How much do you feel the quality of your state of mind is impacted by fear and uncertainty?
I have long been reflecting on our relationship with fear and how it can drive so many of our behaviours unfavourably if left unchecked. We live in an uncertain world and sufficient lack of certainty will produce fear which in turn will cause us either to withdraw into ourselves (freeze), flee or fight (anger) in response. In the absence of an obvious way to manage our relationship with fear and the physiological responses to this emotion we can unconsciously become lost to it. This can have a very negative impact on our relationship with ourselves and with those we love, not to mention any of the countless people who happen to cross into the journey of our lives.
We also face the challenge of living in a world in which institutions use fear to encourage our behaviour. Fear is the simplest tool to use to get attention and to encourage compliance. My observation is that we are in a saturated market of fear and there is no sign that this adoption of fear as a tool is likely to decline anytime soon.
There are real challenges in our lives and real problems in the world, there are things we should feel fear in response to. As with all of our emotional states, they serve a valuable purpose and we should listen to the wisdom of our bodies when they try to draw our attention to something which needs to be addressed in some way. But we mustn’t allow ourselves to become lost and stuck in any given emotion. We should, as best we can, seek to recognise and abide with our state of mind and body and then see what discerning action could best be taken to improve that relationship if possible.
This will allow us the possibility of taking thoughtful action to try and improve situations we can have agency in and improve our relationship with ourselves and those around us.
If you would like to explore mindfulness as a tool to help renegotiate your relationship with fear please drop me a message.
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