This week's lesson - fear

Fear is an amazing, powerful emotion. It can either drive you to greatness or bury you in depression. I think lately it has done both for me.

During the Cinderella shoot, I had to deal with so much fear within myself. It was extremely difficult because every single aspect of this shoot terrified me. Is the script strong enough? Do I really know what I am doing? Everyone’s looking for me to have the answer to everything and do I? What if I get on the set and I don’t know what to do? What if the crew discovers that I really haven’t got a clue? All the preparation and the organization in the world sometimes can’t override those voices. What I realized on this shoot is that so much of the voice of that fear came from living under such intense negativity for so long that I now jump to that negative first, burying the positive way down inside. I’m so afraid of doing something wrong and, yet, the gift of this shoot was that, even if I didn’t know what to do, there were very gifted people around me who were able to give suggestions in a professional, respectful way without making me feel like an idiot because I’d run into something I hadn’t expected. There was no judgment on that set about me. They expected me to direct and I did. They expected me to produce and I did.

Hmmm, expectation. That’s the other thing I’m great at throwing around. My expectations of things aren’t always what they should be and I tend to project my expectations onto others, with disastrous results. But that’s for another time.

So the fear of Cinderella and failing, etc., drove me to make sure that I was overly prepared for things. A few things fell through the cracks and I beat myself up about those, of course. But by simply pushing through the fear and not letting it get the better of me, I was able to channel that energy and turn it into productive energy and make this film. There were days that the fear was crippling, especially our last night of shooting. There was so much to be done, so much at stake, so many people standing around, waiting for me, that it almost made me want to run away. Don’t give me that much responsibility! Don’t you k now I can’t handle it! I’m an idiot! I don’t do anything right! Didn’t he tell you that? Oh, yeah, he’s not around. Again, the great respect of my cast and crew allowed me the moments to step back and deal with the fear and overwhelming pressure of the day without collapsing. My Ipod helped, too.

After that, you’d think I’d learn how to handle my fear. Not. Fear is now driving me to cut someone very dear to me out of my life because I’m too afraid to talk to him about how I feel. Rather than suck up the fear, tell him how I feel (including the angry stuff as well), and take the chance he doesn’t feel the same way or that he does and his fear is holding him back, I’m ready to say good-bye. Okay, maybe not ready but prepared to. Every moment spent with him is colored by my feelings and that’s not good for either of us. So rather than confront it, I’m giving into the fear and letting something very precious go.

And I look at him and I see the fear there as well. This is probably just me projecting because, you know, I do that, but I think he’s afraid of even looking at how he might feel about me because of his own fear. He’s got a very nice, comfortable life right now, and getting involved with me, besides all the baggage that comes along with that, means changing things a great deal. Maybe he’s not ready for that. Maybe he’s afraid of getting hurt again, as we all are. I know him well enough that if I have really overstepped a line or really done harm to him, he would have shut me out completely by now. Instead, I get this weird push-pull feeling from him. He likes to have me around but I got too close so he’s pushed me away. Seems to be a male thing. Come here, I want to get to know you, gee, I like being around you, shit, I’m feeling something for you, bye. Okay, come back for a while, okay, I got my fix, now go away.

Then the fear and those damned clowns sneak in and go, you know, if you do cut him out of your life, he won’t notice anyway. You’re not that important to him. You’re just a friend, just someone he’s obligated to for many reasons, none of which have anything to do with you personally. And when those obligations are gone, he will be, too.

I kept hoping for the universe to provide a time for a talk with him but I will admit that I think there were times provided and my fear overruled the universe. Then this fear feeds the anger I can’t deal with and that turns into depression because I feel so out of control with my life. Then the depression feeds the fear even more because it’s proving that it is right, that the fear knows me better than I know myself, and it drives me even further down.

So our lesson for this week is fear. I need to really look at this and figure out how to deal with it better. I need to maybe just take a step back for a while from him, really look at how I feel because it’s so confused and complicated and has been. I need to look at the root of my fear with him and talking to him and see where it lies. Maybe there is a very valid reason for the fear, other than maybe he doesn’t feel the same. Maybe I’m just kidding myself and can’t face that either. That’s another fear, that I made all of this up, that he never cared for me any more than as a friend, and that I distorted the whole thing.

I just know that I need to deal with this one way or the other soon. I’m sure you’re all tired of hearing (reading?) me talk about this situation, because I sure am. Maybe it’s a part of moving on and I have to go through this process to prepare me for something else. That damned universe again. But some serious introspection is required, whether I want to do it or not.