What we do with fear
I don’t know about you, but as soon as I saw the date on my phone this morning, I felt a shiver and a tightness running from my head to my toes. I could feel my stomach filling up as if I’d swallowed a nice pile of gravel. My throat constricted and my vision seemed to narrow or tunnel. While I took note of this physical response, I have to admit I was a little surprised by it. Of course, I can recall my experience on September 11, 2001 with ease, but sitting here, almost twenty years removed, I was surprised by my bodies fresh reaction.
So, as you scroll your newsfeed or engage in any type of media today and see burning buildings, people running and screaming from billowing clouds of smoke, and hear voice recordings of goodbyes and horror, you may notice your body reacts even more strongly this year than it has in the past. You may notice that what usually feels like a distant memory today feels like a fresh experience of terror and vulnerability.
For many of us living through the nightmare that has been 2020 so far, our bodies are already experiencing a trauma response. We are responding anew to empty grocery store shelves and feelings of food insecurity. We are responding to political instability and unrest on every corner, parts of the country literally burning down to the soil, and no end in sight to this pandemic. Trauma responses are cumulative.
It is 100 percent normal for you to feel raw today. It is 100 percent normal for you to feel a little paralysis. It is 100 percent normal for you to experience fear and vulnerability in a visceral, noticeable, and pervasive way today. The question is, what will you do with the fear?
Fear can drive us into our most primal instincts of survival and self-preservation. It can give us tunnel vision to anything outside of getting our needs met, securing our future, and serving our own best interest. This is normal, but we don’t have to stay here. If we can stay mindful, curious, and grounded in the present, we can find ways to take care of ourselves without losing sight of the values we hold around loving our neighbor.
We can take a deep breath. We can notice the feelings that come up in our body. We can name the emotions that are bubbling to the surface in our hearts. We can acknowledge our grief and all of the other feelings that show up. And then we can remember. We can remember that the incredible vulnerability we felt on that day almost twenty years ago was mind, body, and spirit altering - and then remember that there are humans all over the world who experience this fear every day. There are humans in your country, in your state, in your city, that feel this depth of vulnerability when they walk out the door in the morning. We can be gentle with ourselves, and we can remember that our own self-preservation, our own self-interest is not the only thing that matters in this world. We can remember when we speak, when we write, when we engage with others and when we vote that we can step out of this self-preservation mode and make decisions that are true to our authentic and deeply held-values, to our responsibility to care for each other and the world, and to make decisions with the most vulnerable populations these will decisions impact in mind.
Fear can lead us to division and deeply entrenched self-interest, or it can lead us to empathy. Fear does not have to rob us of our values, our love, or our identity as compassionate humans.