{"id":282,"date":"2026-03-06T07:31:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T12:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/goblackcat.com\/?p=282"},"modified":"2026-03-06T07:31:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T12:31:29","slug":"more-fear-uncertainty-and-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goblackcat.com\/wordpress\/2026\/03\/06\/more-fear-uncertainty-and-doubt\/","title":{"rendered":"More Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am definitely feeling more fear, uncertainty, and doubt this morning and it is feeding the anxiety cycle. I don&#8217;t know why I feel so awful this morning. The past couple of days I awoke feeling at least at baseline. But today, I feel like I am &#8220;waiting for the other shoe to drop.&#8221; I know it&#8217;s not good for the mental health to ruminate on this subject matter but I am writing my thoughts and feelings down to stop them from swirling. In many ways, I want to completely give up, yet I know that giving up has never really been in my wheelhouse. As a former psychiatrist once noted about me, I have an innate stubbornness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It just dawned on me that I am still very much a creature of habit, maybe even somewhat <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Classical_conditioning\">Pavlovian<\/a>. I am still finding myself wanting to reach out to food for comfort despite that no longer working. Food just makes me feel full and no longer gives me satiation. Don&#8217;t get me wrong as this is a good thing but it is a habit that is hard to nix. I used food for damn near all of my life as a coping strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Okay, I digress &#8230;. I went off on a tangent because I used to use food to handle the fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Another insight came as a result: As much as I tell myself that I do not live in fear, I am merely only denying it. I guess I live in more fear than I really want to admit because I look down on people that live in fear. Ironic, isn&#8217;t it!? Having <em>some <\/em>fear is healthy and hopefully deters us from making poor decisions. But a life lived in a disproportionately fearful existence, is very unhealthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I need balance in my life and I miss the restorative power of simple Zen meditation. When I regularly practiced the pure unguided meditation, I felt much better mentally. Since I felt much better mentally while I was regularly practicing, I found myself not using maladaptive practices like reaching for food as a coping mechanism. It took time, patience, and effort to see benefits, but the results were nevertheless tangible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I find myself asking the same question day in and day out: How am I going to survive today? I would love to see life beyond simply surviving but that&#8217;s where my present state of mind is. Maybe my one goal today will be to seek out a mediation center in Delaware and restart this activity. If I can lower the anxiety to reasonable levels, I know I will see benefit. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt are a part of life and meditation helped to keep it in check.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am definitely feeling more fear, uncertainty, and doubt this morning and it is feeding the anxiety cycle. I don&#8217;t know why I feel so awful this morning. The past couple of days I awoke feeling at least at baseline. But today, I feel like I am &#8220;waiting for the other shoe to drop.&#8221; I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goblackcat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goblackcat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goblackcat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goblackcat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goblackcat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/goblackcat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goblackcat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goblackcat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goblackcat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}