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This week I think it’s important to discuss how easy it is to be trapped in fear when things like the recent Mass shootings and other events happen. It’s a struggle for me as well, but we do have a choice.
TRANSCRIPT:
I hope you are doing well so far this week. I know it’s been an intense couple of weeks,.. or year for that matter as far as national trauma goes. There have been recurrent mass shootings and violent crimes this year and in the most recent weeks, and we just seem to be constantly faced with big challenges in the world at large.
These circumstances that continue to dominate news and social media are so ever present it feels like lately our culture is having a hard time not being dominated by fear producing thoughts. Thoughts that make us feel helpless, powerless, hopeless and chronically anxious. Essentially taking us along for a seemingly endless ride aboard the fear-train.
These terrible circumstances that we are facing hurt a lot for so many people and that pain is spreading. Today, I am not talking about these circumstances themselves but rather the thoughts about these circumstances. Today I am talking about the chronic fear, anger, shame and anxiety that we find ourselves in amidst the facts of what’s been going on and how it is taking over us and controlling our lives from the inside.
When we think about these incidents of violent attacks, we are assessing it. We are trying to make sense of it. We are judging it because we are trying to keep ourselves safe. Our brains have the job of filtering through the information coming in and judging and interpreting it and categorizing it to support what is deemed relevant. THESE thoughts are what we will talk about today… the thoughts that we think about what is going on in the world. Thoughts that are either keeping us in fear or allowing us to live in peace and freedom internally.
I remember when I was a sophomore in High School in Washington. I remember one day, as I was in PE doing crunches on a circuit with the class, I learned about an event that had just taken place. An event that changed the way I viewed my world and those around me. I heard about two boys who intentionally walked into their high school and opened fire on the students and teachers, killing twelve students and one teacher. It rocked my world. It rocked the world of those around me. I was terrified. We all were. I was shocked and overwhelmed. This event, and the details about it were interpreted by my brain as a message that I was in incredible eminent danger. My brain wanted so badly to protect me and as a result it rendered trench coats unsafe (as that’s what the perpetrators wore in this instance, or so they became known for), my high school unsafe, and every situation a possible threat of violence. My brain made a lot of rules that day and I was not even aware of it. The fear that I had from those rules; those ways of thinking; was almost crippling sometimes, so I shoved it down and pressed on.
Then, fast forward two years. I was 18 and had only just graduated from high school several months before. My boyfriend and I had just broken up and I was literally binge watching Law and Order on TV while bawling and feeling sorry for myself on my mother’s living room couch when I got a call from my ex. I can’t remember if the show I was watching, was interrupted by the news or if it was the call that had me change the channel, or if it happened simultaneously; but I watched in horror as the twin towers were hit by airplanes and my heart dropped into my stomach. I was overwhelmed yet again by fear. I felt paralyzed and was terror struck. The very same day I went to the post office and got my passport application which I worked to procure as quickly as possible because of course it was an emergency. My brain decided, from this event, and other events that had happened, that America was no longer a safe place to live. America was broken and dangerous and I was living in crippling terror by the very fear of more violence.
The way my brain responded to these events polarized my thinking; and this is understandable. This has happened to a lot of Americans I’m sure, along with countless others from countries that have experienced traumas and violence throughout history. But again, it was not the events themselves, but the way my brain handled the facts about the events.
At Columbine, the victims were “normal students” going to school one day, to high school, just like me, that were gunned down when they had just been eating a sandwich or reading a book… In the Twin Towers, these were just normal people going to work, kissing their wives and kids goodbye as they met their fate when a plane crashed through their office floor. My brain literally could not handle it and just as I am thinking about this right now my insides feel triggered towards thoughts that perpetuate more feelings of fear and powerlessness.
You see the thing is, when most of us are faced with the facts of traumatic and violent acts such as these, even once, the tendency is to interpret these events in such a way that we have no choice but to feel deep fear and anger. Fear is incredibly vulnerable and often can feel unsafe, because our culture tends to breed and perpetuate the idea that vulnerability is weakness. As a result, many of the emotions that we feel as unsafe are masked under anger leading to rage, and only make matters worse. When we live in fear or when we mask the fear or other vulnerable feelings with anger and live in that place; then we allow the shame and fear, the hurt and frustration to take over our world. Doing this is literally handing over all of our power. You see the emotions that we live in, whether we know it or not are the soil from which our actions grow. We are choosing to become powerless and surrender our lives over to that fear and pain because our lives begin and end with our thinking. When we surrender our power, we get stuck in a downward cycle of these thoughts and their resulting feelings and we cannot live our lives fully. We aren’t in it; we are in a reactive state stuck rehearsing and perpetuating the events in our minds so vividly that we are re-traumatizing ourselves over and over; and thus, in an attempt to protect us, our brains are actually keeping us stuck in chronic emotional pain and turmoil along with often also producing deep overwhelming anxiety about the future.
When we are stuck cycling in and rehearsing the pain that was caused by circumstances and events beyond our control, we perpetuate anxiety in our lives and can also become so trapped that we become depressed. This causes us to feel more and more helpless and more and more afraid and the result is that we act out of this fear; we act out of this helplessness and anxiety, AND IN DOING SO, WE AGAIN CONTINUE TO PERPETUATE IT! We perpetuate the very thing we are trying to protect ourselves from.
The pain of Shame and Fear and Anger and Hate is fuel for itself. It’s a self-serving machine and a lie. We get stuck in it thinking we are trying to protect ourselves and solve the problem, but in reality, we become so trapped by it and consumed by it that the lie, the thought that is producing these feelings, is strengthened. It is fueled and it grows and spreads.
The very people spreading this misery through their violent acts are so deeply saturated and consumed by the pain of their own shame, fear, pain, hate, rage that they are spreading the pain with their actions. They are living pain, extending pain to the world. To combat pain is not by more pain. We can’t put out a fire by adding fire. We need to go to the root and let go of the lie that is causing pain; we need to take back the power of the thoughts we allow these events to mean in our lives.
You see these feelings of pain and fear produce an anxiety that is almost addicting. We want to stop it so we ruminate over it, obsess over it and get stuck rehearsing what happened and what we don’t want to happen. This strengthens the trigger. It strengthens the pain and the force that keeps us stuck.
What all of this does is keeps us from accepting how we feel. We don’t accept the fear we live in and we are trying to escape it. We are ignoring the fact that we are in fear and anger and pain and whatever else and we are running from it. But those thoughts are still there and they will keep producing fear and anxiety, shame and pain until we see them. Until we acknowledge and accept them. Until we become grateful for their presence in our lives… yes, grateful for the uncomfortable feelings. We need to let the feelings move through us; to sit with the discomfort of the pain, and allow them to be. Acknowledge them and not try to change them.
Then we need to source the feelings. WE can actually come from either direction; we can either figure out what the circumstances are that we are having thoughts about and then we will see where our feelings are coming from… then we can see the thoughts that we are having about those circumstances. OR we can work our way backwards from our actions and feelings to the thoughts we are having. For me, it depends on the feelings and the thoughts. Sometimes when the feelings are too overwhelming it’s easier for me to step back and start by look at the circumstances first and work my way down. At other times, I am almost so consumed by the thought itself that I can easily pinpoint the thought.
Regardless of how we do it, we need to figure out what thought we are having. Regarding the recent shootings; I have been having intermittent and tremendous wrestling with anxiety and fear. The circumstances are such that people are opening fire in public places and wounding and killing multiple people. These are the facts. When I have the facts I know for sure, then I can see the thoughts I am jumping to. I can see that I am so drawn toward feeling like America is unsafe, and that I am unsafe. I can allow it to mean that no place I go is safe and I always need to be on guard for an attack. I can allow thoughts that I need to be emotionally ready for an attack so that I am not blindsided, thoughts that say rehearsing the pain will cause me to be more bullet proof the pain itself; where in reality, all it does is keeps me from being both present with my life and vulnerable, because I am too afraid of the possible loss that I might face. I can allow the pain of what’s happened to be to scary and mask it with anger and rage toward the perpetrators and all those I deem aligned with them… But none of this helps me.
Guess what, it’s okay to admit that I am scared. I feel fear when I hear about these events. I feel it in my chest, with anxiety and my heart beating; and I feel it in my stomach as it knots up. I feel it in my shoulders as they draw in, and in my neck as it stiffens. I can feel this pulsate up and down through my body and drain me of energy and narrow my vision. I can remind myself that it is okay to feel this and not run from the feelings. I can also see that this feeling is coming from the thoughts that I shared before and I can take this as a signal that I am at a crossroads to choosing to live in those feelings and surrender my power or to change the thought. I do have a choice. Today I am choosing not to surrender the power I do have over the situations that are under my influence to these hurting people that are spreading pain.
I know that there are a lot of terrible things happening. But amidst this awareness, I can choose to remember other facts that are relevant and not allow myself to get stuck in black and white thinking. I know that even though there is pain moving in the world, there is also love moving incredibly as well. There are people doing unbelievable things in the name of LOVE. There are people loving with their whole hearts and spreading acceptance and peace. It’s just not up in our face all the time as the pain is. Spreading pain is not brave; it is surrendering to lies. I choose not to surrender my power to the lies but to be brave and vulnerable. I won’t allow the pain that is being spread to cause me to close off and hide. Hiding only increases the fear and cycles the pain in the world. When we surrender to fear, we surrender our purpose in life and we shrink our lives.
Stick with me here because I want to talk about a few more ways I am working to implement this shift in my thoughts in this area; a shift that helps me to keep my power that I hope you’ll give a try and find some help in amidst the chaos of the thoughts we are struggling with.
First, again realize that Fear threatens to steal our lives… that is what it will do if we surrender to it. It wants to steal reality from us and dominate our lives. When we live in anxiety, it is not protecting us, it is actually a sign that we are already surrendering our reality. WE are surrendering our presence in our lives and thus any and all power we have. Just becoming aware of that will help us as we move forward.
First, I would say focus on what you can control in your life. Just knowing that this was beyond your control, does not have to mean that you are helpless or powerless. That is a thought. You get to believe that thought or not. I choose to go forward knowing and accepting that circumstances that have taken place in our world are already beyond our control, as they have happened and they are past. We can’t control it all; but that doesn’t mean we have no control. That doesn’t mean we are powerless. Sit with that distinction and really try to digest it.
Like I said before, there is a lot of good happening. The news is not saturated with all of the good, but it is out there. And good is incredibly powerful. Love is powerful. I urge you, once you are aware of this, to actively monitor your pursuit of information that will affirm your fears. I don’t mean shelter yourself from the world and from the events that take place. It’s good to be informed of course, it’s good to know what’s going on. But recognize that your brain will work to support what it already believes and when you are hearing a constant barrage of painful events, without a balancing input of the good that is taking place in the world, you will find yourself struggling to believe thoughts that combat the lies that produce fear. You will struggle to believe truth. You will struggle to keep your power. So be intentional about what you choose for your thought food.
In taking this a bit further, know that you have a choice of what to feed your mind daily. If you start your day on social media or with the news, you are allowing the world to decide your thoughts. The thoughts you want to start your day with should be intentional. Each night, think about what will help you. What thoughts and what love-based truth helps and motivates you? What makes you want to jump up and run and laugh and sing? What makes you want to hide and yell and scream and cry. Notice the difference and notice your choice in it. Choose to feed your mind on the good thoughts. Thoughts that feed and fuel you with truth, that empower you. That fill you with love. Again, it is a choice. It’s hard, but once we are aware of the power here, it becomes easier to recognize and start to practice our choice. Listen to uplifting music. Read books that inspire you, and stories that have heroes. Watch shows about people doing great things; imperfect people, messing up but pushing on. Surround yourself with people who encourage you, who believe in you and love you and remind you of all the good in your life. Remind yourself. Write down things you need to remember; truth that keeps you focused and put sticky notes all over the house to remind yourself when you need reminding.
If you’re struggling to feel the feelings, to accept them… just breathe. Breathe in and out for a count of four each. Pay attention to where you feel the fear in your body and see it moving through you. After a few breaths, visualize the fear leaving your body on your exhale. Visualize all of the good coming in, all of the truth, and all of the lies leaving; all of the fear and the shame and the rage releasing.
To remember a good thought, a thought that is not second nature and is combating a thought that is crippling and has been powerful in our minds for a long time, we need to be intentional about coaching ourselves to think that thought. So, in this instance, think of a mantra. What is a thought you need to feel, a thought that keeps your power and doesn’t perpetuate fear or shame or pain? For me, this thought has been: “Even though there have been a lot of shootings and other painful things happening; there are also a lot of good things happening. I am dedicated to being a part of the good. I am committed to spreading the good.” Because this is so long, I have a smaller thought to think to remember this whole idea. This is that I am safe. I am not being ignorant to the fact that there is potential harm in my future. I am not being naïve to believe that I can keep myself from all harm by thinking this. What I am doing is taking the power to own truth right now and choose where I will focus my energy and focus, and right now I am safe. And for every moment I have on this planet, I can choose to be in it fully. I am safe. I have a choice. What can I do right now to spread love. Spreading love helps to strip the power from the fear.
Whenever we take action in love; to accept others, empower others, educate others, heal others; whenever we work to remove our own triggers so that we can be vessels of love, we weaken the force of the lies. We weaken the virus of fear and shame and pain in the world. We are superheroes when we choose to focus on the task at hand and to take steps in love. Every single day we can do this; actively engaging in our power, rather than surrendering it. This will look different for everyone, so we don’t need to sit in judgment against our neighbor. We are all meant to serve a purpose, and our love is meant to look different just as our lives and the very bodies we live our lives in. Work to admire all of it, and not judge yourself or others. When you start to own your power, you’ll start to see your worth in this world. You are not worthy because of your actions, but you can reinforce your thoughts by your actions. Actions perpetuate the pain or healing one is living in. We will not do it perfectly, but we can own it regardless and do our best.
So, look at the world as a whole. Don’t look at things in extremes. Know that there is good and there is bad. That focusing on the bad, will increase its power in your life and will work to perpetuate it because you will act in alignment with your thoughts and feelings. What thoughts do you want perpetuated in the world? Fear and anger? Or Love and healing? Focus on what you can control and take baby steps toward love and freedom. Do what you can. Sit with your feelings and know that they are a signal. Say thank you to God for the feeling that is acting as a flashlight for you in the jumble of thoughts. He’s showing you what your energy is going to. Investigate the thoughts about what is beyond your control and make a choice that will empower you. Rewrite the story you are telling yourself about this situation so that you don’t feel helpless… so you don’t feel powerless. Just because we can’t control it all, doesn’t mean that we have no power. It just means we aren’t God… and thank God we aren’t because we are each evolving and at a different place in understanding what IS and none of us would choose it all perfectly anyway. It’s overwhelming when we think about fixing all of the world’s problems because we aren’t supposed to fix them all. We aren’t God, we are supposed to step out with courage and vulnerability in Love… being ourselves and messing up and then trying again. So, keep informed, but find balance in what news you allow in so you are seeing what good is happening as well as the bad AND so you aren’t surrendering your power and your current reality.
I am in this with you. The circumstances shared on the news are deep and painful. There is a lot that is incredibly painful to face; and we won’t shy away in ignorance, but we will see our choice in all of it. Life is not hopeless. The pain that is in the world does not need to sentence us to a life of anxiety and fear, to shame and anger and more pain. The pain that is in the world does not erase the overwhelming love that also exists. Seek out the love. Perpetuate the love. Accept what you can control and the fact that you can’t control it all. Once we can accept what we can’t control, then we can actually own the power we do have in our lives.
I hope that you find some encouragement amidst the thoughts that we all face sometimes… Thoughts about the pain people inflict on each other and how much it hurts, especially when it’s so current and raw. I am right there with you, and hope and pray that this week you fill your life and your thoughts with beauty of the world as you choose to spread love and that you start within yourself. You are enough. Don’t hide.
Sincerely,
Holly Ann Kasper
The Radical Imperfectionist