here I am writing about it.

I could have titled this post by many subjects. Depression, Anxiety, Lack of Motivation, basically all the emotions that come to play and stem from Fear.

Fear comes from many sources:

Psychological Fear, one often associated with abuse, or with trauma that usually takes place when we are young, but not always.

Emotional Fear, one that develops from abuse or from loss. Your father, mother, siblings, teacher, acquittance abused you physically or verbally and left scars or they died suddenly. You were bullied and now you question your abilities.Or an educational subject, English, Math, Science, etc., was difficult for you and you dreaded going to class, never achieving the desired goal.

Phobias, fear of heights, fire, crowds, spiders, public appearances, you name it.

There isn't one of us free of Fear.

As a writer I can tap into any number of fears and enhance the tension and sub-plot of my characters. As a human, I detest that I must deal with my own fears and wonder what freedom I would have if I could just start the day without any. I bet you feel the same way.

What to do? First recognize where your fear stems from. Mine stems from years of abuse. My father, my siblings, bullies at school, my husband and finally my children who learned from their father how to push my buttons. I'm happy to say that the teenage years are past and much of the negative behavior with it. Also, my husband received Jesus and has changed. All good news. But I still have scars that don't want to heal.

Here is my method of dealing with Fear. Prayer is essential and often the only thing that helps. In addition I allow myself to enjoy certain hobbies and I tell myself the entire time that I am a valuable human being who is intelligent and talented. A good friend and faithful partner. All of this is true so there is no little devil on my shoulder arguing with my conscious. Even so, I crave positive feedback. There's never enough. So I must also exercise the pesky feedback person into a corner.

That's it. Anyone out there that can relate?
Nancy

On a side note, this is post number 400.

Next week, Nov. 14,  Yolanda Renee at Defending the Pen is featuring me as 'The Next Big Thing.' Yolanda is featured today so head over and say hi.

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