Fear Triggers, Emotional Reactions and Manifestation

Of all the lessons I have learned in my life, fear manifestation has been the hardest to assimilate. I understand that what we focus on is what we manifest, and there have been numerous instances of myself attracting what I did not want. Yet, I still find myself focusing on my fears and bringing the exact experiences I do not want into my life.

The perfect example occurred today.

I did not get much sleep last night because of a spoilt cat and some other emotional turmoil that kept my mind racing from 2am when the cat woke me for food, until sometime shortly before 5 when I think I dozed lightly until my alarm woke me at ten minutes to 7 (adjusted at sometime around 5 am in the hopes of getting an extra 30 minutes sleep in). All up I had around 5 hours of broken sleep and I knew the day was going to be a struggle.

The aforementioned 'spoilt cat', Eddie Treebird. Just can't stay mad at that face!

You see, I am a teacher. A high school teacher. And teenagers are like hungry lions hunting their prey – if they find a weakness they attack until they are sated and their prey is a mangled mess of blood and bones. Well, they were the lions and I was the lame wildebeest! They sensed my weakness and were relentless. And if I was less self-aware I would be typing this from a deep, hot bubble bath surrounded by candles, wine and some random relaxation music from YouTube.

But I am self-aware, and the reality is I created these experiences by my own actions and reactions. Sure, I was the lame wildebeest, but had I just grabbed a camouflaged split to hide my gammy leg I would never have been devoured and I would now be running in the wild with the rest of my wildebeest family!

Had I gone into today without expectation, or with the expectation that I would have a good day and that I would be in control regardless of how I felt, I would have been fine. However, I didn’t and this expectation also triggered other emotions in me, namely that of inadequacy.

I have struggle with feelings of inadequacy and not being good enough for as long as I can remember and for reasons I can list with almost all my fingers. I have worked extremely hard in recent years at rectifying and healing this side of me, but it rears its ugly head every now and then, especially when I am already a bit emotional.

So, not only did I go into today with expectations of struggle, but with my inadequacy in overdrive and it showed in the events of the day. I failed to begin the lessons well and lost my way in the middle. I saw the slightest disruption or distracted student as utter contempt and disrespect for me on their part. I engaged in arguments with students that I would have otherwise nipped in the bud with ‘we will discuss this tomorrow at lunch’. And I ended up making my emotional state worse in the long run.

These, in fact most behaviours exhibited by teenagers is the result of nothing more sinister than bad choices, lack of understanding and experience, and misplaced priorities. Yet, I allowed my expectations and emotions to interpret them as a coordinated attack, when the truth is they couldn’t coordinate themselves into an orderly canteen line, let alone a plot to undermine my authority.

At the end of the day, I manifested this situation – my expectations guided my actions and reactions and I had the bad day I ‘knew’ I would. And we do it all the time! How often have we gone to a family dinner party expecting to get into a fight and the exact thing has happened? Worse still, how many times has this happened because of our own actions? How often have we had to fight for something simply because we always have had to and expect to continue to? How often do we attract the wrong partner because we have the ‘all men/women are arseholes/bitches’ mentality?

The list of examples is endless! So, what do we do?

For me, it is time to put my big girl pants on, face my fears of inadequacy, take responsibility for my own actions, release the expectations and just ‘see what happens’. Sure, I didn’t sleep well and I am a little emotional, but I’ll take a deep breath and ‘see what happens’. I might just surprise myself. Having said this, the students will still argue, misbehave and fail to listen, but I will be in a better emotional state (fake it til you make it, right?) and will not react the same way and things will not escalate as far in the future.

And that is a win for all involved. :)