What are you afraid of?

[wilde]

I fear that I won't be a good father, and that my daughter would grow up not knowing respect. I intend to do my best, but it will always be there.

[DogFriend]

My fear is hard to explain as it is a feeling more than a concept.

I fear that in choosing a path that others are some how closed to me. Some of this fear comes from my own family many of which do not understand how I can carry a pipe and go to sweats and at the same time celebrate the 8 festivals.

The same fear comes in my own professional development and personal life. This fear has made it hard for me to meet new people and make friends as I feel by choosing to attach myself to a single group some how I will be unable to be part of another so often I end up being an outsider and all groups I approach as a "lone wolf" and never as a member of the pack.

[Aengus]

Fisrt the comedic answer... Spiders! *shudder*

Now for the serious answer.
I am affraid of growing old and dying alone. This has been a long time fear for me. I am such a family and friend person that if I didn't have either of those, I'd go insane. This is something I don't have a clear cut resolution for, but it is something I work to resolve on a daily basis.

[Beachgirl]

I see a common thread -- a fear of dying alone. At 57, childless and without siblings, I think a lot about how to prepare myself for this. I see my mother losing her friends, one by one, and her grief of losing people who experienced the world as she did. At 89, she is so confused by my world and its electronic toys.

What I am really afraid of on this Saturday, 11 April, 2009, is being successful in the search for my birth family. I've searched on-and-off for years, but I've just hired a rather successful company. Based upon the extensive information I already have, and the power of search engines and data bases, they anticipate finding my birth mother fairly soon. I am desperately afraid of a second rejection, even though I know it's a probability. But the prospect of finding my siblings and forming a relationship with them is worth it.

[Maena]

Not being able to balance caring too much and caring too little. When to fight and when to let go.

[HinduDruid]

I appreciate everyone's honesty and willingness to share!

I fear failing and succeeding, being mediocre, having my life and my words mean nothing. I fear not being lovable. And I fear picking the wrong man so it tends to frighten me off intimacy. I fear being hurt in all ways because I have had a lifetime of pain already, thank you very much.

I'm afraid of a lot, but working through to sort out the rational and irrational fears and to strengthen my courage and powers of protection.

But I have to agree on the icky things. I really hate spiders, cockroaches, rodents and all slimy creepy things!

[Shadowgrrl]

I am afraid of never truly meeting myself...

So much is life is structured and contained but I'd hope that I could truly meet and love all that I am, released and unbound by so called civilities of life.. .. yes I added love for what is meeting without compassion and love..

[Awenrain]

Well...

Freedom can be defined as:
I regret nothing.
I fear nothing.
I expect nothing.

Of course, this is a tombstone inscription, so it may be better in concept than in practice...

Philosophy aside, I guess I fear...ummmmm...being totally paralyzed in an accident?

BB,

Steve

[Zylah]

I know, I already posted here, but there's so MUCH to be afraid of! Joking aside:

I have spent the majority of my life being afraid; I learned fear early, and it was a constant companion until I left my old life a year ago. As I become more myself, and progress further on my true path, I am realizing this more clearly.

My patronesses have taught me strength, steel, and love; this eliminated a lot of smaller fears by default, which took me pleasantly by surprise. Most recently, a pair of very old, wise, lovely trees called the Twins taught me that part of all my anxiety was a failure to go deeper, and a tendency to skim the surface of life instead. When I came out of my first meditation with them, there was a large hairy spider on my leg, which under any circumstances would normally cause a screech more blood-curdling than a banshee's. (Some people may think arachnophobia is funny, but in my case it has seriously been debilitating, as silly as that may sound.) My stomach reacted, but the influence of the priest-trees (that's how I think of them) made me stop and consider; instead of my typical reaction - screaming bloody murder and smashing it to pulp, which would of course upset me more since its innards would be smeared all over me-, I ended by flicking it off with the somewhat apologetic thought that I was not yet ready to accept spiders, though I will eventually get there. That was a giant step for me, and I would never have beleived I could take it, even two months ago.

So now I have a new fear: that I will somehow slip back, and fall back into the pit of fears that I lived in for so long, all those coiling, choking anxieties and terrors, known and unknown alike. It feels so wonderful to be relatively fearless; it gives me a special kind of horror to think of going back to how afraid I always was.

[skydove]

I can sympathyse with the driving one Greygnome, every time I have to drive I'm praying all the time not to have an accident or to cause one and draw pentacles in the dust on the car for protection, I've not had one yet but the fear is still there. It's stupid really as I see many drivers who are much worse than me and seem to take no care at all yet my fear prevents me from getting about as much as I would like.
My big fear though is for my 18 year old son who has an overactive thyroid and seems to be fading away to nothing, he's just skin and bone but thankfully on medication now not that it seems to be making much difference as yet. I just don't know how he is going to cope when he goes away to uni in September particularly as I wont be there to look after him.

[Myrrh]

I have a sister who is Bi Polar and not in treatment. Her actions over the years have been so damaging to the rest of the family that she has been asked to keep her distance. She is not welcome. My great fear is never being able to resolve this issue. And, if she does decide to kill herself, that she doesn't take anyone else with her. Her volatility is so severe at times I think she may want to go out in a blaze of glory for all to see.

She has threatened my mother indirectly with demanding her portion of inheritance now. My mother is still living. The sense of uncertainty and potential is quite fearful.

[DarcArchona]

I can't really say I'm afraid of all that much these days. The economy is in the proverbial 'crapper', gas prices are high then low then high then higher then low again, and there's nothing I nor anyone else can really do about it. So I worry not about any of it, what will be will be.

Lately there is a spirit canine, I want to say a wolf but I live in Texas and the closest thing to that outside of domesticated dogs would be a coyote. He seems to be interested in my being able to see him everyday when I leave my apartment. I am somewhat afraid of him because he fits my (somewhat stereotypical) view of a demon hound. Red glowing eyes with a shady/shifty body and he just comes out of nowhere at me. But the past week or so, he has started to just follow me around when I am outside, and when I leave for work in the morning, he runs alongside my car for a good mile or so. I think he is tethered to this area of land somehow since he never goes too far from it. I think tomorrow morning I will try to speak with him....

[silverwitch]

hello,
I is afraid of a very slow and painful death not death it self, strange, but true.

shirl

[JSheets443]

My biggest fear is going through my entire life only to learn that it was all for nothing and that when I die thats it, there is nothing else and that all of my actions in this life have no lasting impact

[Ravenfyre]

I have been giving this some thought...
At one time I used to fear many things...but have faced them in the past years and actually do not fear much now..for myself that is...
So with that thought I must say my one and only fear would be..
Something bad happening to my son that I could not be there with him to help and keep him as safe as I could...and he having to deal with it alone...he is a strong boy...but that is my greatest fear..him having to deal with something bad alone....
I know he will eventually have to deal with bad things on his own...but since he is just young...I am his protector as long as he wants me to be and then some!!!
We all love our children and want them to be safe always....

[Pollen]

Ever letting down those who love me ... oh and zombies (hate zombies)

[Artemis365]

Losing my cats,dogs,and family

[daseinx]

Reading through all these posts is like reciting a litany against fear. It reminds me of how we are not alone, even in our fears. That's comforting, really.

I fear that my death (hopefully, a long time from now) will hurt those I love because they do not understand me. So my task is to help them understand.
There are so many images of painful death in our culture, at least the US culture, that we almost automatically associate pain and death. Not to say that they don't happen together, I know this from holding my mother's hand as she died from lung cancer. But, we automatically assume that death will be painful. My father died in his sleep, the look on his face was one of peace when we found him. Our instinct to live will make us fight for every breath, but I hope I can gracefully bow out when the time comes.

For an irrational fear, I fear that medical science will progress to the point where we won't be allowed to die, that death will be made illegal. That is probably a while yet.

But mostly, I fear the loss of freedom and being persecuted for who I am and what I believe.

[Dendrias]

This topic has been in for a while and I came to read one time or the other.
My greatest fear has been for some time, six years that is, not to die, but to leave behind my wife, friends and families in dying. When I had been on Death's barque, most frightful to me was the thought of my family, not on what could happen to me on the other side.
So for me, my greatest fear is just dropping dead without being able to say "bye" at least.

[Aelfarh]

Recently I have being develop a fear.... in dying alone and nobody even notice it....