Lately I’ve been reflecting on this question. It’s an important one.
Maybe less important when you’re 25 (though I wish I had kept it in the forefront of my mind at that age) but I can’t think how asking it doesn’t reveal what we are hiding, avoiding or displacing at any age.
Nearly everywhere I look online I see references to fear. Of course, the news is fixated on it – because the clichéd expression – fear sells – has a lot of truth to it. If theories of emotional contagion are correct, fear spreads in both obvious and insidious ways. If fear is a thing – it is cunning in its camouflage.
A quick glance at some social media maxims speak to the warnings and promises associated with the role fear can play in our lives:
Well, what would you do?
Jungian analyst and author, James Hollis, writes, “All of us have to ask this simple but piercing question of our relationships, affiliations, professions, politics and our theology: “Does this path, this choice, make me larger or smaller?” Usually, Hollis suggests, we know the answer immediately because we always intuitively know and yet are afraid of what we know and even more afraid of what it may ask of us.”
Our not looking, not asking, not seeing, avoiding, hiding, deflecting, neglecting, distracting, exhausting and rationalizing what we want but don’t allow for ourselves is a bow to fear. Our actions are always in service to our unconscious needs – and too many stay unattended in the dark because of our fears.
Behavior doesn’t just happen. It’s motivated by our beliefs and emotions. This conscious and mostly unconscious process is always going on. Should I walk down this block or the next? Can I be honest with my boss? Can I be real with this group of people? Should I spend this money? ( money, folks is a huge repository of fear for many people) Should I trust this person? What if I break off this relationship and land up alone? What will happen to me if I get sick? Who will take care of me when I get old?
At the core of fear are the existential questions every human being faces: Am I enough? Will I have enough? Will the world overwhelm me or will it love me?
Ouch, ouch, ouch. None of this is emotionally comfortable. All of this chronic uncertainty can leave us feeling like we always have to hang on to the edge of the pool for dear life.
But we cannot banish fear from our human experience. It is after all, an inescapable part of our journey. Fear, like any other emotion is not our enemy. Stripped down to its pure essence fear’s job is to keep us safe. That it lulls us into a sense of false psychological safety is part of its attraction and a major part of its problem.
Taking the Gentle Way With What We Fear
As scary or obscure as it may seem, becoming more acquainted with what Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron calls, “the places that scare us,” can begin to loosen the pent-up resistance of our unhealed fears. As Chodron suggests, “Each time you stay present with fear and uncertainty, you’re letting go in a habitual way of finding security and comfort.”
The key to working with what we fear is changing the way we think about it. Despite the popular advice to overcome or conquer our fears, facing and healing our fears will not be “won” using the language of war and struggle. Our fears will not be eliminated by taking a hard-line approach.
Learning to listen more deeply to the needs behind our fears is an important beginning. In doing this we have to walk the fine line between listening, understanding and not rationalizing what we fear. Summoning the strength of other emotions like self-compassion can help us to do the emotional healing work that’s needed.
The more I live the more I learn to become kinder and gentler to myself in dealing with my fears. I’ve let up on the pressure to take Herculean steps. Learning to respect our emotional life is continuous process. It pushes, prods and pulls – it bends, shifts and releases. It is kindest when we are kindest.
We begin by “starting close in” as the wonderful poet David Whyte writes, “Don’t take the second step, or the third, start with the first.”
That’s my advice.
Start Close in ~David Whyte
Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.
Start with
the ground
you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own
way of starting
the conversation.
Start with your own
question,
give up on other
people’s questions,
don’t let them
smother something
simple.
To find
another’s voice,
follow
your own voice,
wait until
that voice
becomes a
private ear
listening
to another.
Start right now
take a small step
you can call your own
don’t follow
someone else’s
heroics, be humble
and focused,
start close in,
don’t mistake
that other
for your own.
Start close in,
don’t take
the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.
~David Whyte, River Flow: New and Selected Poems
Louise Altman,Intentional Communication Consultants
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