I was scared this morning and my score reflected it. My husband had gone to work on his motorcycle because his car is at the garage having a rattle investigated. The wind was rushing through the tree tops and heavy rain was waging war on the windows – it wasn’t the weather for motorbiking. He is an experienced biker and wears a fluorescent jacket, but even so…

I said, “Get the bus, please,” but he pointed out he would be an hour late for work if he did. Resolutely, he pulled on his waterproof trousers and heavy leather jacket, put the bright yellow top over that and went out into the weather.

“Text me when you get to work,” I said.

I went upstairs, did my Moodscope score and read Cappuccino’s excellent blog. Was my outlook sunny? Generally, I think it is, but this morning, with the wind and the rain and my poor husband in the midst of it, it wasn’t.

Imagine my relief when, fifteen minutes later, I saw the bike again and heard the front door open. He’d come back. It wasn’t the weather that had driven him back, but the traffic. He would still have been an hour late. “I’ll work from home today,” he said. I was so relieved. I gave him a big hug and made him a cup of tea.

That was a real fear, but often we fear things that are unlikely to happen. I remember lying in bed as a child, terrified that an aeroplane would crash into the house and kill us all. Never mind that we weren’t in the flight path of any big aeroplanes and that the small aircraft taking off from our local airfield would hardly have been flying at night. I was still scared.

I don’t think I ever told anyone of this fear – not because I thought they would laugh at me or tell me my fears were groundless, but because I didn’t want them to be frightened too. I kept my fears to myself.

They say that a trouble shared is a trouble halved, but that is not always the case with fears – especially if they are real fears. Today, we have fears for the world, for the fragile peace which we in Europe have enjoyed for the past eighty years. There’s nobody to sooth us and tell us our fears are groundless because everyone shares those same fears.

So, what are your fears? Are they real or, in your saner moments, can you see them as groundless? Are they general fears about the world and the way things are going or are they specific fears for yourself and your immediate family? How do you deal with these fears? Do they affect your Moodscope score, or can you choose the “Slightly or not at all,” card?

I’m sorry this blog has no help to offer, but facing one’s fears can sometimes made them easier to deal with. I hope that’s true here.

Mary

A Moodscope member