Fear
A friend recently said that we shouldn’t give in to fear.
I found this quote and thought it to be helpful as I pondered this: “The only way to ease our fear and be truly happy is to acknowledge our fear and look deeply at its source. Instead of trying to escape from our fear, we can invite it up to our awareness and look at it clearly and deeply.”–Thich Nhat Hanh
I have pondered my fear as a response to all that is going on, and while at first, I felt shame for feeling fear, given my desire to be fearless, I have come to the conclusion, however, that I refuse to feel ashamed for feeling what is a perfectly normal response to all that is going on.
As a woman of color, I have a right to feel fear, I acknowledge it, and in looking deeply at it, what I see is a lifetime of living in a culture where I have seen my people fight for their Civil Rights (once before, and now it looks like, again!) be raped, beaten, hanged, imprisoned, shot, and killed over and over again.
I get to decide what to do with my fear. I can choose to stay in my house and never go out, Or, I can look at the current situation and make some wise decisions based on what I know to be real. I faced the fact that I am not paranoid, and therefore my fear indeed has basis in reality. I am intelligent, well read, and educated, I understand history, and see the trends of what is going on, and quite frankly, I fear my government just now. They have shown over and over in the last few weeks that they don’t care about me, they don’t care about people who look like me from the Middle East, and Mother Africa, and they don’t care about a whole bunch of people that I care about.
So, while I have seen, and acknowledged my fear, I cannot escape from it, and after looking at it, I see that I am being but human. I see from the developmental perspective that I learned in my counseling program that I am being triggered in a young and primal place that said–my world is not safe, the people in charge of it aren’t safe, and I feel vulnerable in it and unsure as to what to expect. My fear is justified.
Yet, I am an adult, and as I look around me, I see that I have support, and while I may feel alone in these feelings at times, there are people who may share them. While I may feel that I am alone in rooms of people of privilege, I am actually, deeply, totally and still–ok. I will continue to do what I can, with a hope that generations after me will perhaps come to feel safer and less afraid than I am feeling today.
So fear, hello there, I’m glad I took a good look at you, as we have walked this road before. Yes, you’re right my friend, there are those in charge right now who would be happy to know that they have won, and that they have many of us in fear. But you know what? I now think that it’s better to have looked at my fear, and understood it, rather than pushing it away, as if it were a distasteful thing. I will hold it and knowing of it’s source–that small child within me–I will allow myself to feel that sense of ease and even happiness that Thay spoke of. From here, I can carry on.