Day 207: Fear of Missing Out

THERE IS ACTUALLY A CURE.
Understand the fear, take self-responsibility for accepting and allowing the fear in the first place, change your perspective, and re-direct your decisions and physical movements to align with your utmost potential.

Something that I've noticed coming up a lot for me lately is the idea that I'm missing out on certain things in my life.  I see where this mind-set has been a part of me for a very long time, though, I didn't really start paying attention to it until recently.  So, last night I went to EQAFE and typed 'Missing Out' in the search bar and came up with several interviews that could potentially be supportive.  Based on the descriptions that were in alignment with the points I've been looking at, I decided to listen to I Fear Missing Out - Life Review and Missing Out - Fears & Phobias.  Interestingly enough, I have also been sorting out some relationship issues and see that My Perfect Partner Lives in My Mind (Part 1) - Life Review is among the interviews that popped up and I see how that could be supportive so I'll listen later.  For the moment, I'll be focusing on looking at the points that came up while listening to the first two interviews.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this in any of my previous blogs but when I was kid, my parents didn't usually allow me to do the things that my friends were doing as I was restricted to my room for months (or years) at a time, my parents would flat-out say, "No," or they would say, "Yes," and then I would get in trouble somehow and they would then tell me that I couldn't go.  I would always be hopeful that things would be different with each new opportunity that came up to be out with friends - that my parents would say, "Yes," and stick to it or make an exception to my restriction and within this, imagine all of the fun I would have.  This RARELY ever happened though.  Further, when my friends would talk about all of the fun that they had - the fun that I was not allowed to participate in - I remember seeing myself as 'left out' and I experienced a great deal of frustration and anger at both my friends and my parents because I had not been able to live out the good times that I had imagined in my mind.  And further, I saw no way that I could fix the situation and as hard as I worked on 'being good' so that I could do the things that other kids were doing, I'd usually make a mistake somewhere and the opportunity would be 'taken away'.  I blamed my parents for being too strict and not being understanding of me - and I blamed myself for always finding a way to screw things up.

Even after I moved out and became independent from my parents, I have continued with this seeing myself as 'missing out' - whether it's been in personal relationships where things don't go as awesome as I imagined and/or as I had planned them being or as a young mother not being able to do the things that others my age were doing.  I see how this fear of missing out has influencing my relationship with time, my moment-to-moment decisions, work, socializing, and even how I eat and what foods I choose to eat.

At the end of it all - my reason, excuse, and justification for not changing is that I see myself as the victim in all of this - like, I'm stuck and forced into going along with whatever my mind, others, and the world decides for me.  Like, I'm being punished over-and-over again and have no control over that which obviously, is not true.

In the next blog, I will begin the self-forgiveness process and see what comes up as I get deeper into understanding the problem and releasing myself from the pattern.