Celebrate the Normal: The contagious

Week 16 and now 310 pictures have been submitted in the Celebrate the Normal series. You all are unbelievable in your keen sense of capturing moments and emotions. I love that this continuum has allowed creators and artists the space to share what could be put in the box of the everyday but is instead elevated to the beautiful.

I'm going to hold you captive for just a moment before I show off this week's captures.

And it's been a recent (though not new) epidemic going around our house.

You may have heard of it; likely you've experienced in extensive ways in your years walking the earth.

It's fear. And it's a strange connection, that place where fear and celebration comingle.

Let me take you through two quick scenarios that happened in my house this week...

Scenario #1: My eldest is fearful of bike riding. The prospect of having to balance on her bicycle and not fall brings her quickly to tears and a whole bunch of anxiety. In fact she's been so terrified that she been talking and talking to her little sister about how dangerous riding a bike is, and she's mentioned and shown off all the bumps and scrapes she's received (and attaching the label - From biking - in her head).

The confidante, her younger sister who last summer was breezing by us all on her two-wheeler with training wheels has developed a new fear of falling from her bike. Her imagination from too-careful listening has made her unable to enjoy riding and now we have two fearful bike riders.

Scenario #2: When my younger daughter gets sick, she most likely suffers from a bad cough or sore throat. During a winter doctor's appointment for an acute case of symptoms, she got to experience the strep swab. The fear that this procedure may happen again has brought a new found concern into our house.

And so when her little brother was sick with a bad cough, and she warned him and warned him about how scary the doctor's office is, and how he'll have to get something down his throat, he began crying at the announcement that he was going to the doctor. He asked amidst his sobs if he'd have to get something in his throat. And a new fear is born.

Fear can be contagious.

When we generalize from our own helplessness and project that others will also develop the same fears we have, we make the transmittal route from one young mind to another a slick and easy pathway.

And yet what is more normal than fear? To think that we will never fear or inadvertently pass along our fear is naive at best.

As someone who has had fear sitting next to me for many years, I have 2 thoughts to share on using fear well.

1. Own it. Stop yourself before you make the blanket statement that snakes are absolutely terrifying, that needles produce the deepest pains, that giant hairy monsters live under your bed in the dark. And turn that fear into a personal story rather than a generalized truth.

I have no psychology in my background, so this is just speaking from my mom life - when fear becomes a personal story that you share and a vulnerability to open, it takes the sting and even the shock away from those around you. And the anxiety has a space to be released. Bonuses all around.

2. I recently heard a mentor talk about stumbling blocks in our lives: disappointment, rejection, fear, etc. Often these roadblocks keep us from becoming and being the people that we want to be. They can also intrude on our sense of the divine and our connection with God.

Plenty of times, I've been too distracted to pray. Sometimes I feel fearful or ashamed that God thinks less of/loves me less. Sometimes I'm angry and convinced that my way would have turned out better.

My mentor suggested, as his mentor had suggested to him... in these times of struggle with silence and with prayer... make it simple.

Are you angry today? Make that your first line of prayer (eg: "God, I am angry today, and I don't understand how to let it go)

Are you scared or ashamed? (eg; "God, I'm scared today. I'm afraid...")

And I have found that beginning with the placement of the fear right in the beginning of my prayer conversation takes away the power that fear sometimes possesses. I dare you to try it.

So let's celebrate fear this week. When we normalize it and celebrate it, the horror is released, and you and I can, in fact, relate on a deeper, more meaningful level.