Fear

I love the movie “Happy Feet 2”. My favorite part is at the very end where the elephant seals come to help rescue all the penguins that have been trapped by the shifting glaciers. As species go, the elephant seal and the penguin have nothing in common. In fact, they may be enemies. But in this animated film, the elephant seals become the unexpected heroes – despite their differences. The Queen/David Bowie song “Under Pressure” plays through this entire scene. It gives me goosebumps every time. I want to sing and stomp with them, and it often brings me to happy tears. If you’ve seen the show, you remember that scene.   Everyone counts, down to the smallest krill. If you’ve never seen it, here’s the YouTube link. https://youtu.be/oYY_29J9_pk  Linger there for a just a bit because I’m going to come back to this.

I’m going to take you from that ‘high’ to a more serious topic:  Fear.   You know that emotion…the fight or flight reaction triggered by our amygdala. It fills you with adrenaline that enables you to act in an immediate life-threatening situation. All species have this innate instinct. It is what causes an antelope to run from a lion, what causes a mother bird to lure a hawk away from her nest. And while this instinct comes in handy in some situations like a house on fire, a tornado, or a surprise altercation on a dark street… by and large, we aren’t running from saber tooth tigers any longer.

For people in war-torn countries, there is a justifiable reason to walk around in a heightened sense of fear and anxiety. We do not live in a war-torn country, yet fear has become a large part of our day to day lives here in the U.S. While the emotions are generally the same, this fear is triggered by something different. This fear is driven by our thoughts, and the stories we tell ourselves.

Our world is vastly different today than it was just a few decades ago. With the advancement of the internet, we are bombarded by advertisements that attack our very sense of self. Maybe not with direct words, but by raising that shimmer of doubt. The entire goal of the advertiser is to create a doubt about our own self-image so that we will buy their products. They create a fear of being less than someone else, fear of not having enough, fear of not being good enough, fear of not belonging. With the rise of social media, we (and our children!) can be inundated with these ads all day long. It’s even louder when it comes to the personal attacks that occur on Twitter and other public forums. That didn’t happen 50 years ago. Perhaps not even 25. Insecurity has probably existed since the beginning of time, but thanks to the internet, we get no reprieve.  The reminders surround us.

Then we have the government and media. They are equally culpable (and perhaps greatest offenders), particularly with the advent of cable news in the early 1990’s, as well as the internet-based news streams. Both generate fear to create a following. It has reached such an extreme level that it is dividing our nation. The unfortunate part is that we don’t know who to believe and don’t have a solid resource for truth – so we gravitate toward what is familiar, with the assumption that it’s someone we can trust.  But unlike the antelope that runs from the lion – we keep reliving the fear. Once that antelope escapes to safety, he shrugs it off and goes back to grazing with his herd. He isn’t belaboring the moment. We aren’t behaving the same way.  We watch the same station, limiting the perspective. We can watch/listen 24/7 if we choose. We have the ability to ‘fact check’, but we don’t.  It’s easier to trust the familiar. Through social media, we’re talking about what we heard or saw on the news – over, and over, and over again.  We keep the story alive and even bigger…we keep our emotions around that story alive. With each retelling, it gains more nuances, more emotion, more conviction, even if it may have lost some truth along the way. Our fear, anxiety and anger (a derivative of fear) around that story escalates even beyond our original reaction. It lingers.

Don’t grab your pitchforks quite yet.  We are all complicit in this fear game. We buy products from those companies that challenge our self-esteem and tell us we can look better, fit in, perform better, have more or be more than we are right now. They wouldn’t exist if we hadn’t contributed to their success.   And we continue to tune in to those cable news stations and on-line news feeds that provide more fear-based stories – political and otherwise.  The advertisers, media and members of our government want to convince us that we (either personally or society as a whole) are in some way ‘broken’ so that we continue to dispatch our financial resources in their direction. And we have been rewarding them handsomely. Someone is winning in this scenario – but it isn’t greater society.

Our society is walking around in this constant state of stress and anxiety caused by fear. Adults and children alike. All at varying levels. Perhaps not quite the same kind of fear as if we were running from a saber tooth tiger, but it triggers the same emotional response in our bodies. It creates a stressor like our species wasn’t built to endure.  It eventually shows itself as depression, anxiety, anger and disease. These unhealthy lingering emotions feed upon themselves, creating more isolation, more insecurity, and a greater sense of suffering and separation. When we function in our day to day lives out of a constant state of anxiety and fear – our mood, our behavior and even our decision making is adversely affected, causing more stress. The weight is a tremendous thing to carry. This isn’t who we were meant to be.  And we are capable of something better.

I’m not implying that we shouldn’t have differing opinions or that we shouldn’t take appropriate action to support those opinions.  I’m not even implying that you shouldn’t have a ‘reaction’ to something you hear or see.  To the contrary in fact. Differing perspectives is what has helped our country grow and advance. It is the repetitive loop of reinforced fear around these beliefs and opinions that becomes problematic and clouds our judgment from a whole host of directions. Our actions, our work, our ideas and our sense of self are at their very best when taken from a place of clarity, not a place of negative emotion. And we can’t be in a state of clarity when our mind is being clouded by constant judgmental thoughts – of ourselves, or anything else.  This constant negative emotion is severing families and long-term friendships. It causes harmful behaviors that cannot be reversed. It is stifling, if not diminishing, our strength as a nation. And it has caused us to forget who we are.

Why do we allow this negative influence over us? We can all recall a moment, a memory, an event, a conversation that absolutely had us doubled over with laughter or warmed our hearts. Why aren’t we seeking out more of those situations instead of bombarding ourselves with media or advertising that causes anxiety and fear? If you’ll notice, it’s impossible to be anxious or fearful when you’re laughing your heart out. There is a clue in that fact.

What IF…All those lingering negative beliefs we have about ourselves, our neighbors, our coworkers, our family, society, government – were nothing more than a thought and a misunderstanding?

What IF…We had more in common with each other than we had differences?

What IF…We were already okay, just the way we are - and we tried a bit of self-love and honored our uniqueness?

What IF…We were far more resilient than we give ourselves credit for?

What IF…We stopped supporting those fear-based media outlets and buying from companies that want us to believe we aren’t good enough precisely as we are? Their behavior won’t ever change until we stop buying what they’re selling.  

WHAT IF… We had the courage to show up as our authentic self and felt free to pursue our own unique path - in a world that is trying its hardest to scare us into being like everybody else?

How liberating would all those “WHAT IFs” be?

None of us are broken, despite how you might feel in this moment. I know how real those feelings can seem. I know that because you are BEING HUMAN, just like me. With your own unique story and experiences. We have that in common. Our basic humanity says more about us than any of those superficial constructs that society wants to use as labels. And our humanity is something worth giving our attention to. As a species, we are stronger and accomplish far more together than apart. We’ve proven that countless times over many generations.

The next time you venture out of your home, try something for me. Smile and make genuine eye contact for 2-3 seconds with a complete stranger. Whether in the car next to you, at the checkout line, or someone you pass walking down the street. You will be surprised and pleased with what happens from such an easy and basic connection. It says, “I see you”, and with no words at all - acknowledges that individual as another human being. You can change someone’s day from bad to good with that simple gesture. In fact, it’s on my list of ‘superpowers’ we’ve all been given.  

I want to end with the feeling from that movie again, and my favorite song “Under Pressure”.   To quote a few lines of the lyrics:

Insanity laughs under pressure we’re breaking… Can’t we give ourselves one more chance?

 ‘Cause love’s such an old-fashioned word

And love dares you to care for

The people on the edge of the night

And love dares you to change our way of

Caring about ourselves

This is our last dance, this is our last dance

This is ourselves…

The choice is ours. I genuinely believe in our Humanity. And I SEE YOU.