Most of our fears are pretty much hardwired in before we reach the age of 6 . So it’s an interesting experience to watch my brain in the process of adding a new one.
As an adult, it’s not something I get to see everyday. And I’m watching this one with the same fascination I used to approach dissection assignments in grade 8 biology!
I’ve discovered I have an allergy – a major one – to black fly bites.
Living in the woods now, I’ve just experienced my first black fly season in Nova Scotia. Actually not nearly as bad as what I’d heard about it, but I never dreamed I would react to a bite the way I did!
My first 2 bites were both on an ankle – thank goodness! One a month ago and the second 2 weeks later. I was surprised by the first reaction, but thought it was a fluke or the bite was infected. No big deal.
But the second one was worse! Within 30 hours my foot was twice it’s normal size and you couldn’t see any ankle bones at all! Plus, I had a low grade fever and chills 6 hours after the bite.
So now, my safety brain – the fight or flight part – has added “going outside” to the list of dangerous things in it’s catalog.
What to do!
Having never had a major allergy, suddenly I’m starting to understand how it is people get more and more cautious in their life when there are things that they react to.
We all go through this process, whenever we’re hurt in our life in any way. Physically, emotionally, mentally.
Our brains are designed to remembers exactly what caused the hurt, and how it happened, and then it watches for those same circumstances and warns us with adrenaline when we get to close to them the next time.
It doesn’t matter if it’s black flies or relationships, the process is the same.
This is the very same process that, in its extreme form, results in agoraphobia, when we react to more and more things in our life and our world gets smaller and smaller until one day we just don’t leave our house anymore.
So my brain is now saying it’s wise to stay inside and that my backyard is a dangerous place. I can feel this as a kind of low level anxiety that shows up when I’m out back in the garden. (That’s the brain starting to get hyper-vigilant.)
But I LOVE the yard, and it’s finally warm enough to be out there in shorts!
Fortunately, I’ve learned to stay detached from my safety brain, so I’m going to be able to talk myself through this fear. Mainly by staying present with it, paying attention to my breath and choosing to stay outside in spite of it’s warnings by remembering what I love about being there.
I also have an ace in the hole, when it comes to dealing with fear. I have the best tools I’ve ever found, from The Way of The Heart, and I can use them to clear the original experience so I don’t keep reacting to it.
It’s like taking the card for “going outside” right out of my brain’s card file, so it literally doesn’t warn me about that any more.
Of course, I won’t be removing the allergy by doing that, so I’ll take some wise precautions before I go out, like putting on bug spray and staying a little more covered than I might.
I’m also going to keep some Benadryl around from now on! But at least I don’t have to let my world get smaller and stop going outside just because my brain says so.
Where has your world gotten a little smaller? Is it time to challenge your brain about that?
