Domestic Violence Recovery – Fear is a Choice and Has a Consequence

If you chose fear, then the object of your fear is scary. If you chose not to fear, the object is neutral. Fear is a choice.

And the choice you make will determine how you see the other person, thing or situation AND how you experience yourself relative to that person…how you experience yourself in that situation.

This simple little principle, as it relates to domestic violence survivors, can be easily seen through the analogy of public speaking.

We hear that public speaking is listed up there as the leading fear among most people. Many people say they’d rather die than stand before an audience and speak.

I liken the way we relate to the audience we fear to the way domestic abuse survivors relate to their former batterers. Most survivors will do anything to avoid the interaction.

Now this is not to say that former batterers are not or cannot be dangerous. Because many are indeed viscous to their ex-partners long after the relationship has “terminated.”

However returning to our analogy…when you fear the audience, they are really scary and you are nervous and project being scared. Whereas when you embrace the audience as neutral, you see them as non-threatening and you allow for a natural flow of communication to occur and communion to establish.

If you are a survivor of domestic violence, cultivate the capacity to neutralize the object of your fear and you will discover how utterly empowering it is for you, even while you maintain realistic precautions with respect to this person. You will discover a side of yourself you knew before the battering relationship, and you will be happy that you did.