FEAR: Can we eradicate it?

Nothing in life is to be feared.  It is only to be understood.

Marie Curie.

If there’s  one subject upon which I could write a volume or two, it would be fear!  Everyone has experienced it.  No one is completely immune to it.  Nor are there many instances in life where it doesn’t raise its thoroughly disagreeable head.

If fear might be given any other name, try agitation, alarm, anxiety, apprehension, consternation,  dread, dismay, horror, panic, terror, trepidation… The list goes on.  Fear is the catch-all basket for unpleasant, unwanted and, all too often,  unresolved thoughts.  And fear is also, in my understanding,  hidden somewhere at the root of just about every unpleasant action or deed known to humankind.

Just for openers, scratch around any human emotion that’s not driven by love. Consider anger, cruelty, envy, greed, hatred, jealousy, resentment, rage – and you’ll spot fear doing its sneaky, undercover work.  We have to recognise its destructive nature and not be timid about looking it in the eye.  Otherwise we can never overcome the conditions that encourage it to grow.

Our whole society is predicated on it.  Without fear would we have war or any of its noxious trappings – nuclear bombs, chemical weapons, or sinister drones?  And as its grim corollary, would millions  of men, women and children be wantonly destroyed or face a lifetime of pain and agony?  How well would banks work without fear?  Or would insurance companies exist at all?

Fear is like an infection – how much we pick up from one another depends upon the state of our  emotional and spiritual immune systems. To keep these systems healthy and in good working order, questions are needed – so whenever fear starts lurking in the corner, we can immediately recognise it for the impostor it is.

Despite good and loving parents, I freely confess I’ve been dogged

with fear from early childhood. Very possibly from the day I was born, when Mr Hitler’s bombs were falling around the nursing home. My poor mother was understandably  full of anxiety – and so were the nuns into whose hands I was placed.  Most of the time, these old threads are completely invisible but occasionally in the past they’ve broken out in a way that’s caught me unawares.

But at longest last, age has taught me a little about how to close the door on this unwelcome intruder.  There are advantages to growing older, despite the fact that much of the time I feel like Manuel in Fawlty Towers – “I know notheeng, Mistaire Fawlty!”

Firstly, in general, we all tend to fear the future  far  more than the present moment.  Anyone dealing with a major crisis of any proportion, from a cardiac arrest in A & E to carrying children from a burning building, knows that in the in the midst of the activity, there usually isn’t much room for fear.  But it’s the  disagreeable dawn chorus in the early hours, or the sneaky middle of the night, ‘What if,’ whisper that can bring us angst.

Tested almost beyond endurance, Job spoke for many of us when he said, ‘Everything I fear and dread comes true. ‘ The curse of the self-fulfilling prophecy is one to which most of us are prone at one time or another in our lives.  So now, when fear puts in an appearance,  I openly acknowledge its presence.  No bullshit or false bravery!  I’ve tried to teach myself to say, inwardly, ‘I’m experiencing fear’ and not, ‘I am afraid.’  A subtle change perhaps but one that shifts the nature of the beast into a different dimension.

I remember fear is also ‘Habit energy’ and ask myself a few questions.  What are the conditions  provoking this unpleasantness?  Is there anything rational about it?  Above all, and I put this deliberately in caps,  WHAT IS THIS FEAR FOR?  The questions are simple.  The answers can be trickier!  This is not a case of, ‘One size fits all.’   But for me, at any rate, questioning the impostor  is another way of creating a spiritual safety harness, which can  help to lighten the shadows.

In my experience, when I can manage to feel love and compassion for the fear as it’s floating around me, two things generally happen.  Either it shrinks to manageable proportions.  Or it vanishes entirely.  Of course,  I’m not naïve or foolish enough to suggest I’ve conquered the beast.  For me at least, that’s a lifetime’s work.  But I think it’s worth looking on fear as something to be eradicated.  In all of us.  Eventually.   A bit like Japanese Knotweed.  Difficult, yes.  Impossible?  Let’s hope not!