The Face of Fear

Kate and I were attending a very vibrant and powerful conference. During a brief Q&A period, Kate had wanted to go to the mike and say ‘We’ve heard enough words, could we just have a moment of silence to help us take in all that we have heard?’ But she didn’t do it, she didn’t make her appeal. Later she explained that she was too ‘shy’ to speak, and when pressed, said really she was afraid others would not have the same need for silence and she would be forcing her wishes on us all.

Another friend is finding it painful to realize that her beloved university .. the place where she met her husband, where her mother and father met, where her aunt and uncle lived while he went to school, an institution that has always valued individual initiative and inspired great loyalty among its graduates … has gone over to the corporate column, seduced by the corporate mindset [and funding]. She grieves the pending loss of so much that she loves about her alma mater.

I have been dealing with future grief also. My beautiful, sweet canine companion, not yet 5 years old, has pelvic dysplasia, a condition the vet tells me might mean putting this dog down in a few months. I can hardly bear the thought.

These are the two faces of fear. Though it is couched in many other ways, the fear of not being found worthy as in the first example above is absolutely foundational to almost everyone. We clothe it in many garments. We say we are afraid of not being loved, of being lonely, of hurting someone, of doing the wrong thing, of showing our ignorance, of bothering someone with our needs or questions, of being unable to care for ourselves, of being ‘too shy’. But it all boils down to our fear of not being good enough as people, of not being worthy of love, care, acceptance.

The other foundational fear is that of losing something of value as illustrated in examples of grief. This ranges the vast landscape from the death of someone we love to the loss of some thing of sentimental or functional value…. a house, a reputation, a book, a democracy, our very life.

These foundational fears are quite legitimate. They do not need to be denied, rather they need to be brought into the full light of consciousness so that we can learn not only how to cope with them, but how to overcome them so they do not deny us our fullest humanity. Obviously, some fear is necessary for our health and well being. Fear of dying in a fiery automobile crash is what keeps us driving defensively.

Of the various so-called deadly sins, my personal perspective is that anger is probably the most recognizable, open and obvious. It is often loud and boils easily to the surface, even when we think we have kept the lid on. Most of us sooner or later, when forced to do so, will recognize and acknowledge our anger. Hatred is fairly obvious also.

But fear likes to hide in the shadows. Often it is couched in more socially correct euphemisms such as worry, concern, shyness. Fear can be a very debilitating emotion, and keeping it hidden keeps us enthralled to it, keeps us under its spell. How many times have you not spoken up because you were ‘afraid’ of being thought ignorant or unprofessional or boring? How many times have you not asked someone for help because you didn’t want to ‘bother’ them? Were you not really afraid of being turned down or being asked to reciprocate in some inconvenient way? How many times have you not stated your needs because you didn’t want to ‘impose’ on someone else? Translation: you didn’t think the other person would find your need worthy.

How do we deal with the fear of not being worthy? For those souls who face the world with a supremely confident personality, this may not be a problem. For others it may take a lifetime of daily struggle. We have to keep getting up and coming back when we are repeatedly knocked down. After a while we may suddenly realize that we have learned how to handle being knocked down with some degree of grace, maybe even a touch of humor. We may realize that how others value us is not as important as how we value ourselves. We may realize that recognition from others, sweet as it is, is just frosting, not the cake.

We don’t enter kindergarten as full blown PhDs, neither do we enter life as perfected beings. Life is a schooling. The important thing is that we keep learning, keep moving up and on at whatever pace we can manage, that we forgive ourselves for not being born as already perfected human beings. None of us are alone in our imperfection. As someone wisely said, we are all screwed up. We must get over it and get on with the lessons. It helps to recognize also that others are dealing with their own imperfections as best they can, as are we, and to treat them with understanding, if not compassion.

If we were perfect, we wouldn’t be in this life. The key is to learn how to handle our imperfections without being debilitated by them. For some, religion gives strength, for others sheer stubborn determination gets them through the tough times. At one time in my life, now long ago in the past, I was totally knocked down, totally depressed. I moped around, not having the will to move, asking myself what was the point in doing anything? With my action oriented temperament, however, it was fortunately a very short time before this condition became so totally boring that I could no longer stand it. I simply said to myself: ‘I’m not doing this.’ and I got up and went to work. We each have a well-spring of strength within ourselves to keep us working on us. We will get better, it will happen, we can’t give up on ourselves. The only thing not acceptable is not trying.

What about our fear of losing the things we value most .. our soul mate, our life, our children, our freedom, our democratic way of life, our job, our dog? These fears require a different approach. As I write this, I wonder if it would work to make a list of the things we most fear to lose. Once the list is made, we can study it, think about how we need to prepare ourselves to handle some loss that seems inevitable, think how to become less emotionally and physically dependent on people or things, think how we can take steps to alleviate, forestall, or prevent certain other losses such as a job, or our country’s highest values. Probably we should add a category of unexpected loss, because it will happen. Laying all this on the table, acknowledging it, planning an accommodation, will cause some of the fear to subside, and will take some sting out of the actual loss should it occur.

Why do we do this? Why is this important? It is important because fear is an oppressive master; it makes us its slaves. We are not free when we succumb to fear. Since 9/11/01, fear has become pervasive in so many ways and has been used politically to gain power and to rob us of constitutional rights. It governs so much of our lives, so much of what we do every day. We want to give power to those who denounce fear, including our own better selves, to those who lead us in a spirit of hope that through our honest striving, we can not only survive, but be the kindest, most generous, most tolerant people in the world. Succumbing to fear is to be victimized by those powerful forces that want to control us. Letting go of fear is not easy, especially since we are so conditioned to it that we hardly notice it is there, but the rewards are a richer, more open, more satisfying life. Each of us must aim to put our trust in our own ability to handle whatever life gives us. And then we may be surprised to find that we have become more than we ever thought possible. We may have put a new face on fear.