Fear, the worst scourge of mankind. Fear, the hurdle that makes almost any further development impossible. Fear, the emotion gripping us tighter than everything and everyone else. The one power that some know how to tap into and use against us. The one power that enables one to rule over others, to lead them, to dictate to them. The one power that brings people to say yes to exploitation, to transgression, to brutality. Where would the world be today if fear did not have such a tight grip on it? Where would each individual be if they had the courage to say yes to themselves, to life, to love, to God?
What it is, fear in the big picture and in small things, the fear that guides us and the fear that inhibits us, how to use it, how to overcome it. All this and more is in this article.
Fear in the big picture
From the earliest times, rulers, dictators, sometimes even parents, used fear to guide, direct or keep in check their subordinates, those entrusted to their care. To get their way.
The common enemy is a tried-and-true tactic that worked in ancient Rome and still works now. Spotting a threat is a gift to any ruler. Because then it doesn’t take much for everyone to be united in this, by this cause. Danger-real or imagined-speaks to our instincts and thus bypasses common sense, reason, that which makes us human.
From the earliest times, rulers, dictators, sometimes even parents, used fear to guide, direct or keep in check their subordinates, those entrusted to their care. To get their way.
The common enemy is a tried-and-true tactic that worked in ancient Rome and still works now. Spotting a threat is a gift to any ruler. Because then it doesn’t take much for everyone to be united in this, by this cause. Danger-real or imagined-speaks to our instincts and thus bypasses common sense, reason, that which makes us human.
The fear of job loss or one’s wealth has led to phrases like ‘the boat is full’. The fear of a race, the new, the other, has enabled discrimination in all its facets. The fear of death and disease, if instilled often enough, can lead to giving away personal responsibility and decision-making competence to those who, after all, should know. Dissenting voices? There are none, or hardly any, or only from those who are radical. Different. And different, we know, is dangerous. Foreigners are different, Jews were different, AIDS patients, witches, women, critics. Whether it is about love, or about ethnicities, fear is always at the root of evil. Often it is successfully stoked as a means of power. Rarely is it a wise counselor.
Fear poisons the pure heart and openness of life. How quickly does one let everything happen just because one is frightened, disturbed, uncertain, irritated? How quickly does one fight against everything just to be safe again? How relieved one is, that finally there is someone who knows the way forward. Anyone who has seen the movie The Wave, or Let’s Make Money, knows that not every act has a positive intent.
Fear is so easy to use because it makes people predictable. Fear allows only one of 3 reactions: fight, flight, freeze.
Verena Radlingmayr
Who fights? Warriors, for the good cause. Defenders, for fatherland, honor, the protection of families. Desperate ones, for their right to live, to be heard. But you can also get those to fight whose energies would be better used elsewhere. If you fight against something, you have already lost. You can only fight for something-and sometimes you do it actively, as a warrior, and sometimes you do it actively by being an example, by taking an alternative path. For example, by bearing the consequences of inner conviction, even if they are inconvenient…taking a child out of school to avoid reprisals. By cultivating a community where like-minded people find each other. Not for the sole purpose of being different, against the one, but equal in many ways.
Anyone who has gone to school knows the phenomenon: everyone, even the outcast and the class brat, sticks together when it comes to the one teacher. The terrorist. If the solidarity is not nourished by something else, it is gone faster than you can say respect. People are not united by a common enemy, but by a common vision of a better future.
People are not united by a common enemy, but by a common vision of a better future.
Verena Radlingmayr
Fear in small things
Yes, we are all fearful. Sometimes fear is simply a means of showing us our own limitations. In this context, fear has an important function: it asks us to make a clear decision, to say yes to our own development. Fear roars, frightens, rages, gnaws. And you can either leave it be and pass it by. Or say: okay, okay, I’ll turn around.
Fear of spiders, tigers, or dark underground garages is human, and not a big deal. But be careful in the many, many, many moments when fear hinders us. It is then only supposedly a warning, but in reality an inhibitor.
This fear is nourished by our ego. It emerges as an inner, wounded child. As righteous indignation. As a good citizen. As a justice-seeking rebel. As a defender of possessions. As a good daughter. Loving mother. Tolerant father and respectful brother.
But the latter are all good qualities, aren’t they? Yes, if they are pure. Those who are good daughters, who maintain harmony at all costs by putting their own development on the back burner, are not doing anyone any favours, neither themselves nor the world. He who loves his child so much that he crushes, changes or marginalizes him, is lead by fear: fear of loss, fear of change, fear of being abandoned or of arriving alone. Those who do not change, ditto. Those who disguise indifference as tolerance are probably too afraid to allow closeness, commitment and responsibility. For he who says A must also say B and most good things in life mean work, responsibility, dedication, selflessness.
Fear leads to being alone as well as to being, staying in the wrong relationship. It leads to bladder infections and kidney problems, eye problems and strained sexuality. The fear of personal development to burnout or depression.
The fear of not being loved unconditionally to bending, back pain, death. The fear of one’s own power to remain eternally small. The fear of greatness to kneeling when you shouldn’t. And the fear of being worthless to addictions, people pleasing and impotent rage.
The Antidote
To every poison there is an antidote. You need not fight fear, merely discard it. After all, what is one afraid of? Mostly the loss of something: status, power, influence, love, freedom, self, possessions.
Except for love, none of that matters. And love cannot be lost. Love, which is true and free, allows each person to develop according to his ideas and goals, even if it is unpleasant for oneself, does not correspond to one’s own imagination. One’s own idea always goes only as far as the free will of the other person is not breeched. That is, instead of making life’s happiness dependent on others doing as you would like, it is better to make it dependent on what you yourself are in control of. Happy people see that this is a lot. Unhappy, fearful ones find it is nothing-one is in control of nothing and no one.
God has given everything to each person. And He has designed it so that we can find our happiness, within ourselves. Because that gives us the freedom to love. The wealth to be happy, no matter what the circumstances. And the advantage of not depending on anyone, but being connected to everyone.
Following one’s own heart is the greatest service one can do to oneself and to humanity. For the good of all, for the good of oneself.
