Sweet Doe and I having an intimate moment in the enchanted forest Novato, CA.
What I learned about fear, connection, and the strange relief of not having to carry everything alone.
There are some things we know long before we have words for them.
We know them in our bodies.
We know them in the things we avoid saying. In the subjects we simply don't discuss. In the worries we carry quietly because somewhere along the way, we learned that they were ours to handle.
I have recently realized that I spent much of my life doing exactly that.
I didn't always acknowledge fear when I felt it.
I didn't necessarily say, I'm scared.
Sometimes I didn't even think the words.
I simply kept going.
There was a particular kind of strength in that.
Or at least, I thought there was.
The Things We Don't Name
I lived for many years beside alcoholism.
There are complicated things about loving someone who drinks that are difficult to explain unless you've lived them. And one of them is the strange way something enormous can become almost invisible through repetition.
You know what is happening.
You simply don't talk about it.
You don't necessarily sit down and say, This is frightening.
You adapt.
You continue making dinner. You go to work. You take care of things. You learn what can be said and what doesn't seem worth saying.
And eventually, not talking about something can begin to feel like not feeling it.
I became very good at carrying things quietly.
What I didn't understand at the time was that there is a difference between being capable of carrying something and never having anyone to carry it with you.
I am beginning to understand that difference now.
The Word I Didn't Know I Needed
Recently, I discovered a word that has changed the way I understand myself:
Witnessing.
Not fixing.
Not rescuing.
Not giving advice.
Not making someone else's fear disappear.
Simply being there while something moves through them.
I began noticing what happened when I could name a sensation in my body.
My chest feels tight.
There is a wave of fear moving through me.
My stomach just dropped.
I feel scared.
And instead of immediately trying to make the feeling stop, I could acknowledge it.
There it is.
I can feel it.
And I don't have to become it.
It can move through.
Having another presence there while I name it creates something I had not expected:
I don't feel quite so alone.
That realization stopped me in my tracks.
Because I had spent so much of my life believing that the answer was to become strong enough that I wouldn't need anyone for those moments.
Now I wonder if the answer was never to need less.
Maybe it was to finally understand what I needed.
I Thought I Wanted Strength
This realization also made me rethink something about love.
For a long time, I was very attracted to the idea of an emotionally strong, extremely self-contained man.
Someone stoic.
Someone who didn't seem easily rattled.
Someone who could hear difficult things without becoming overwhelmed himself.
I thought that was what I wanted.
And I still do want emotional steadiness.
But now I understand why.
I wasn't necessarily looking for someone to save me.
I was looking for someone who could sit beside me while I was afraid and not become afraid of my fear.
Someone who could hear me say, I'm scared, without immediately needing to fix it, dismiss it, explain it, or make the conversation about themselves.
Someone who could simply remain.
That, I now realize, is a form of intimacy.
Witnessing Isn't the Same as Dependence
This distinction has been particularly important for me.
I have a spiritual practice that teaches me to maintain my own connection to Source. I believe deeply in that.
And I still do.
There is something beautiful about having a source of connection that doesn't disappear when another person gets busy, changes their mind, moves away, or simply has a difficult day.
Nature has taught me this too.
The trees don't require me to be in a particular mood before they are there.
The ocean doesn't withdraw its presence because I had a bad day.
The sky doesn't need me to explain myself.
That kind of connection is precious.
But I think I may have taken the lesson a little too far.
I learned:
Don't make another human being your source.
And somewhere along the way, that became:
Don't need humans very much at all.
Those are not the same thing.
We are still human beings.
We are built for connection.
We need other people.
Not as our source.
Not as our entire emotional infrastructure.
But as companions, mirrors, friends, lovers, neighbors, and witnesses.
There is a difference between asking someone to be your oxygen and asking them to sit beside you while you breathe.
That distinction feels important to me now.
What I Understand Now
I don't want to outsource my peace to another person.
I don't want to make a partner responsible for regulating my entire inner world.
I don't want an unspoken expectation that someone should magically know what I need.
But I also don't want to pretend I don't need anyone.
I want to be able to say:
I'm having a hard day.
I'm scared.
Something is moving through me.
Can you just stay with me for a minute?
And I want to be with someone who can hear that without feeling responsible for making it disappear.
Maybe that is what I was searching for all along.
Not rescue.
Not emotional dependency.
Not someone to complete me.
A witness.
Someone steady enough to remain present while I remain myself.
And Perhaps This Is What Intimacy Really Is
We often talk about intimacy as sharing our dreams, our bodies, our histories, and our hopes.
And it is all of those things.
But maybe intimacy also lives in the quieter moments.
The moment when you admit you're afraid.
The moment when someone doesn't flinch.
The moment when you don't have to make your fear smaller so another person can tolerate it.
The moment when you can say, This is what is happening inside me, and someone simply says:
I'm here.
Nothing is fixed.
Nothing is solved.
But you are no longer alone inside the experience.
There is something almost sacred about that.
The Beautiful Part
I don't think I need to find one person who can give me all of this anymore.
That may be the biggest shift.
I can cultivate my connection to Source.
I can learn to witness myself.
I can allow safe friendships to become places of connection.
I can let nature witness me in its own quiet way.
I can receive the steadiness of people without making them responsible for my survival.
And if love comes again, I can ask for what I actually want.
Not:
Please make me feel safe.
But:
When fear moves through me, I would love someone who can stay grounded beside me.
That is a very different request.
It is not a demand for perfection.
It is an invitation to intimacy.
And perhaps the greatest surprise of all is that once I can witness myself, I don't need another person to rescue me from my fear.
I simply want someone who is willing to sit beside me while it passes.
And that, I think, is something worth wanting.
With Wonder,
Diana
Scheerwonder Living
