Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash |
Luna and I are working at home |
- Follow instructions from authorities regarding social distancing—if we have the virus but don’t realize it, we can spread it.
- Don’t hoard. Buy only what we need and leave the rest for others.
- If possible, help those in our community who may be dangerously isolated, especially the elderly.
- Remember that this won’t last forever.
- Try to stay in the moment and avoid “awful-izing” about the future.
Photo by Philippe Jausions on Unsplash |
A few months ago, Laura Vanderkam used a term in a blog post that intrigued me: the remembering self. Vanderkam described riding the train to New York (from her home in Pennsylvania) on a Saturday night to hear a Christmas concert, even though she was pregnant, the weather was bad, she’d endured a difficult week, and so on. She wrote, “The remembering self deserves consideration in decisions too, not just the present self.”
“Fear is a friend, and it’s here to support you. Like all friendships, the one you have with fear is a two-way street. It requires time, hard work, and honesty in order to become and remain healthy. It requires us to sit with it, listen to it, and try our best to understand it—even though we don’t always know how. Like any friend, fear can help you only if you let it.”
“Becoming aware of fear is the first step to befriending it. After all, how can you become friends with something you’re pretending doesn’t exist?”
“It’s okay to be afraid. All it means is that there’s something you care deeply about. It’s okay to have fears, as long as you are willing to explore them. It’s okay to hug fear closely, to poke and prod and discover what’s underneath that heavy, dark cloak.”
“Fear is here to help you uncover your greatest wish.”
- Fear will always be there when you step outside your comfort zone. All learning and growth occurs outside of your comfort zone, so unless you want to stop growing, you will always have some fear.
- The only way to get over being afraid of doing something is to do it.
- The doing comes first, then the fear fades.
- Everyone feels this way—I’m not an anomaly.
- Fear is my friend. It shows me what matters to me.
Photo courtesy Autumn Mott |
“To be alive is the biggest fear humans have. Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive—the risk to be alive and express what we really are. Just being ourself is the biggest fear of humans. We have learned to live our life trying to satisfy other people’s demands. We have learned to live by other people’s points of view because of the fear of not being accepted and of not being good enough for someone else.”
Remember how happy I was to get my office back? Every day I enter it I get a little thrill of satisfaction. Followed quickly by an emotion I was not expecting:
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m learning natural horsemanship techniques so that I can be a better leader to my horse and have a closer bond with him. While watching one of the Parelli Level 1 DVDs recently, something one of the instructors said resonated with me. She posed the question, when someone asks you if you can do something you’ve never done before, especially something hard or scary, what should you say? Her answer:
“I don’t know.”
Not “I can’t.”
Because, really, you don’t yet know if you can do it or not, because you haven’t tried. You don’t know what is possible.
Some other alternatives she came up with included: I haven’t up until now. I haven’t done that yet. In the past, I haven’t tried that.
These phrases leave the door open, instead of slamming it shut with an “I can’t.” I’ve found “I don't know” very helpful when I’m offered the chance to do something that scares me. I don’t always rise to the challenge—but sometimes I do.
What are some things you say to yourself when faced with a challenge?
Fear can be good.
That’s right. Fear can be good. Here’s why:
Fear makes you more compassionate. If you’re never afraid, you’ll find it hard to impossible to understand and empathize with those of us who are. From lack of understanding and empathy, it’s only a step or two towards contempt or belittling others. If you’ve been afraid and conquered your fears, you can offer kindness and encouragement to others. I’m much more likely to listen to someone who’s felt the way I do and worked through it, than I am to someone who can’t understand why I’d be afraid of that.
I’m certainly not saying we shouldn’t try to overcome our fears. We’d never learn or grow if we always remained safely ensconced in our comfort zones. I am saying that we shouldn’t come down too hard on ourselves or others if and when we’re afraid. Instead, offer kindness to ourselves, and gentleness and understanding to others. Then perhaps we can all walk courageously forward together.