Emotional Sandwiches

by Sarah Ashley Neal

  Let’s recapitulate (I’ve been dying to use that word!). Fear tends to stop us from doing something. Alternatively it can hold us back until we can find a way to challenge it and kick it aside, and even then it can show up again just when we thought it had disappeared. Fear can appear from nowhere, taking us by surprise, or dominate our emotional space when we are phobic. Fear can cause confusion as it prompts us to sense danger and protects us from harm; we may choose not to proceed if the alarm bells ring.

  Imagine, again, you are in a fishing boat and the weather is turning. Fear starts to well up inside as you feel the waves getting bigger and the skies darken. This isn’t about conquering your fear so as to keep you in the waters to fish! This is now about your gut instinct telling you that danger is looming so it’s time to pack up and get back to shore before the boat capsizes.

  Fear would like to be respected, but it is only once you have been out for that drink after the next match that you can ask which rules apply and then decide if it deserves your respect. You have to be in charge of your own rules but if you can recognise what mood Fear is in, when it arises, then you can decide if you want to play. You can’t keep running scared – Fear is always going to participate in your life – so become acquainted.

  I have a few ideas to explore. When we are worried that something untoward is going to happen (or could go wrong), even when we have no supporting evidence that it will, we are encouraging Fear to show up before it is due to make an appearance. This level of fear could be enough to stop us doing something that we would like to do and we may go on to manufacture a whole list of reasons why we shouldn’t do something. Fear may not have kicked off but if you send out mixed signals it will enthusiastically clock into work and show up early; it will only say, “I thought you told me to!”

  Why do we stop ourselves doing something we either want to do or would serve us well to try? You confess boldly to other people, “I want to go on holiday on my own but I am too scared”. You haven’t actually gone on holiday yet! You are imagining all the things that could make you fearful in relation to going on holiday alone and in doing so you are experiencing a form of fear. You have given it an assignment when it could do with a couple of days off, so what on earth are you thinking?

  Fear begins to grow stronger as you think about all the things that could go wrong. Assuming you haven’t got that far we could cut Fear a little slack if it is only a lack of confidence that is holding you back and what you may be feeling is ‘apprehension’. You want to go ahead and book a holiday, so you haven’t lost all sense of adventure, but in order to get there you will have to deal with the negative feelings that are bouncing around. If you continue to feed apprehension with negativity then it could start to exaggerate and turn into full-blown Fear that behaves like a ringleader controlling your other emotions.

  Confidence may not get a look-in and as we learned a while ago, negativity can fuel negativity. Positivity hasn’t managed to put its trainers on either, tripping up on your own shoe laces, which you haven’t tied, so you are not setting a great example! Where is Trust when you need it? If you could trust yourself and believe that your holiday will turn out just fine, then you could avoid bumping into Fear. Change your thought process, do up your shoe laces, take positivity by its hand and don’t let go until you have surpassed Fear. Do this in time before Fear stops you booking that flight to sunnier climes and you end up booking a week off in Surrey or Southend – pretty as both places may be.

  Oh no, Fear kicked off, didn’t it?! OK. Now you may benefit from taking time to reflect on why and what it is that keeps you in a place of fear rather than on the warm white beaches on the other side of the planet. Fear may only surrender if you can find a way to help it let its guard down. It may also depend on whether you are bothered about missing out on a foreign holiday or if you feel upset that you have let yourself down because you couldn’t get past that first hurdle. Once again you renew your annual National Trust permit in readiness for the next Britain in Bloom contest down South. Yippee – another excursion to Kent to explore the UK’s largest English Garden and that’s before you explore the sexes (Essex, Sussex and Middlesex – why, what did you think I meant?).

  It is more about being honest with yourself and only you can keep Fear and your limitations in such close proximity. The golden rule is: if you firmly believe that a fear needs to be conquered because it is holding you back, then change your thought patterns and even seek support. It is like we said at the very beginning of the book, don’t give Fear (in this case) a trellis and it will not climb; find another garden to walk in, find the strength and you will find your own way. By the way there are some beautiful gardens abroad too!

  Congratulations: you booked a flight and so it would seem you ventured out of the front door and this first hurdle posed no problem. Why is Fear kicking off now…? What… you are on the aeroplane and forgot you had a fear of flying? Oops! And you need to do what? (I know… I’m aware that this dialogue has suddenly adopted a momentum that Sooty and Sweep could relate to, and you may be pausing to do the same or google what on earth I am talking about!)

  As our thoughts return to the aeroplane, you still haven’t quite learnt what to do about Fear’s rude interruptions, so you take a couple of miniatures from the bar and manage your reactions the best way you know how: through avoidance! This is a prime example of knowing your limitations and choosing to accept them; just don’t become an alcoholic in the process!

  When Fear kicked off this time you weren’t in the most ideal of positions to simply walk away. Remember, you are now on the aeroplane; you cannot ‘just get off’ (unless your fear of jumping out with a parachute has been resolved and is less scary than gliding on the outer edge of space in an airbus you can’t control). You have to land first, so you invite Trust and Hope along, even if Fear decides to remain with you until the wheels touch ground. Fear is just sitting beside you, kitted out in its shorts and shades with its seat belt on, diving into an in-flight meal as you remain pensive and white-knuckled (as if two miniatures were really going to pacify Fear for long!). You really are in a tight spot, aren’t you? Fear is likely to win you over for a while and all you can do is look at it with contempt as it flirts with the other passengers during turbulence.

  Unfortunately we don’t have time to explore the various techniques that do exist to help you get out of a tight spot. We recognise that Fear exists on different levels. We know it can be influenced to behave but we need to learn how to do this. We have also learnt that Honest can be directive and that Fear responds well to communication. If you are the type of person who approaches your fear with logic then maybe Fear will back down. If your instincts have become silent, only speaking to you with a muted voice that can no longer be heard, then Fear is probably playing havoc with your personal compass and no doubt instincts will kick in again once you have calmed down.

  When there is less cause to feel fearful then I think you have more opportunity to remove the fear before it becomes exacerbated. You had never been on holiday on your own, yet sadly you felt fearful about something you hadn’t actually done, but you could counter argue that’s a good enough reason to feel fear. You were turning the idea of going on holiday into a nightmare, writing the script before you got there and casting Fear without giving it an audition. It’s more like watching a horror movie and getting drawn in, being scared to go to the bathroom in the interval in the event you get ripped to shreds by zombies – it isn’t real (yet), and you can turn the film off.

  Your imagination is powerful and if it can create Fear (like a character in a movie) then shouldn’t it be able to eradicate it in much the same way? I don’t like watching horror films because even when I turn one off, I am stricken with fear for some time after… Even when you stop mentally torturing yourself about the holiday that hasn’t happened, it may take a while to clear your mind as it prepares for a new script. Change a couple of words in the next script
and send out a positive message.

  Fear isn’t something to be taken lightly and it may seem that it has been trivialised. On the contrary, if Fear could be compared to sugar then it would be described in terms of its molecular structure that is commonly described as simple or complex. “Sugar…?”, I hear you say in unison. Fear isn’t sweet per se but you should have seen its little Hawaiian shirt that it wore on the aeroplane that shouted, ‘Complex!’ The only thing light about Fear is the artificial sweeteners it takes in its coffee; other than that, there isn’t anything simple about Fear. Sugar is an anti-nutrient and so is Fear – there lies a commonality of interest. Actually we sugar-coated Failure last time and we often feel guilty when we consume too much so we could perceive that sugar hangs around to take the bitterness out of these emotions, throughout the section.

  It can be very difficult to understand Fear and it may take a while to get it out of your system but this sandwich is simply about awareness. Next time you have an opportunity to jump safely out of an aeroplane I am sure this activity will release more from your system than you bargained for and you will feel lighter on the way down as a result of conquering your fears!

  G*U*I*L*T

  It’s About the Response-ability

  As the bus departed from the station, the travellers on board were unsure of where the excursion would take them and what tour they had actually signed up for that day. They soon learned they were being sent on a guilt trip. The tour guide announced that everyone had to participate in the activities along the way or be responsible for ruining everyone else’s adventure, berating them for opting out before any had got underway. A tad controlling, they thought!

  Wow. I think Manipulation snuck on board, having been kicked out of ‘Charm School’ for its lack of social skills and hooked up with Guilt at the bus stop! Maybe the driver should enforce a few more security checks before allowing trouble aboard. A new double act had formed and was going on tour. It could be possible that Guilt isn’t always recognisable at first glance and it can manage to sneak on the bus anyway – somehow. It slips on discreetly clinging to buckles and belts, working its way down the aisle until it is finally caught out sitting in the back row, conducting the passengers – having orchestrated the entire event.

  Guilt wears a few disguises and doesn’t always present itself immediately. When you look Guilt in the eyes you will see that it has more than one side either born out of fact or feeling. You could be looking at someone with guilt in their eyes or you could be looking in the mirror and see Guilt staring straight back at you, reflected in your own. The difficulty with understanding Guilt is that it doesn’t always tell you the truth and will give you mixed messages which have to be deciphered.

  Guilt isn’t always around as a result of misconduct. Sometimes when you think it is guilty, you later find out that it isn’t and it was just putting on a show to entertain. As it turns out, Guilt was attention seeking, and led you and everyone else up the garden path and, as you later discovered, there was nothing to feel guilty about in the first place! It can show up in our lives for all sorts of reasons and we usually churn them over in our heads until they are exhausted. Until we are exhausted.

  By now, most of the passengers on the bus were looking out of the windows wondering when they’d get to indulge the tour guide in one of their ‘activities’. A forewarning, half an hour ago, had left them shaken up and flabbergasted at the prospect of being pulled into a set of mind games. Now, it felt a less daunting proposition. They had learned, since, that they could play on their own because going on a guilt trip wasn’t reliant upon others to have a good time, after all. Guilt loved a good game of Solitaire too.

  It was the quiz which got them thinking about the limiting thoughts they carried aboard. Guilt, the master of perpetuating the type of conversations that take up more time to hold than is warranted, was about to be questioned.

  Answering the first question with a degree of certainty, Guilt confessed that if you are truly guilty of doing something wrong, you’ll know about it. You will either ‘have served your time or will be serving your time’ – emotionally or otherwise. It is possible that you’ll have an opportunity to make amends for whatever it is you are certain you have done ‘wrong’ so that Guilt moves on to becoming an experience that finds peace, rather than a shackle that forever holds you back in life.

  Guilt was asked to consider its own association with the word wrong. It came up with the idea that when something is required from us and we let someone down, not only can we feel guilty, we are guilty of not fulfilling an obligation or a contract. The other person in the relationship can be affected. The emotional contract is broken! In this instance your own guilt will be clear on how it decides to reveal itself. Guilt – the one sitting on the bus being mischievous – went on to tell everyone (poised in their seats) that it becomes transparent. The other person can see right through it. Feeling guilty about not achieving what you set out to do, either for yourself or other people, is something we all deal with on one level or another. It is life – we all ‘do things wrong’ sometimes.

  Society allows for a margin of error and various levels of tolerance exist. You are likely to find out post-deed, following an inquisition, if you were within or outside of the acceptable levels of tolerance. Most times we are expected to use our common sense and if we don’t know what is acceptable, we should seek to find out. Otherwise, accept the penalty by way of atonement. On that note, the quiz finished. The passengers were left to play Solitaire.

  The legal system must use some kind of ‘tolerance chart’ to determine the length of a sentence based on first, second or third offences… surely? We have probably overheard someone at some point remark about their luck in either getting off scot-free or being ‘sent down’ for half the time they expected. Would the penalty then influence how guilty someone goes on to feel?

  I am just wondering if we feel guilt more or less, depending on either the severity of the action or how severe the result of the action is ‘perceived’ to be. For example, would a bank robber suffer less guilt from breaking into a bank without stealing anything because his action, whilst illegal (assuming it is a he), only caused an inconvenience? Or would the robber feel guiltier when he found out that the money he stole turned out to be the life savings put aside for a child’s operation the very next week?

  Does the level of guilt experienced fit the crime? Or, is guilt, guilt? Whichever way you approach it, it doesn’t come in different shapes or sizes. It is clear that some people experience very little guilt for their crimes or certainly don’t outwardly project the ‘symptoms’! Attempting to rob a bank is in itself an act that should see Guilt sitting in the getaway car in full tuxedo because the intention was there all along – to steal the money – so what difference would it make how much and whose money it was? Guilt is a personal emotion and can be introvert or extrovert depending on its mood. Now let’s consider another example that doesn’t involve stealing!

  If you dropped a clanger and someone said to you, “Don’t worry about it, we all make mistakes”, you may expend little or no time feeling guilty because another person has ‘given you permission’ to put guilt aside and move on. You may have to make amends but you don’t need to carry guilt around with you on this occasion; it can sit on the emotional reserves bench until it is needed.

  If the person said to you, when you dropped a clanger again for the second time, “What on earth are you doing? This is now costing me money”, Guilt will return as quickly as you previously let it go. The result of your action is now perceived to be wrong and it would seem to have had a negative impact on the finances of the person who trusted you at the beginning. In this case, the penalty may be simply an uncomfortable conversation that leaves you feeling mortified or as a worst case scenario leaving you never to be trusted again, by the same person who is out of pocket. Guilt will be looking at you now with its eyes speaking volumes, almost apologe
tically telling you that you are lumbered with it for a while until you ask it to leave, but it’s your own fault!

  We allow ourselves an element of leeway when we have knowingly crossed a line. If we erected the original goalposts, we will have set our own tolerances. Maybe we miscalculate on occasions and maybe society simply doesn’t accept the formula we use in order to calculate how far we think we can go at any given time. We tend to know what our own experience of Guilt is going to feel like when it surfaces, because we learn ‘what makes us tick’! (Remember?)

  The levels of guilt we feel can be fuelled by external responses and we allow them to influence us – to ‘feel guilty’ (and on occasions that’s not a bad thing!). The person who told you that they have lost money because you did something to support this accusation has, intentionally or unintentionally, ‘made you feel guilty’.

  Does someone make you feel guilty? We are responsible for our feelings; once felt, we react to the response and choose to feel guilty. They will only be responsible for ‘delivering a response’. You will be responsible for accepting the response, like the handover of a baton in a relay race. If someone runs up to you with every intention of handing you the baton and you take it, you have taken responsibility to accept it. If you decided not to put your hand out to take it, then you cannot hold the baton and it will fall to the ground.

  Guilt cannot be handed to you directly, because it doesn’t exist as something to give away. The person who lost the money couldn’t give you a measure of Guilt to take as any form of punishment; he/she could only provide a response. Nonetheless, something amazing happens in that moment when the response is delivered and received. Guilt has transported itself from the bench on the sideline through a vortex, like a virus that is downloaded via the internet without any protection. Guilt starts chipping away and you now own this emotion so you need to start cleansing. Atone away!