Thanka for this vulnerable piece. Fear and I have long been bedfellows. Anger, surprisingly, is more a stranger to me. It's one way patriarchal education failed to get me. Growing up gay in the church means you're accustomed to fear. It settles deep in your bones. We were encouraged to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, to fear the Lord our God, to fear damnation, to fear our flesh. But acting out in anger was sinful. Also, I had nowhere for my anger to go, no "badguys" to be angry at but myself. Years after leaving the church I'm still working on it. Probably will be for life.
I think the culture of medicine is somewhat similar to masculinity in that a very narrow band of emotions is allowed. In my experience that means no fear, anger, grief and a big disconnection from bodily signals of emotion. It took me nearly 15 years of practicing medicine before I realized that feeling I was having before sedating someone or putting in a breathing tube or shocking someone's heart was fear. I wish we learned .ore about emotions and how to work with them in medicine. Because I think k that fear helps you double check that is are dotted and t's are crossed before you do something risky and high consequence, but also you need to be able to work with it and continue to function.
Thank you for bringing an awareness to this topic Jeremy! I've been scared of losing people since a very early age. When I was about 10 years old, I lost my grandmother to pancreatic & liver cancer and a childhood friend in a car accident, and a few months later my parents divorced. I've suppressed this fear for a long time, which started having unfortunate side effects of people-pleasing and putting the needs of others before my own (in an attempt to "keep" my loved ones and not lose them). Dealing with and expressing this fear has been helping a lot. It's normal to be scared of losing loved ones, but I was taught that a boy shouldn't be emotional and that I should suffer in silence in stead.
Thank you for this insightful piece. I’ve been thinking about fear in the last few weeks. My almost 3 year old daughter has been going through phases of expressing fear over many things. It feels like she’s experimenting with the topic. I noticed that when she’s really afraid, when her body shifts tone, instead of talking about it, she’s more likely to ignore it and then need more love. I think this is natural for fear. Sometimes it’s just a little too close to feel right away. I do hope our culture can become more fear literate and establish practices and outlets for fear to be expressed when ready
Thanka for this vulnerable piece. Fear and I have long been bedfellows. Anger, surprisingly, is more a stranger to me. It's one way patriarchal education failed to get me. Growing up gay in the church means you're accustomed to fear. It settles deep in your bones. We were encouraged to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, to fear the Lord our God, to fear damnation, to fear our flesh. But acting out in anger was sinful. Also, I had nowhere for my anger to go, no "badguys" to be angry at but myself. Years after leaving the church I'm still working on it. Probably will be for life.
I think the culture of medicine is somewhat similar to masculinity in that a very narrow band of emotions is allowed. In my experience that means no fear, anger, grief and a big disconnection from bodily signals of emotion. It took me nearly 15 years of practicing medicine before I realized that feeling I was having before sedating someone or putting in a breathing tube or shocking someone's heart was fear. I wish we learned .ore about emotions and how to work with them in medicine. Because I think k that fear helps you double check that is are dotted and t's are crossed before you do something risky and high consequence, but also you need to be able to work with it and continue to function.
Thank you for bringing an awareness to this topic Jeremy! I've been scared of losing people since a very early age. When I was about 10 years old, I lost my grandmother to pancreatic & liver cancer and a childhood friend in a car accident, and a few months later my parents divorced. I've suppressed this fear for a long time, which started having unfortunate side effects of people-pleasing and putting the needs of others before my own (in an attempt to "keep" my loved ones and not lose them). Dealing with and expressing this fear has been helping a lot. It's normal to be scared of losing loved ones, but I was taught that a boy shouldn't be emotional and that I should suffer in silence in stead.
Thank you for this insightful piece. I’ve been thinking about fear in the last few weeks. My almost 3 year old daughter has been going through phases of expressing fear over many things. It feels like she’s experimenting with the topic. I noticed that when she’s really afraid, when her body shifts tone, instead of talking about it, she’s more likely to ignore it and then need more love. I think this is natural for fear. Sometimes it’s just a little too close to feel right away. I do hope our culture can become more fear literate and establish practices and outlets for fear to be expressed when ready