Sunday Reminder
Each Sunday I'll find an older post pertaining to the current week's theme, polish it up, and re-share it.
Here's today's "Sunday Reminder"
Behind the Experience
[January 22]
You used to have to travel to Disneyland to experience the magical world of your favorite cartoons.
“Disneyland" is everywhere now. The pseudo-world where soil never grows weeds, wearing masks is normative, and the thrill of pure entertainment is around the next corner, is literally everywhere.
Target is selling it.
Youtube is streaming it.
Fox is covering it.
What’s behind the pursuit of the next exhilarating experience?
I’m not sure we want experiences as much as we want other, more exhilarating experiences than the one right in front of us, the one we’re afraid of encountering head-on.
People like us love experiencing what's new and exhilarating. But unless we first commit to experiencing the slow, real world right in front of us, all the new experiences will be an escape. And we won’t fully encounter any of it.
Find a weed. Slow down and pull it (or not).
Weekly Roundup: Where I See Fear
July 6 — July 10, 2020
Monday: Paul Tillich helped us see that the two biggest causes of anxiety are death and meaninglessness. The end of life haunts us from the future. We will die. But even worse, we don’t know the purpose of the life we’re living.
Tuesday: We’ve created places of fear. If you’ve often wondered why some people say “I don’t know” in your office/team/marriage you’re likely in a position to influence the environment to mitigate the threat.
Wednesday: If it makes you uncomfortable, dismissive, resistant, or angry, there may be fear at its core. You know enough to be scared, but not enough to be empowered. Don’t dismiss it outright. Instead, explore.
Thursday: Until failure is not a comparative measurement of the media’s sensational story telling but a barometer of our everyday calling, we will suffer from the fear of being average.
Friday: Yet we’re afraid to listen. Because one can’t listen and talk at the same time. And talking (with our mouths or just in our heads) is often a defense mechanism. It protects us from the biggest threat on our lives.
Are you interested in the whole reflection? Click on any day, and it will take you there.
Want to help grow the community of people like us that are unwilling to continue in ways like this? Help us spread the word: share on Facebook, Twitter, or with a friend via email. Find the links below.
Please Listen
[Where I See Fear – V]
Every therapist: “Listen to your childhood and your inner life and your memories.”
Every partner: “Listen to my experience and feelings."
Every teacher: “Listen to your thoughts and dreams and imagination.”
Every minster: “Listen to your Creator, God, Spirit.”
Every friend: “Listen to this idea, this dream, and this thing I discovered.”
Listening is a requirement for participation in almost any community (of any shape or size or orientation). It’s the beginning of involvement, inclusion, relationship, and belonging.
Also, without listening, there is no learning, growing, and moving forward.
Yet we’re afraid to listen. Because one can’t listen and talk at the same time. And talking (with our mouths or just in our heads) is often a defense mechanism. It protects us from the biggest threat on our lives.
Not monsters.
Not the Devil.
Not sickness or poverty or even death.
It protects us from change.
But now, in this moment in history, we need to listen. There are people literally crying to be heard.
Please listen.
Failure and it’s Cousin
[Where I See Fear – IV]
Fear of failure abounds. It lurks behind many of our career decisions and life choices. But we fear failure’s cousin, I think, even more.
What could possibly be related to failure—perhaps not a sibling, but close enough to be family?
Being average.
Blending in.
Sensationalism and extremes sell. They get clicks. And likes. And followers.
The stories we tell (and love to consume) are the stories of self-made millionaires. The uber rich with personal jets and Bugattis. The ultra-healthy, vegan, Iron Man athlete, Instagram influencer. The founders of billion dollar tech startups. The Ivy League doctorates . . . that finished in half the time.
Anything by comparison is average. Anything by comparison is a type of failure.
Until failure is not a comparative measurement of the media’s sensational story telling but a barometer of our everyday calling, we will suffer from the fear of being average.
The Known Unknown
[Where I See Fear – III]
It’s not the unknown that we fear. (If it’s truly unknown, then we don’t know that we don’t know it.)
It’s not the known that we fear. (If we know it, it’s usually robbed of it’s intimidation.)
It’s the known unknown that we fear. (We know of it, but we don’t know it enough to disarm it.)
Either we push into it—discovering all we can, understanding all we can—or we retreat and we remain in the unknown. The first might result in more fear at first, but familiarity and insight will win out in the end. The second embeds the fear permanently.
If it makes you uncomfortable, dismissive, resistant, or angry, there may be fear at its core. You know enough to be scared, but not enough to be empowered. Don’t dismiss it outright. Instead, explore.
This goes for monsters and opposing ideologies.
Spiders and alternative opinions.
Heights and strangers.
Different Uses of “I Don’t Know”
[Where I See Fear – II]
Some say it when they don’t have the right answer.
Others say it when they don’t have some of the answer.
And some even say it if they don’t have the whole answer, plus supportive evidence.
Which one is the student in the class that gets called on by the teacher? He listens, takes notes, and has a good guess, but still says, “I don’t know."
Which one is the spouse that says “I don’t know” every time she's asked which restaurant she wants to go to for date night?
Which one is the administrator that get’s asked his opinion about the design of the front office—his work space—and says, “I don’t know”?
“I don’t know” is rarely about knowing the information (or having quick access to it—thanks, Siri) and is often more about two other factors:
- A shaming environment for being wrong.
- Negative repercussions of actually knowing.
In either case, not knowing, or pretending not to know, is safer than actually knowing. “I don’t know” is an act of self-defense. The risk of knowing is too high.
We can do better. We’ve created systems, work and education environments, and relationships that condone (or intentionally use) #1 and #2 above.
We’ve created places of fear.
If you’ve often wondered why some people say “I don’t know” in your office/team/marriage you’re likely in a position to influence the environment to mitigate the threat.
Meaning(lessness)
[Where I See Fear – I]
Paul Tillich helped us see that the two biggest causes of anxiety are death and meaninglessness.
The end of life haunts us from the future. We will die.
But even worse, we don’t know the purpose of the life we’re living.
The first is a low simmer that slowly heats up our fear as we age. Relatively unaware of it when we are young, we become consumed by it as it approaches in later years.
The second burns hot from a young age. Youth are enamored by campfire conversation about the meaning of life and finding their purpose in it.
Behind most fear is an unanswered question: “What's the meaning of all this and what’s my role in it?” In other words, we don’t have enough campfire conversation with young people. And we don’t have enough elders that have answered these questions for themselves, that they might be inspired to ask them of children.
People like us seek these answers. And talk to kids about them.
Sunday Reminder
Each Sunday I'll find an older post pertaining to the current week's theme, polish it up, and re-share it.
Here's today's "Sunday Reminder"
People Believe . . .
[June 29th, 2019]
Have you heard the adage, “People don’t believe what you say until they believe you care”?
I doubt the truth in that statement.
I’m not sure whether your care really matters. Belief is more complicated than that. It’s more emotional. More anchored in ideology. More wrapped up in peoples’ affinities and fears and dreams.
Truth is, people believe very little what you say.
They likely believe more of what you do.
Even more, they believe what their trusted friends say and do.
And they believe almost everything they say to themselves.
Weekly Roundup: More on Fear
June 29 – July 3, 2020
Monday: But it’s not the thing we fear; it’s the fear we fear. Or, we fear all sensations we associate with the fear. That's why we can loathe flying and send our kids right on their way to visit grandma in another state.
Tuesday: This is how fear works: it locks us into place, steals our freedom of choice, removes our ability to think clearly, and renders us prisoners.
Wednesday: Some standards by which we measure ourselves are our own creations. They exist in the wold insofar as we project them on it. The judgment and shame of failure is not the world’s doing but delivered by the judge and jury in our own minds.
Thursday: The stories we tell—about ourselves and our circumstances—either reinforce the reality we fear or re-script a new one.
Friday: Our denial and transference—redirecting or projecting our feelings onto a substitute—aren’t helping. They're merely entrenching us further in our fear and inhibiting us from solutions.
Are you interested in the whole reflection? Click on any day, and it will take you there.
Want to help grow the community of people like us that are unwilling to continue in ways like this? Help us spread the word: share on Facebook, Twitter, or with a friend via email. Find the links below.
Stop the Transference
[More on Fear – V]
Fear is an emotion that doesn’t have a direct corollary to physical expression. Not all people react the same to it. Some fight, others flee, and still some freeze. Some bury it and try to move on, others verbalize it and shout, and still some curl up on their beds and sleep through it.
But many claim to be able to spot it in others.
“They’re living in fear . . . I don’t want to live in fear like them.”
I've heard this from compliant quarantiners about others that aren't staying home, and vice versa. I’ve heard this about mask-wearers from those that won’t get out of bed without putting on a mask, and vice versa. I’ve heard this from advocates of testing and from denouncers of the findings from testing. On and on. It’s coming from all sides of the COVID experience.
Truth is, we live in scary times. But you can’t spot fear in others.
Our denial and transference—redirecting or projecting our feelings onto a substitute—aren’t helping. They're merely entrenching us further in our fear and inhibiting us from solutions.
Name the fear. It’s our only chance forward.
Stories We Lead With
[More on Fear – IV]
If asked you about the latest challenge you had, your last stressful encounter at work, your previous failed attempt at a project, your last slip-up in a public setting, or last month's biggest hardship, what would you lead with?
“I put all I had in that one and it unfortunately . . .”
Or
“I always blow it when I . . .”
Or
“So and so sabotaged me again, and she . . .”
They are all your story, and they might all be factually true. But they narrate different realities. The stories we tell—about ourselves and our circumstances—either reinforce the reality we fear or re-script a new one.
It’s your story.
It’s your choice.
The F word
[More on Fear – III]
Not fear.
But failure.
The fear of failure is perhaps the most motivating and paralyzing force within us. (If that paradox doesn’t resonate, I’ll see you tomorrow, same place, different reflection.)
It gets us to straighten our spines, but it can also get us to slink back.
It motivates us to push on but also to pull away.
It energizes yet exhausts.
It’s a thrill and yet it can numb.
The fear of failure is always on—it’s even active in our dreams.
Some standards by which we measure ourselves are our own creations. They exist in the wold insofar as we project them on it. The judgment and shame of failure is not the world’s doing but delivered by the judge and jury in our own minds.
The bad news: we’re responsible for it.
The good news: we’re responsible for it, which means every day is a new opportunity to look the jurors in the eye and tell them their job is done here.
The Prison of Lacking Language
[More on Fear – II]
Your anxiety is like a prison, isn’t it? Mine sure is.
No walls, no bars, no guards outside monitoring my every mood, and yet when it strikes, all of those controlling forces might as well be in place.
This is how fear works: it locks us into place, steals our freedom of choice, removes our ability to think clearly, and renders us prisoners.
The keys are not medication, necessarily.
The keys are not a self-help book or a guru or religious experience.
The keys, at least some of the time, is language.
Find the words to name the feelings, the exact phrases to articulate the sensations, and the prison walls begin to crumble.
There’s a liberating power in words.
Find them. Speak them. Write them.
To others, but mostly to yourself.
Is it the Fear We Fear?
[More on Fear – I]
Do you fear flying in a plane?
Public speaking?
Going to work in a crowded office building?
Do you let your kids fly in planes?
Would you allow your friend to speak in public?
Does your mom work in a crowded building?
Fear and safety are not necessarily correlated (whether we tell ourselves they are or not). If they were we would protect our loved ones from the very things we fear.
If our fear is not evidence-based risk assessment, then what is it? Restriction on our chest, shortness of breath, cold sweat, and shaky hands are sensations associated with fear. So are racing thoughts, images of getting hurt, and imagined failure. As it turns out, there are real, measurable consequences we fear, and we have proof . . . look how drenched my shirt is.
But it’s not the thing we fear; it’s the fear we fear. Or, we fear all sensations we associate with the fear. That's why we can loathe flying and send our kids right on their way to visit grandma in another state.
Next time the anxiety kicks in, don’t run. Instead, grab a notepad. Taking notes improves your emotional literacy and disarms the fear behind the fear.
Sunday Reminder
Each Sunday I'll find an older post pertaining to the current week's theme, polish it up, and re-share it.
Here's today's "Sunday Reminder"
Online Debates
[June 1, 2019]
I’ve learned that online debates—social media squabbles, nasty email exchanges, critical private messages, and everything else—are rarely about being right, defending a truth, arguing for moral integrity.
They indeed masquerade as that.
They’re like that old story where the "mob" caught the woman in the act of adultery, put her on display, and then argued whether she should be stoned. She was caught. She’s weak. She’s an easy target. She’ll do. (Psst. She wasn’t the problem. The rabble-rouser rabbi was.) *
When the world is spinning out of control, everyone desires a centering point, a magnetic north, something that is stable and trustworthy. It takes work to discover and articulate that. Always has. Now is no different than before. Except now we have an easier time fighting false enemies and defending arbitrary boundaries. We can open our phone and embark on a Facebook crusade faster than it takes to read the back cover of a book on, say, anger management.
Here’s the catch-22: If the world is chaotic, we reach for the easiest target to shoot because it soothes anxiety and feels like stability; if we all shoot at the easiest targets, no one finds depth and stability, and the world feels more chaotic and unstable. And we have more anxiety.
The chaos is in part the cause of our own doing—finding easy solutions (that don’t usually work) to problems (that aren’t really the problem).
Usually, as far as I can tell, online debates are distractions from the real problems.
People like us that are unwilling to continue in ways like this don’t settle for highly charged online debates. We ask ourselves, “What’s the problem we’re hiding from here?”, and then we do the work to understand.
*John 8:1-11
Weekly Roundup: Facing Fear
June 22 – June 26, 2020
Monday: Most change—personal or cultural—causes anxiety. It’s scary (and it’s okay to say that). Avoiding it is the best way that it will remain scary. We need responsible, compassionate, and often guided exposure to the cause of that fear. We need a type of habituation to the change we know is necessary but scares us the most.
Tuesday: Facing our fears is an aversive discipline because it requires short-term discomfort. The goal is to habituate ourselves to not experience the fear or anxiety, but like so many worthwhile goals, the means of facing the fear feels awful.
Wednesday: “I’m feeling anxious” or “I have fear right now” cuts through the lie that it’s permanent, it defines you, and there is no way out. And, counterintuitively, it gives you some staying power to face it.
Thursday: “Beating” fear is not like Mr. T busting through doors. It’s more like a dance. We face it, get close to it, step with it, turn with it, until we are familiar with it's movements. When we are synchronized, we can predict it's movements.
Friday: Part of the fear I had of chainsaws resided in my physical body. I needed a physiological solution. I literally needed to “re-narrate” the stories that lived in my muscles and bones.
Are you interested in the whole reflection? Click on any day, and it will take you there.
Want to help grow the community of people like us that are unwilling to continue in ways like this? Help us spread the word: share on Facebook, Twitter, or with a friend via email. Find the links below.
What’s Your Chainsaw?
[Facing Fear – V]
I remember cutting down old oak trees as a child. My dad would fell them and chop them up with his old Stihl chainsaw while we pulled the limbs to a large burn pile. Over and over again, he would tell us how dangerous the chainsaw was. So many things could go wrong, and one mistake could change the course of our life.
I developed a fear of chainsaws, though I never saw a bad accident. I never even witnessed a “close call”. But the images in my head were gruesome. Still, to this day, every time I hear the buzz of a chainsaw, those images flash through my head. (Even writing that last sentence triggered a picture of R-rated material.)
And then I moved to property that needed the forest thinned. I got to work, and over a hundred trees later, I can use a chainsaw safely and without hesitation.
The images are still there. The memories of dad are still there. Where did the fear go? All the ingredients of the fear are present in my mind, but my body is free from the grip of anxiety.
So much fear lives in our bodies. In the memory of our muscles. I the history of our joints and bones.
I started with small limbs. Success. Then larger limbs and small trees. Success. Eventually I could cut down massive pines without a flinch. How?
Part of the fear I had of chainsaws resided in my physical body. I needed a physiological solution. I literally needed to “re-narrate” the stories that lived in my muscles and bones. (It took over a hundred trees!)
Every time I think about using a chainsaw I still picture an accident, but my body has enough “wins” that my fear has become more of a precaution than a controlling anxiety.
What’s your chainsaw?
How can you start small and “re-narrate” your body?
3 Lies About Fear
Here are three lies about fear that I have learned from experience. The first two are internal. The third is external.
One: The thing I fear is dangerous.
There are things we fear that truly threaten our wellbeing, of course. By and large, most of the things we fear fall into what I call the “horror film fear” category: the fear is a very real sensation, but the potential of actually being hurt is virtually zero.
Two: My fear is an ever-escalating experience.
Nothing escalates indefinitely, though it feels like facing our fears will forever intensify the feeling. There’s a cap on fear, and right at the time you tell yourself it will continue to magnify is likely near the top.
Three: The only way around fear is through it.
This is partially true insofar as avoiding fear assures it will always be there. The cause or trigger remains. But it’s a violent and often hurtful method. “Beating” fear is not like Mr. T busting through doors. It’s more like a dance. We face it, get close to it, step with it, turn with it, until we are familiar with it's movements. When we are synchronized, we can predict it's movements.
I don’t recommend running over your dance partner.
Using the Wrong Words
[Facing Fears – III]
Exposing ourselves to our fears is counterintuitive. While we’re genetically wired for the challenge of habituation, our nervous system, thought processes, and memory all suggest otherwise. We want to run, which, unfortunately, runs us deeper into its grip. Perhaps part of the problem are the refrains we tell ourselves and others.
“I’m afraid.”
“I’m anxious.”
“I’m scared.”
All three are powerful admissions, especially when avoidance and denial are primary coping strategies. But we wouldn't say, “I’m a head cold” or “I’m failure.”
A cold is what you call the symptoms of fighting an upper respiratory, viral infection. It’s not who you are. It’s what you’re temporarily experiencing.
Failure is the measurement of an action. It helps make meaning of the past. It doesn’t dictate your future, and it’s definitely not who you are. You experience failure; you are not a failure.
“I’m feeling anxious” or “I have fear right now” cuts through the lie that it’s permanent, it defines you, and there is no way out. And, counterintuitively, it gives you some staying power to face it.
Short-Term Discomfort
[Facing Fears – II]
Getting a good grade on a test.
Decreasing your 5k time.
Passing the certification process.
Developing a relationship with your neighbor.
Understanding that complex theorem.
All these goals require some short-term discomfort. Sure, the level of discomfort varies widely, but the fact remains: reaching the end, the goal, or the summit, will always include some trial along the way.
The trial is often internal not external. We have an aversion to the very means required to arrive at our goal. A faster 5k time requires regular running, which if done properly, requires fatigue, lactic acid, stretching, and sweating. It might be one's aversion to sweating, not necessarily the sweat, that makes the process temporarily uncomfortable. (Some people love to sweat!) The 5k remains the goal, but facing and exploring and experiencing up close the sweat is the real work.
Facing our fears is an aversive discipline because it requires short-term discomfort. The goal is to habituate ourselves to not experience the fear or anxiety, but like so many worthwhile goals, the means of facing the fear feels awful.
The trigger of the short-term discomfort is where the real work is. Settle in. We must explore it up close. And we can't do that without facing it.
(By the way, this applies to institutions as well.)