You Can Be Safe, But Still Scared
In If Only I’d Known!, Chelsey Brooke Cole talks about the emotional impact of a near miss. Events can still affect you even if they don’t actually end up happening. She uses the example of nearly hitting an animal with your car. Your heart may still be racing as you turn the key to your home even if you managed to avoid the collision.
It got me thinking about the space between reality and potential events. There is a lot of energy stored in that space. Even if you are able to avoid an event or if it happens to someone else, it can still affect you.
In one way, this is a good thing. Your body is giving you adrenaline to quickly respond to a potentially dangerous event. It can also show a level of empathy as you can imagine what the event would feel like.
But what happens when this stress becomes chronic? Where does all that scared stored energy go? Hopefully into something productive, grounding, and peaceful. Something that brings you closer to serenity and a sense of equilibrium.
Just Because it Didn’t Happen, Doesn’t Mean it Doesn’t Hurt
I think acknowledging this type of pain is important too. Now that I can recognize it, I can choose when to take it on and when not to.
Sometimes it is unavoidable, like if you narrowly avoid hitting an animal with your car. There was no way to see it coming. In other cases though, I could see things coming and I would think “all’s well that ends well” if I narrowly avoided a bad outcome. However, my body and mind didn’t agree with me. They still held onto the fear of the narrow miss.
This is going to be an area of research that I think will be studied a lot more in the upcoming decades. Virtual reality comes to mind. Those experiences can feel real, even though they are not. But what even is real? Sometimes, when wearing a virtual reality headset, a person will accidentally jump down or lunge forward. What they are seeing isn’t real, but the impact is.
Messy Bun Book Lover
(Originally posted on May 22, 2025)
If Only I’d Known! by Chelsey Brooke Cole is available here.
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