I must be hones and say it was not deliberate to use my real name, it must have been the tiredness. But never mind, I am the same person regardless.

I was thinking about fear (and anger) while I was driving into town in the sunshine today. I have come up with a new visualisation for it which I think will be quite helpful for me. I would be interested to hear what you think about it.

I see myself as a matador, complete with slim hips and full gold braid encrusted outfit and cape. I even have an elegant moustache – I am quite comfortable with a cross gender role in my visualisations. The intense emotions are like the bull. They are powerful and unpredictable but I have style, grace and guile on my side. So when the fear comes rushing up on me, I will sidestep neatly, swish my elegant cape, twirl my imaginary moustache and shout “Haha, Senor Fear Bull, nice try but you are no match for me!” I am quite looking forward to trying it out. I know it won’t work every time, just like no matador wins every contest, but for me this would be a powerful image of mastering the emotion. I hope it will re-inforce my sense of taking back control.
At the moment I let fear and anger wash over me because I learned as a child that getting negative attention from my mother was better than no attention at all. I suspect that I actually ‘like’ the feeling. Not like in a good way, but like in the sense that it is a place I recognise and understand.

For the record, I am not naturally a fearful person, I travel to remote parts of the world on my own. I live with no electricity or running water for months at a time. I trek jungles, dive in remote locations and live with people that cannot speak my language. But if a potential (usually in my head) confrontation with an authority figure looms up, I’m back to a cringing, petrified 5 year old. Except now my 5 year old self has a super matador on her side and things are going to change around here!