Dear Sapnap3:

I am all for keeping this thread going and thank you for the invitation. Placing people on pedestals is unrealistic and ineffective, therefore taking your boss off the pedestal is a wise attitude change. As I posted on this thread before, fear is a powerful force, to be dealt with an attitude of respect to how powerful it is in human functioning. I am facing my own fears these days. Have been afraid my whole life and feel fear daily, again and again. Some fear is existential, there to stay, but a good portion of it is leftover fear from childhood, fear that gets activated repeatedly through the day. Often I didn’t notice it as fear. Sometimes all I was aware of when afraid was feeling angry. At other times I just felt the temperature going up a lot in my body, feeling hot, physically. At other times I found myself engaged in counting calories, something i have been doing in the last few years only, but engaged in it as a distraction when i am afraid. I am noticing all the times in one day that I am afraid. I notice the times I ruminate, trying to analyze what it is that scares me, times I catastrophize: what is wrong with me, I am thinking, while all that is wrong is that I feel fear and that feels dangerous. Leftover fear is what i call it.

anita