Fear of falling

So, I have this thing about trust. I know I mentioned it before but when it jumps up and hits me in the face, figure I'd better pay attention.

C.C. and I were having a discussion. Alright, it was heated and it had teeth but as neither of us are yellers, it can't be called an argument, right?

Wrong. Silence or Violence -- it is still an argument when two people take sides and refuse to give way for another perspective. Both C.C. and I share the silence mode of arguing -- which gets nowhere fast other than discord.

Thing is, I haven't got a clue about what we were arguing. The inciting incident was lost after about the third stony silence that clearly stated, "I'm pissed. Don't enter my space."

To make matters worse, I have 'all or nothing stinkin' thinking' tendencies. As in, "Fine. This obviously means we have no common ground. Good-bye."

Okay, so while the argument, veiled as a discussion, didn't quite get to there, my thinking definitely did. I suppose in some ways it's like someone saying, "Well, it's not really infidelity if I don't act on my thinking." Duh? Even without the action, it's still 'stinking thinking'. There's no integrity in thinking like a pig.

In this instance my stinking thinking was planning exit strategies -- and I still couldn't remember what the argument was all about!

Which led me to my journal last night. To writing it out so that my head didn't get caught up in thinking itself into tighter and tighter circles.

Now, it's easy to cite the 5,432 things he did to make matters worse. I'm not so liberal with adding up the totality of my accountability.

I knew I had to take ownership of my 100%. I knew I was responsible for everything I said and did -- I just really, really wanted to lay all the blame on him. I mean, it was all his fault. Right?

Wrong. Until I ask myself the questions that make me dig deep into my accountability and add up my steps into the wrong direction to arrive at the total of their mis-direction, I will be acting out of reflex. blaming him for my 100% as well as his and not living with integrity.

I started with the most important questions first -- What do I want in my relationship with C.C.

Closeness. Intimacy. Trust. Love.

Did my behaviour increase closeness, intimacy, trust and love or did it subtract?

Duh. It was mighty cold in them frigid zones below zero where my defenses kept me on Red Alert looking for any means to justify my position, adding up his accountability to 202%.

But.... and my critter mind awakens to the danger of losing control. Yah But he.... and it begins to cite C.C.'s offences without any regard to truth or fact. In the world of protecting my ego, fiction works best.

Back to ground zero. What do I want? What am I creating? Discord or Harmony.

Thing is, discord keeps me stuck in my fears. To create harmony I must step through my barriers, step beyond my comfort zone, surrender my ego and fall into love.

Scary stuff that falling into love. What if I hit rock bottom? What if I don't fly?

And there lay the crux of my discord. My fear of falling was keeping me from taking the leap into love trusting that no matter which direction I go, I will always be okay within me.

In falling into love, I fear letting go of the ground beneath my feet. I fear moving to another place and keep myself in the place I'm at, regardless of how uncomfortable it might be. Talk about self-defeating game!

As Babe Ruth said, "You can't steal second base and keep one foot on first."

I can't fall into love without surrendering the place I'm at. I can't trust without being trusting, without being trustworthy.

I was creating the distrust I was living.

C.C. was acting from where ever he's at. From his discomfort. His fears. His insecurities.

What was I doing?

Well, truth is, exactly the same thing -- in spite of my holier than thou thinking that kept chiming in that I was acting like a mature, caring, loving human being!

And that's the thing about arguments. The details of how we fall into discord evaporate in our desire to hold our ground on where we're at.

For me, being right became way more important than being loving, caring and considerate. Being right protected me from risking being vulnerable -- now that was scary.

In the big picture of our relationship -- I don't have to be right. What I need to be is loving and caring. I need to act with integrity -- not the intent to protect myself just in case I might get hurt.

Scrapes and bruises, bumps and hurts are all part of loving and living with passion. Fearlessly letting go of my fear of scrapes and bruises, bumps and hurts is all part of being a woman of worth, a woman with integrity, a woman who is capable of living life outside her comfort zone, fearlessly experiencing the highs, and the lows, of loving another human being without fear of falling.

The question is: Where do you create discord to protect yourself from being 100% accountable for your actions? Where do you let fear keep you from letting go of where you're at?