JUNE 2021 - BLOG

 

FEAR

 

              artist: Edward Munch

“Fear is one of the most powerful emotions. It has an extraordinarily strong effect on your mind and body.

Fear can create strong signals of response when we are in emergencies – for instance, if we are caught in a fire or are being attacked.

It can also take effect when you are faced with non-dangerous events, like exams, public speaking, a new job, a date, or even a party. It is a natural response to a threat that can be either perceived or real.

Anxiety is a word we use for some types of fear that are usually to do with the thought of a threat or something going wrong in the future, rather than right now.

Fear and anxiety can last for a short time and then pass, but they can also last much longer, and you can get stuck with them. In some cases, they can take over your life, affecting your ability to eat, sleep, concentrate, travel, enjoy life, or even leave the house or go to work or school. This can hold you back from doing things you want or need to do, and it also affects your health.

Some people become overwhelmed by fear and want to avoid situations that might make them frightened or anxious. It can be hard to break this cycle, but there are lots of ways to do it. You can learn to feel less fearful and to cope with fear so that it does not stop you from living.” (Mental Health Foundation.)

Having read a booklet about how to overcome fear and anxiety, I am noting how our human and natural world are changing. We are undergoing a series of severe crisis like Covid-19 (coronavirus). The climate change crisis and political leadership that is eroding our expectations of what is democracy and truth. Surely there is hope that the vaccines now available are cutting down some of the spread in some countries but the tragedy in India, Brazil and most of South America and Asia is still severe.  

The other dangerous global issue is the climate crisis, a global event that is severely damaging our planet due to overuse of fossil fuels. The production of plastic and polluting the air with manufacturing. The world leaders seem to be more interested in doing short term decisions and business is only caring for income and unsustainable development.

There may be more challenges in our time, but I am reflecting on the two global issues that are creating more and more FEAR among the population. Of course, there are climate denialists, skeptics and all sorts of false theories that are floating around the social media. However, FEAR is behind all the many expressions of feelings and thinking currently in vogue.

So, I decided to reflect on the word FEAR. We all know “fear” as some sort of uncomfortable inner feeling, but few reflect about the origins of fear. As the quote above indicates, researchers tend to define the fear as certain behaviours and link the feeling of fear with anxiety. Yet, I want to know about the original source of fear.

Recently I found a video recording I made of an event in a 'kindy' where my 5-year-old son was attending every day. I was observing the children (some as young as one year) reacting to a dance show projected on the wall. I noted that one child suddenly screamed with fear and went to the teacher to hide his face. Another child simply looked at the light coming from the projector and still another just looked bored and did some other activity ignoring the show.

This event stimulated my reflections as to how we, humans express the feeling of fear at a very early age. Perhaps the feeling of fear was inculcated by some family members, or experienced in school, work, relationships, crisis events etc. Life meant to be fun and productive, but we seem to respond to many events in life with this sense of fear. This indicates to me, that fear is a powerful resource for learning and creating.

Michael Meade, my mentor, and mythologist, speaks of fear in terms of the response to this feeling and that our response depends on how we develop wisdom or become more creative or be more foolish and living in anxiety. Therefore, fear is a powerful resource for growth and personal development in a world filled with shifts and changes. This fear resource also works with collectives, institutions, and countries.

Meade speaks of the “inner voice” as we experience fear, that says:  “ I cannot do this” … “I cannot go on”... “I am stuck”…and that is our ‘little ego’ taking that is in charge of our daily life. But, as things turn bad, the little ego starts to feel powerless and when events turn to be challenging, the ‘little ego’ cannot deal with such disturbances. Our deep Self or true Self is connected to our deep wisdom or soul and that is the place where we can creatively develop solutions to all crises.

As we connect with our wise Self, we develop what I call Perspective. Fear may be the reaction to our insecurities or disruptions and by connecting with our Wise Self, we develop a positive Perspective to challenges we may face and discover our sense of curiosity or simply disregard the importance of the disruption in front of as a temporary or an event of no consequence. Fear is multidimensional, on one hand we may suddenly suffer greatly from fear, or we connect with our wise/deep Self and discover a creative solution.

In the current global pandemic, fear has permeated everyone at all levels of society. Fear promotes a reaction of negative emotions by suddenly seeking a solution by dividing people (and nations) into “them” and “us”; This fear is linked with hatred and even war. On the other hand, we may develop a perspective that takes us to the discovery of something new.

This idea is not new. Since ancient times reactions to fear promoted wars, destruction of whole societies and promoting extreme leaders both in politics and religions that dominate and control entire populations promising solutions to the dread and fears. Today, the Pandemic created all sorts of distrust in the democratic leadership, in modern science, seeding paranoia everywhere.

In the absence of trust, people seek to believe in something to feel safe. This ‘something’ is filled with false news, bad answers to problems, faith in false beliefs and conspiracy theories. People seek those answers in social media and religious dogma.

Fear is not just a ‘fight’ or ‘flight’ response from our animal part of the brain but also a loss of self (little ego) when we do not connect with our deep wisdom, curiosity and awareness of the deep Self that can implement a new and creative solution to our crisis. I still remember the panic buying of toilet paper where some people would fight to get a toilet paper bag at the store.

Fear can be considered as a “voice” that is calling us to wake up to our creative energies and contribute to the wellbeing of all and not just us. When I purchased a big package of toilet paper, I started to distribute single rolls to people waiting in line at the store (only a few could enter) and many begun to smile and some to laugh.

Finally, I like to reframe the word ‘fear’ into an emotion. E-motion has a direction while ‘fear’ is a constricting energy. Being closed in, I start to panic and try to break out, while emotion gives me a direction towards a solution. Emotions move us as they carry energy to ACT. Repressed emotions tend to become fear and grow into a depression in our body, mind, and soul. Fear quickly becomes a body symptom or a neurotic pain or addiction or all at once.

A proverb: “Whenever one suffers from fear, winds up suffering from fear” and

“Courage is most often engendered by fear”.