Fierce Widow

What a gift it would be to master our fears, to live with almost no fear. What holds us back from living this way?

Fear holds us back.

I use to say to my love “I know its selfish but my biggest fear in life is being alone”. He would reply “You will never be alone, I will never leave you”.

Since his passing I have been forced to face this fear. I have come to realise that I am now my biggest support.

Initially the first few weeks you are blessed with a support network but it soon fades off. Our friends and families have their own lives and their own struggles. As much as they would like to be there 24/7 they have their own reality to go back to. Meanwhile our lives have just been turned upside down and will never be the same again.

Not only are we left to process this loss on our own but we are also left facing other challenges on our own. Things we don’t have the energy to think about, like paying rent or a mortgage on one income. Car loans, credit card debts, the cost of everyday living the list goes on and on. It took me three months before I started to open my mail again. Bills were pushed to the back of my mind. I justified my ignorance by saying “these things don’t matter anymore, nothing matters anymore”.

Tasks that were once easy for me became a struggle. It’s now difficult for me to call the phone company or the bank, I find it trivial even though it needs to be done. I have to remind myself I am strong and capable of doing these things on my own. I am my own worst enemy now and my own best friend. Fear has been stopping me from looking after all of the above. I cant continue to let fear get in the way of living.

We are the creators of our thoughts and emotions, no one but us can control them. There is no bigger support to you than yourself. I am the only one that can change my outlook from negative to positive. I try to remain positive. The advice I use to give to my friends when they were down was “everything has a way of working out, there is no point in stressing about the things you can’t control”, “if you can control the problem then focus and fix it”. I need to listen to my own advice, as hard as it is, I need to focus.

How we choose to look at life now ultimately determines the type of life we will create for ourselves.

This morning I heard a song that reminded me of my love and his personality. The song was “Won’t Back Down” by Tom Petty. My partner always stood his ground on his beliefs. He never backed down from a challenge, nothing was ever too hard or too far out of reach. He allowed nothing to stand in his way. Anything he put his mind to, he could do. This song inspired me, call me crazy but I took it as a push from my love to snap into action, to start focusing on the things I need to fix. To stop being scared.

There is no such thing as to late. No such thing as impossible, it’s our minds that create impossible. Fear creates impossible. My partner feared nothing except loosing me or his family. Being witness to someone so fearless in life was incredible. Can you imagine the possibilities and achievements, life becomes limitless. Letting go of fear, lets you really live.

• Fear of being judged
• Fear of what others think
• Fear of offending someone
• Fear of being hurt
• Fear of hurting others
• Fear of being alone

There is nothing worse than the pain of losing someone you love so deeply. There was nothing I feared more than this. Nothing can hurt me more than this has. Why do I continue to let fear stand in my way?

When we master our fears, the possibilities become endless. I first need to face my fears and that is a fear in itself.

With fear comes regret. Regret for the things we didn’t do because fear stood in our way. Fear is temporary but regret can last forever. I would much rather stand and face my fears than live with regrets. Regret plays on the mind to often, it pulls you back, it makes you doubt yourself. Do I want to look back on the rest of my days with regrets? No way! Am I scared of my future now? Hell yes! It scares the shit out of me, so much so that I don’t want to think more than one day ahead. This life is not what we had planned.

One thing I know for certain is this. I have little to no regrets thinking of the life we shared together and im so grateful for that. There are no regrets because my partner tried to live day to day without fear. We lived everyday in the moment, when your living in the moment your not thinking ahead, your not thinking of your fears. I had no fear being with him because he gave me so much strength, he made me feel as though anything was possible. With him, everything was possible.

As times passes, his characteristics I swore to hold onto are slipping away from me. So today this blog post is a reminder to myself, to pull up, to hold on to his strengths, to never let them go. With his strength and the love we shared I can get through this. He will get me through this.

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