Episode 10: Fear Can Make You Miss Life

In this 10th episode of Sweet Wine Sweet Life, Jacquie reflects on a personal weekend at her stepdaughter’s graduation and the lesson it brought up: fear can prepare you for pain so loudly that you miss the life still trying to include you.

This episode is about fear, family, clarity, emotional protection, and learning not to let one painful experience close every door.

Sip sweetly, live fully, love boldly — and don’t let fear make you miss the life that is still inviting you in.

Transcript

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Fear can prepare you for the pain so loudly that you miss the life still trying to include you. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Nestis, and this is Sweet Wine, Sweet Life, the podcast where we talk about all things that make life feel a bit more beautiful. Whether it's a wine I'm loving, a mindset shift, or just a dreamy place I'm dying to visit. This is your time to slow down, sip something sweet, and soak in the good life. Let's get into it. Hey hey, sweet friends. Welcome back to Sweet Wine Sweet Life. My name is Jackie Mestis and I'm happy you're here. Before we jump in, I just want to say thank you for listening and spending some time with me. If you're enjoying this show, go ahead and follow or subscribe wherever you're listening so you don't miss an episode. And if Instagram is your thing, come find me there at SweetWineSweetLife. I'd love to have you join me over there, but you know, only if you want to. No pressure. We keep it sweet over here. Alright, let's get into today's episode. First of all, thanks for joining me for my 10th episode. I can't believe it's been 10 episodes. I'm really, really thrilled and extremely excited about that. And on that note, I want to kind of jump right into today's topic. It's extremely personal and there's a lot of emotion involved. So I'll I'll try to be as objective as I can, but it is something that that's personal to me. Last weekend I went to my youngest stepdaughter's high school graduation, and throughout the weekend, I was working on myself and I realized something I wasn't expecting. What has been going on for, oh, I don't know, the last eight months or so is that I've been preparing myself emotionally for rejection. I was waiting for the uninvite, as you can say. And that's just because there is some past hurt there, some distancing there in complicated relationships that did not have anything to do with my youngest stepdaughter. And I felt like I had to start protecting myself by pulling back a little bit. And the thing about it is I've learned something that it took my husband a while to learn, but he learned, and now I'm learning it on my own as well. That sometimes fear tells us it's protecting us. But if we're not careful, fear can also make us miss the love, the invitation, and the life still standing right in front of us. So the first thing I'm going to talk about is when you're bracing for the blow. And a lot of us have different ways of protecting ourselves. Sometimes we will distance ourselves because we're trying not to get hurt again. When something painful has happened before, it makes us sense that we have to start preparing ourselves for it to happen again, which is exactly what I was doing. I had already experienced being uninvited to a graduation in the past. When this graduation rolled around, part of me was getting ready for the same pain and trying to do things in order to cope. But the thing that happened, and this is kudos to my youngest stepdaughter, her name is Monica. Shout out to Monica. She did not withdraw the invitation, and she still wanted me to come and be there. Again, throughout the year, I've been preparing myself for the other shoe to drop, and the other shoe did not drop. I thought I was preparing myself for rejection, but maybe I was also preparing myself to miss the invitation. Fear may have been trying to protect me, but it was also quietly teaching me to expect the worst, much to my own detriment, of course. The next thing I want to talk about is that your fear can make you miss life. Fear is not always irrational. Sometimes it has a history behind it, and this is a very long history, and for me a painful history that I continue to work through. The thing about fear though is that it cannot be allowed to make every decision in our lives. Fear can make us assume that we're unwanted. Fear can make us step back when someone still wants us close. Fear can make us miss graduations, conversations, moments, memories, and the most important thing, love. This graduation became a reminder that life was still happening and I was still invited to that part of it. Fear can make you grieve a loss before life has even finished offering you a moment. And sometimes the things you're bracing against is not the thing that actually happens. I really hope that someone else hears that message. The next thing I need to talk about, and I've talked about this before, is knowing what you're agreeing to. Sometimes we agree to things without even realizing the emotional cost of those things. You can agree by staying quiet, which I have done a lot. You can agree by assuming someone else has handled the communication. That's happened with my husband a lot. You can agree by letting a plan move forward without asking the right questions. In this case, there are times where I've distanced myself, and what may have landed on the other side, especially when it comes to Monica, is the interpretation was that I had snuck into town, which is not a lie. And if that is how it landed for her, I need to own my part in that. So publicly, to the monk, I am sorry. That was not my intention, but I understand the impact. And right there is where if I had been clear and I had asked questions, I could have protected the relationship a little bit more than I did the past eight months or so. Sometimes we agree to a plan without realizing we're also agreeing to the consequence of how that plan feels to someone else. And again, that is thinking about other people as well as thinking about myself and the interpretation and how it lands. Silence can become an agreement if we never stopped and asked, wait, what exactly are we doing? You can ask for clarity at any time. Clarity is not nagging, clarity is not being difficult. Clarity is how we protect relationships from unnecessary misunderstandings. And once again, I get that, and I really hope that if someone else listens to that, she gets that as well. It's okay to ask, does she know we're coming? Are we surprising her or are we avoiding something? And what exactly is the plan? Asking one question earlier can prevent hurt feelings later. Clarity is not conflict. Sometimes clarity is actually care. Ask the questions before the silence turns into a misunderstanding. Which brings me to my next point, which is walk away from things that do not serve your peace. Had a previous relationship with a family member, and we had a very complicated relationship. At one point in time, she was one of the most important people in my life, period. But uh I've found out that situations they just don't get fixed, even if we want them to, no matter how bad we want them to. Sometimes relationships require distance for the peace. Walking away does not mean that you stop caring. Sometimes it means that you stop volunteering for pain. And uh that is exactly what I did when it comes to this relationship. You can love someone, wish them well, and still not chase a place where you're not welcome. Being who I am and what I look like, I normally don't go places where I'm not welcome. It is a defense mechanism and it is a way to keep myself safe. But emotionally, it's just as important. And finally, the hard part is not letting one painful experience make you pull away from everyone else. My point there is walking away is not always punishment. Sometimes it's peace. But we also have to be careful to not let one closed door convince us that every door is closed. That's true about a lot of different things. Love, most of all. Next thing I want to say is people do not change unless they want to. And this is a hard truth that I have come to accept. You cannot make people more honest, more open, more mature, or more considerate by wanting it badly enough. We can explain how something affects us, we can ask for better, we can say what we need, but real change has to be chosen. This is gonna apply to family, marriage, parenting, friendships, and even ourselves. The only person we can truly control is ourselves, our boundaries, our clarity, our choices, and most importantly, our healing. You cannot want someone into growth. They are not willing to choose. Love can also ask for change, but it cannot do the changing for someone else. And everything kind of goes back to sweet wine and sweet life. This is a reminder that the sweet life is not a perfect life by any means. I said that last episode, and I'm gonna keep saying it because it's true. It's not a life where everyone behaves well and every relationship is easy. The sweet life is learning how to savor what is still good without pretending the hard parts didn't happen. This graduation weekend had really complicated feelings for me, but it also had absolute beauty, happiness, and a lot of pride. Monica graduated from high school. She's worked really, really hard. She was glad that both me and her dad came, and there was still love there. And there was also still a moment worth showing up for. The sweet life is not about ignoring the bitter notes. It's about not letting them overpower the whole glass. And maybe that is the sweet life lesson of the week. Don't let fear be the strongest flavor in a moment that still has something beautiful to offer. And now I'm gonna close this out, and I already have tears, and I'm going to try really hard to keep this as composed as I can. My husband has called his daughter Monica Monkey ever since she was little. She is an amazing athlete. She learned to do flips on her own that I never would have tried. She is brave, she is beautiful, she is smart, she is caring, she is fierce. And the nickname Monkey has shortened to the monk, just to have it be a little bit cooler. But this is my personal wish for the monk. This is gonna be really hard. This is my personal wish for the monk. My wish for the monk is honesty from the people she meets, energy that feels safe, warm, and true, tears that are short-lived, joy that lasts longer than the hard days, and a life as beautiful as she is. Thank you for listening to me talk about this, and in closing, I just want to remind you that if fear has been protecting you, do not shame yourself for that. Sometimes fear shows up because something really did hurt. But do not let fear become the narrator of your whole life. Ask for clarity. Know what you're agreeing to. Walk away from things that don't serve you. But do not miss the invitations that are still real. Do not miss the people who still want you there. And do not miss life because you're busy preparing for the pain. Fear may be trying to protect you, but it does not get to make every decision in your life. Sometimes you still have to show up and see what life is offering. So, once again, this is me signing off saying sip sweetly, live fully, love boldly, and don't let fear make you miss the life that is still inviting you in. Cheers, everybody. Have a great rest of your week. Thanks for spending this time with me in Sweet Wine Sweet Life, where we sip sweetly, live fully, and love boldly. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to follow the podcast and share it with a friend who could use a little more sweetness. You can find wine pics and cozy inspiration at sweetwinesweetlife.com or connect with me on Instagram at sweetwine sweetlife. Until next time, pour something you love and savor the sweetness. Sweetwine Sweet Life is a part of the Sweet Life Creative Collective, music by Fashion Chill Pop, Recharge Your Soul by Onalden Music.