Fears Don't Scare Me Like They Used To

I was fifty when I was unexpectedly released from being a keeper of family secrets. I didn’t have any idea of what that might mean or entail. I thought it could take as long as two or three years to truly get a handle on it. The process continues on some levels to this day. It ended up taking twenty years before I felt I truly understood how and why I had created the narratives I did growing up in the shadow of a secret and to replace them with what felt were, and feel are, truer and healthier ones. That includes learning to talk about my lifelong relationship with anxiety without shame. One pivotal moment came in 2001 when I shared a book I created called Learning My ABC’s, a Search for Authenticity, Belonging, and Confidence with a few family members and close friends. I ended up feeling quite exposed and vulnerable. Eventually I realized a number of unconscious fears that had defined me in many ways for so long had suddenly been exposed to the light of day and were racing around inside me like the furry characters in the first Gremlin’s movie. What I learned in the years that followed (it would take me ten years to feel I'd truly found, faced and freed my deepest fears) was that, in a way, those fears were as afraid of being exposed as I was to expose them. Life became better for all concerned when, as I say in this song, my fears were embraced by truth, light, and love. This song describes in a few minutes what it took a decade to understand and come to terms with.