Fear Archives ⋆ Mike and Susan Dawson

Unhealthy Marriage Patterns: You Can end the Damaging Fear Dance

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:14:15+00:00Emotion, Fear|

While sitting down to write this post about unhealthy marriage patterns, I was reminded of a movie scene where an overweight man was lamenting how big he had gotten. He said, “I eat because I’m unhappy, and I’m unhappy because I eat. It’s a vicious cycle.” I bring this up because, as humans, we have a tendency to fall into all sorts of cycles or patterns in everyday life — many of which are not only damaging but can feel never-ending. A perfect example of an unhealthy marriage pattern is the damaging fear dance. As couples, we fall into well-worn patterns when our fear button gets pushed. We’ve written a [...]

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What’s your personal philosophy – Peace or Panic?

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:14:47+00:00Fear, Hope|

Do you have a philosophy for dealing with hard times, adverse circumstances, stressful situations? All of us face these things in our lives. But I'm afraid most people just wait until hard things proverbially smack us right upside the face before we have a plan. We are in the midst of a "pandemic." The word itself sounds scary, and I talk to many people who just don't know what to believe. Just how bad is it? How horrible is it going to become? No human knows for sure. There are so many differing opinions. So, what in the world are we going to do about it? Some people will [...]

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OOPS! Did I Push Your Buttons?

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:16:44+00:00Conflict, Fear|

Do you and your spouse get into those “cycles?” Those patterns that seem to go round and round to where it feels like you just keep pushing each other’s buttons? Take heart, you are not alone! Almost all couples create cycles over time that can keep them on the proverbial roller coaster of relationships. The Fear Dance The “destructive dance” most couples get into generally stems from some source of fear. Men and women alike have basic core fears. The two most basic fears are: • Loss of power, or feeling controlled. This is usually a man’s greatest fear. Men want to feel they are good at what they do, [...]

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Overcome Fear Now!

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:16:49+00:00Fear|

Fear is rampant. Turn on the TV and you see it very clearly. Fear is an essential physiological response to physical and emotional danger. If we don’t feel it, we could be in danger of legitimate threats. But often we fear situations in our daily, relational lives that are far from life or death. Usually these are personal fears relating to our own value and worth, or to our vulnerabilities and shame. Fear, in this personal sense, is an anxious feeling caused by our anticipation of a perceived danger or threat to WHO we are and WHAT we do. What are some of these? Types of Personal Fears: • Failure [...]

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Could Changing the Way You Talk about Fear, Change Your Belief about Who you ARE?

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:16:57+00:00Fear, Identity|

“I have fear.” There’s a common mistranslation that causes us trouble. We say, “I am afraid,” as if the fear IS us, forever. We don’t say, “I am a fever” or “I am a sore foot.” NO, in those cases, we acknowledge that it’s a temporary condition, something we have, at least for now, but won’t have forever. “Right now, I have fear about launching this project,” is quite different from, “I’m afraid.” The blog above, by Author and Blogger Seth Godin [Read Blog] caused me to really think about how I talk about myself. I find it compelling because I have used or heard these phrases used many times [...]

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What Happens when your Greatest Nightmare comes True

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2024-01-08T01:17:58+00:00Fear|

A close friend recently told me about her greatest fear fleshed out in high def. She’d recently moved to a retirement community with wonderful amenities and better security than she’d had while living alone. The transition to living apartment style is a good one and most everything has proved to be more than she’d hoped. Except for one thing….. Living alone there had always been a fear of waking in the night and hearing someone in her home and not being able to defend herself from the intruder. One of the amenities of this facility is a panic system to call security in an emergency. This particular system has some [...]

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