Contracts With Fear

Unbinding the promises we make to survive

Maybe growth is actually just releasing the protective lies we’ve told ourselves.

I call these protective lies “Contracts with Fear.” Because almost always, that’s what they’re rooted in.

They show up everywhere - in body reclamation work, in grief, in my personal life. I hear them in clients, in loved ones, and in the quiet corners of my own mind.”

These Contracts with Fear are agreements we make - some really small, some massive, and then they take seed in us and they live and we can be ruled by them. We believe they’re protecting us, but often, they’re cutting us off from connection.

I believe an opposite of fear, is love. In all of the cases I see, these Contracts with Fear are a result of thwarted, wounded, bruised love - and it hurts so badly that we call Fear in to help. And it does, but with such broad strokes, that it turns everything off.

I made my own Contract with Fear in 2009.

I was excited to be dating my then-boyfriend, enamored with having a built-in Valentine, and thought something very exciting was happening. One night, in the electricity of our infatuation, I said “I think I’m ready to say something to you, but I’m nervous that you might not feel the same way.” He looked at me gently, smiled, and encouraged me to share. I felt relieved that what I was about to tell him would be returned. As the words slipped through my lips, he grinned, washed in my love. I paused. I waited, and he told me “I’m just not quite there yet.”

I was hurt and I was pissed. “Why’d you encourage me to say it if you knew you weren’t ready to say it back?!” I snapped. “I knew it would feel good to hear.” he admitted.

My contract was signed in that moment.

I will never, ever, under any circumstances, in any relationship, for any reason, ever be the first one to say I love you first. I will never let myself be humiliated like that again.

It was a handful of years later that I terminated that Contract with Fear one night with Michael. I loved him, I knew it. I couldn’t deny it, or hide it, and in every moment I was with him, the words wanted to escape my lips and make it known.

I knew he wasn’t ready to say it back. I knew I wouldn’t hear it from him yet, but I knew my heart had to say it.

The lie within the Contract of Fear that I’d told myself, was that “I am someone who can refrain from love until it feels safe.” It actually makes me laugh to type that. I have never been someone who could refrain from love, and I love that about myself now.

There was a long gap between when I was ready to tell Michael I loved him, and when he was ready to tell me. A few years ago, we were out to dinner and I asked him, hands held across the table “when did you know you loved me?” and he said “I’m not exactly sure, but it was way before I was able to say it out loud.” In that moment, he shredded that rescinded contract, obliterating it for good.

Maybe you’re noticing some of the Contracts with Fear you may have signed.

Some ways I see these survival contracts - Contracts with Fear show up:

• “I will never share about my own pain or trauma because it will destroy others.”
  A self-protective vow rooted in emotional caretaking and fear of being too much. It keeps you safe from rejection or guilt, but also keeps you alone with your pain.

• “I will take responsibility for things outside of my control, because it’s easier to be angry at myself than to feel my own disappointment.”
  A way to blame self and offer the illusion of power.

• “I’m insecure about my body - that’s why I don’t want to be intimate.”
  A belief that shields against exposure, judgment, or shame, or may serve as a stand-in to avoid the harder truth.

• “I don’t want to overwhelm people - that’s why I don’t fully show up as myself.”
  A self-silencing strategy rooted in the fear of being too much.

• “People only love me when I’m useful.”
  A painful narrative that equates love with performance or productivity.

• “I could never love again.”
  A grief-bound promise that protects a heart still shattered.

• “I’ll never be the first to say ‘I love you’ again.”
  A vow made to avoid rejection or one-sided vulnerability.

• “No one will understand, so why bother sharing?”
  A story that protects against misunderstanding and loneliness - but reinforces isolation.

• “I gave my heart once and it destroyed me - I won’t do that again.”
  A sacred vow to never again be broken the way you once were.

• “I don’t trust happiness - it always disappears.”
  A heart bracing against joy, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

You can see how so many of these are all wrapped up in the ideas of vulnerability, the cost of love, the requirement of tenderness. C.S. Lewis wrote beautifully about what it means to make Contracts with Fear:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” -C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)

So what then, do we do when we find ourselves having signed these contracts? We terminate them and contract instead with Love.

While the Contract with Fear says, “I’ll keep you safe,” the fine print reveals all the ways it will cage you to do so.

The Contract with Love is less detailed, less predictable - but far more alive.
It says only this:

“You must risk vulnerability. Sometimes it will hurt. Sometimes it will feel like ecstasy. But it will always be worth it.”

Which Contract with Fear are you still honoring? And what might a new Contract with Love say instead?