Healing Our World Commentary: Why Are We So Afraid - of Fear?

By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.

Why Are We So Afraid - of Fear?

"Fear is your friend ... It is a basic instinct of human survival - physical, psychological, spiritual. We need to have an acute sense of what threatens our well-being. . . But fear's danger signals get muffled when we develop a pattern of denying and suppressing our fears. By not paying attention to specific fear signals, that energy gets diffused into a generalized paranoia, a perennial low-grade alarm fever that pervades our lives."
-- Gabrielle Roth, "Maps To Ecstasy," Nataraj Publishing

In America these days, the Bush administration has declared that it is patriotic to shop and to travel in the face of terrorist threats. We are told that if we change our behaviors, the terrorists win. We are told to go on with our lives, be vigilant, and to act pretty much as if nothing has happened. It is almost as if being afraid were the same as being un-American. Pretending not to fear danger, though, is a trap that results in an even greater state of alarm that will pervade every aspect of our lives.

Hijacked planes flown into buildings, disease causing bacteria in the mail, regular warnings of terrorist attacks, and millions of deaths each year from toxic substances seem like good reasons to be afraid. Fear is a very health emotion. Every animal on the planet - including humans - use fear as a way to stay out of danger. Animals and humans without the ability to experience fear rarely survive very long.

Gabrielle Roth, author of "Maps to Ecstasy," says, "Fear is a vitally useful emotion. It places you on alert, catalyzes your senses, and heightens your awareness in the face of danger. Fear is your friend, the radar for your voyage through life. It is a basic instinct of human survival - physical, psychological, spiritual. We need to have an acute sense of what threatens our well-being."

Without acknowledging our fears, we then become afraid of everything. Roth says, "And in my work, I find that virtually everyone is locked in fear; people are afraid of everything - losing their job, losing their lover, losing their life; they're afraid of success, afraid of being too happy, afraid of the truth, afraid of feeling, afraid of moving, of changing."

California shopping mall (Photo courtesy Santa Clara University School of Engineering)

Yet we live in a culture that demands that we not be afraid.

Roth says, "Fear writes its signature all over the body, but we are all so used to it we've become desensitized to the loud-and-clear message of our body language. And this pervasive fear simply compounds itself; it paralyzes our life energy, seizes up our feelings. We're so afraid of what we are going to lose, so painfully attached to what we have, that we numb ourselves into a living death to shield us from the pain of real living. By clinging to life as we have it, we deny ourselves a vibrant present and future."

But Americans aren't afraid of anything, right? We tell our children thousands of times as they are growing up "don't be afraid," when in reality, they have every right to be afraid at times. Rather than teach them to manage and take advantage of their fears, we teach them to be afraid of fear.

When the immobilizing energy of unexpressed fear is released, fear can be transformed into what Roth calls its "natural dynamic partner," excitement. When we give appropriate attention and expression to our fears as they arise, then the pent up energy and the paralysis can be released. Roth says, "Fear properly channeled yields wide-awake engagement."

Psychologists have known this for years. And business leaders and politicians know this as well. And the last thing that business and political leaders want is a wide-awake and engaged population.

What if everyone was wide-awake and engaged? If this happened, the face of the world would change overnight. If we were wide-awake and engaged, it would be impossible to tolerate the destruction of our ecosystems and life-support systems of our precious Earth.

Boy endures this summer's food shortage in Tajikistan. (Photo courtesy International Federatioin of Red Cross and Red Crescent)

If we were wide-awake and engaged, it would be impossible to tolerate the World Health Organization's (WHO) estimate that more than 200,000 people are killed by pesticide poisons, worldwide every year. That means 547 men, women and children die every day from pesticide poisoning.

If we were wide-awake and engaged, it would be impossible to tolerate the fact that most of the nation's 103 nuclear power plants, all of whose licensees come up for renewal in the next few years, could not be legally built today because of construction flaws and environmental impacts.

If we were wide-awake and engaged, it would be impossible to tolerate the fact that at least two million people are routinely exposed at their workplaces and homes to cancer-causing dust from chemically treated wood worldwide while sanding furniture or constructing cabinets.

If we were wide-awake and engaged, it would be impossible to tolerate the fact that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) estimates that more than 32 million workers are exposed to harmful substances from more than 3.5 million workplaces every year.

A downed cow is left to suffer and die at an Oklahoma stockyard as her frightened young calf looks on. (Photo courtesy Farm Sanctuary)

If we were wide-awake and engaged, it would be impossible to tolerate the fact that nearly 7.6 million animals are trapped in cruel steel jaw traps and more than 30 million animals are raised on farms in terrible conditions worldwide, all to supply fur coats to the rich.

If we were wide-awake and engaged, it would be impossible to tolerate the fact that the U.S. has 8,400 nuclear warheads in its current operational stockpile. Russia has a similar number.

If we were wide-awake and engaged, it would be impossible to tolerate the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on advertising every day, encouraging our children to smoke, drink, and fill their bodies with mind numbing sweets that create learning disabilities for thousands of children in our nation's schools.

But if we were wide-awake and engaged, it would be impossible to shop, now, wouldn't it? We would see the connections between rampant consumerism and environmental and social degradation. We would see that allowing businesses to dump any chemicals down the drain or in the trash would be folly. We would see that the killing of even one innocent woman, man or child in war makes no sense.

By telling us to suppress our natural fears, we are kept in a constant state of low-level panic and discomfort. We are then presented with advertising images that assure us that we will feel better if we shop.

Author Franz Kafka told us, "You can hold yourself back from the suffering of the world: this is something you are free to do ... but perhaps precisely this holding back is the only suffering you might be able to avoid."

Acknowledge and express your fears. They won't consume you. It is totally reasonable to want to stay closer to home, spend more time with your families, and to buy only what you need. Wanting peace is not unpatriotic and being afraid of terror is perfectly natural.

To me, the terrorists win if we pretend not to fear and deny our humanity, logic, and compassion.

Once you acknowledge your fears, take advantage of the wide-awake engagement that can follow. You may find that the people to be afraid of don't always hide in caves.

RESOURCES

1. Participate in this year's "Buy Nothing Day," sponsored by The Media Foundation. They propose that we all buy nothing on the biggest shopping day of the year, the day after Thanksgiving. Learn more from their website at: http://www.adbusters.org/

2. Learn about the fascinating work of philosopher, healer, and teacher Gabrielle Roth at: http://www.ravenrecording.com/classes.html. Read an interview with her at: http://www.newdimensions.org/article/roth.html

3. See details of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile at the website of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at: http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/nukenotes/ja98nukenote.html

4. The Peacemakers Speak website has Nobel Peace Prize winners' views on the current crisis at: http://www.thecommunity.com/crisis/

5. Get help overcoming consumerism at: http://www.verdant.net/

6. Learn about the global impacts of consumer based societies at: http://www.oneworld.net/guides/consumerism/front.shtml

7. See a collection of readings about consumerism at: http://www.popcultures.com/articles/consumer.htm

8. Read about how our kids get so caught up in consumerism in an article by Brian Swimme, Ph.D. at: http://www.newdream.org/youth/swimme.html

9. Learn about the effects of media on our families from the National Institute on Media and the Family at: http://www.mediaandthefamily.org/

10. Understand more about the corporate takeover of education through subsidized curricula from Corporate Watch's "Commercialization in the Classroom" web site at: http://www.igc.org/trac/feature/education/commercial/index.html

11. Find out who your Congressional representatives are and e-mail them. Tell them that you want them to stop telling us to pretend that all is well and go shopping. If you know your Zip code, you can find them at: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html

{Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and teacher in Seattle. He can be found staying as close to home as he can. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at jackie@healingourworld.com and visit his website at: http://www.healingourworld.com}