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Posts Tagged ‘fear’

  1. How to Ease Fears in a Fearful World

    March 20, 2020 by Diane

    These are challenging times.

    As humans, we’re meant to roam with our tribe, something our primitive brains seek to ensure because there’s safety in numbers. Now, with the threat of coronavirus, the government is forbidding togetherness except with people in our immediate household. If you live alone, you may feel further isolated from human touch.

    Please know, you are not alone. We’re all a little afraid, a little anxious, a lot unsettled.

    But here’s the good news: there’s something we can do to change fearful thoughts into a sense of calm, to shift from feeling unsettled to feeling grounded. And this is where I want to turn our focus now.

    Here are five tips to help you navigate the next several weeks as you shelter-in-place.

    Claim your power 

    While sheltering-in-place may leave you feeling powerless, based on current knowledge, the only way to flatten the curve of the rapid rise of coronavirus is to stay at home. So, in a sense, it’s an act of power. You are taking back power by defeating the spread of this virus. And together, we can do this. Think of yourself as a superhero! Strike the pose every morning when you get out of bed. If nothing else, it may make you feel silly, which is a very good way to start the day.

    Choose your words wisely

    The words you use have an immediate effect on your mind and body, and on the minds and bodies of those around you. When feeling overwhelmed, stressed or anxious, replace those scary, stressful thoughts in your head with uplifting words and phrases such as:

    I look forward to the time when I can see my loved ones in person.

    I’m so grateful for the internet and telephone, so I can keep in touch with family and friends.

    This moment in history is an opportunity for us all to support one another, offer healing thoughts and prayers, and discover how strong and resilient we really are.

    Above the clouds, the sun is always shining.

    Distraction is an antidote to fear

    Rather than ruminate on something you can’t control, find ways to distract your mind to give those fired-up synapses a rest. Here are twenty distracting activities to try:

    • Check in on a family member, friend, or neighbor via phone, text, or email.
    • Mail a letter to a friend. Who doesn’t love receiving a handwritten letter!
    • Send an email to a loved one, saying “I probably don’t say this enough, but I love you. I’m here for you.”
    • Visualize a relaxing place you’ve visited, or one you invent in your imagination, and bask in that image for twenty minutes.
    • Do crossword puzzles.
    • Learn a new language.
    • Play cards and other games. Monopoly can go on for days.
    • Check out e-books and streaming videos from the library website and have a movie night, snuggled on the couch. 
    • Play with children and pets. If you don’t have children or pets, play like you are one.
    • Take a walk outside to broaden your perspective and get those feel-good ions from nature.
    • While walking, see how many species of trees you can name.
    • Read uplifting literature or motivational biographies.
    • Watch movies or television shows that make you laugh or that feed your soul. One of my favorites is the old Dick Van Dyke show. Van Dyke’s physical comedy never fails to make me laugh out loud.
    • Invent something.
    • Paint something.
    • Write a poem or song or short story or some other form that’s all your own.
    • Teach something to someone else.
    • Start a virtual book club.
    • Do 2 pushups. The next day do 3. Keep adding one a day.
    • Declutter your living space. Or at least your desk.

    Habits help you feel grounded

    What habits have you developed or would you like to develop?

    Rising at the same hour every day, eating at specific times, going to bed at the same hour every night: these habits help normalize life. You can add other habits, too, such as writing for fifteen minutes every day after breakfast. Make a big X on a calendar every day you complete the habit, and don’t break the chain of Xs. Make it a game with yourself!

    Take tiny steps. Doing only 1% can make a huge difference in the long run. Which brings me to my final tip.

    Tiny actions cause a ripple effect in the world

    You’ve probably heard of the Butterfly Effect. A meteorology professor at MIT, Edward Lorenz, posed a question: “Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” He ran a computer program simulating weather patterns and then left his office to get a cup of coffee while the machine ran. When he returned, he noticed an unexpected result which led Lorenz to a powerful insight about the way nature works: small changes can have large consequences.

    What small change can you do today that can result in a more peaceful, joyful world around you in the future?

    I don’t know about you, but just the evidence of hoarding in local grocery stores has amped up my anxiety. It’s a clear manifestation of people’s fear. In Whole Foods one evening, the produce section was empty except for one banana that two guys fought over until they realized the banana was banged up.

    What if, instead, we bought what we needed, trusting in abundance rather than scarcity, and left enough for everyone?

    What if we smiled at the cashier and expressed our appreciation for their hard work? In turn, that cashier may brighten the next person’s day.

    What if we found humor in the day to day and sent out ripples of laughter?

    What if we practiced meditation, prayer, or another contemplative practice to radiate peace and calm? Every day at noon, sit for twenty minutes. Tell your family and friends to sit, too. I’ll be sitting, focusing on peaceful images and thoughts, or just observing my thoughts as if they were clouds drifting by, or a movie reel unscrolling. We don’t all need to be in the same room to spread calming vibes into the universe.

    Together, with tiny actions, we can help our community heal. And who knows: we may very well set off a tornado of good feelings around the globe.

    Blessings to you and yours.

    Please share this message via email or social media if you found it helpful.

    Category Fer Cryin' Out Loud | Tags: ,,, | 8 Comments

  2. I Mean You No Harm

    May 21, 2017 by Diane

    I sat alone on a bench in the park having lunch on one of those days when the sky beams blue, nibbling on a chocolate chip cookie, when I heard this:

    “I mean you no harm. I just want to eat my lunch.”

    And a young black man in a green parka sat on the bench next to me.

    A green parka.

    On a hot day.

    I mean you no harm.

    My brain, the lizard part, sort of bolted upright. The lizard part is the deep, dark center of all that gray matter in your head, and when it bolts upright, it sends chemicals zinging through the body. Adrenaline. Cortisol. The stuff that gets the heart pumped and the feet doing a getaway jig beneath the body. It’s the part of the brain that makes you venture out of the cave at dawn and hunt for food in Safeway.

    The lizard brain quickly scoped out the situation.

    I mean you no harm.

    This is something someone will say if harm is exactly what they intend to do. Like the dentist who says, This won’t hurt a bit, and then pulls your lip back and jams a needle into the soft part of your gum.

    I mean you no harm.

    Years ago, in another park, on another bench, on another lunch hour, another black man sat next to me. “Some people stole my stuff. I’m gonna blow them away with an Uzi,” he said, and I believed him. His face was full of angry scars. The nearby businessmen in their suits got up and walked away. The women with their carriages put away their snacks and hurried off. Even the policemen who patrolled the park on horseback had disappeared. I was left alone with an angry black man, and my empty Calistoga bottle. I curled my fingers around it to use as a club.

    Across from that park sat a historic courthouse. The story goes, on a November night in 1933, a crowd of over 6,000 enraged people stormed the courthouse, dragged out two men who had murdered the son of a department store owner, and lynched them. The tree still stood. I was sitting underneath it. That park radiated bad vibes.

    Had my lizard brain been awake at the time, I would have followed the mass migration out. Instead, I tried to talk the angry man out of his plan.

    “You’d be as bad as them,” I said. “Worse. Have you filed a report? Contacted the police?”

    “They won’t do nuthin.”

    We discussed the situation. Something I said reached him. Maybe it was just the fact someone took the time to listen. Park benches seem to invite people to unload on strangers. Free therapy. But I needed to get back to work. When I got up, he got up. When I headed off, he headed off beside me. “We’ve got to stick together,” he said. “We’re alike, you and me.”

    I stopped and squared off,  all 5 feet 4 inches, in front of him.

    “You’re not going to follow me,” I said. Free therapy was one thing, a man with an undisclosed mission was another.

    He backed off, hands raised. His version of  I mean you no harm.

    I didn’t know what the man in the green parka on a hot afternoon meant by his statement, but I felt unsettled, remembering the other park, the other man. I tried to play it cool. Nibbled a little faster on my cookie. From the corner of my eye I saw him reach into a brown paper sack. He started to pull something out. The lizard brain yelled: duck and cover! I scarfed down the cookie.

    The man unwrapped a sandwich.

    The lizard brain settled down.

    I mean you no harm.

    This is something someone will say if they’re afraid the other person is going to do them harm. Like when you come upon a strange dog that may or may not be rabid, but just to be safe, you offer the flat of your palm for him to sniff.

    I mean you no harm.  

    Reassure him, my emotional brain told me. This is the second layer, the one that makes you drop a dollar in the Salvation Army bucket and then cluck the bell-ringer under the chin. It urged me to tell this man he can sit wherever he darn well pleases. Don’t make this about a lone white woman sitting next to a lone black man. Did Rosa Parks say “I mean you no harm” when she sat her tired self down on the bus?

    My rational brain, the outer cortex, told me to leave the man alone. He just wants to eat his sandwich in peace.

    All of this happened in a flash. Sandwich. Rosa Parks. Peace. The time it took to crumple my cookie wrapper. I got up, ready to head back to work, and so he wouldn’t think I was leaving because I felt threatened, I said, “Enjoy your lunch.”

    He sighed. “I’ll try,” he said.

    There it was. The veiled inquiry: is this therapy bench open for business? Or was it something else? A desire to connect with another human?

    I wanted to place a comforting hand on his shoulder, prefaced by: I mean you no harm.

    But office hours were over.

    Category Fer Cryin' Out Loud | Tags: ,,, | 8 Comments

  3. Afraid of Commitment? Join the Challenge!

    July 17, 2016 by Diane

    Yikes! Commitment.

    Yikes! Commitment.

    I have commitment issues.

    My wise friend pointed this out over lunch at the sushi place. I was forking my way through a super vegetable roll while rattling on about blogging.

    “I’ll blog when I have something to say, and not because the powers-that-be suggest that I blog to attract followers or build a writer’s platform,” I said. “I’ll blog just for the hell of it and okay, maybe I’m taking the middle road, but I don’t know if this whole blogging thing is what I want to do anymore.”

    And my friend, carefully placing a slice of pickled ginger on her salmon roll with her chopsticks, said, “What I see is, you start a project and then skid to a stop. You have a problem with commitment.”

    I allowed myself to take that in. I resisted the urge to fold my arms, gaze at the corner of the ceiling with a thoughtful frown, and zone out on the live poker-playing event on the overhead television.

    Instead, I agreed.

    I have a commitment phobia.

    From actress to dancer to writer, I reached a tipping point and then slammed on the brakes.

    I studied acting and dance, acted and danced on stage, taught others how to act and dance, and then chucked it all to write.

    I’ve written first drafts for four-and-a-half novels, and when I started to rewrite the first one, I hit the wall.

    Marriage? Forget it. Children? As long as they’re not mine. Vacations? It depends. How far, and for how long?

    I’ve been known to buy fifteen different kinds of shampoo because one smells nice and one is for curly hair and one is for dry hair and one is for fine hair, and…well, you get the point.

    Sleep? Too boring. What if I’m missing something important? What if there’s something else I should be doing?

    What if I choose the wrong guy, the wrong project, the wrong whatever?

    Driving home that day after sushi, I was sitting at a stoplight, and I thought about gravity. I thought:

    We’re spinning in space. Right now.

    I thought about how the Earth is tilted on its axis and we’re spinning ever so slowly in a vast universe.

    What if gravity decided to stop doing its job? What if it decided it didn’t want to commit to pulling everything toward it, and wanted more space?

    There would be consequences, that’s what. We’d all spin into infinite darkness and vaporize. I had a tingle of discomfort in my spine, thinking about that. I had to go home and lie down and ponder.

    And I’ve concluded that it’s a good thing, commitment. I’m grateful to gravity for its commitment to hold us to its breast.

    That’s a step in the right direction. Being grateful.

    My boss, I’m fairly certain, is grateful that I show up for work and get my job done. My muse is grateful that I allow her to play in the first draft. But my editor is knocking at the door, wanting to clear the clutter, and he’s mighty pissed that I’m lying on the bed gazing at the ceiling.

    The fact is, I can’t even commit to avoiding commitment.

    After all, I commit to watching America’s Got Talent every Tuesday night. I commit to reading an entire book, buying groceries, cleaning the shower and showing up for work.

    But something creative…that’s when the problem kicks in.

    So, here’s the deal.

    I’m going to commit to rewriting my novel. And blog about it so I’m held accountable. It might take six months, it might take a year. But I’m going to face this thing head-on, and when the fear rises, I’ll use my mindfulness training, my cognitive behavior therapy, my humor to overcome it. And I’ll let you, dearest reader, in on what transpires, in case you have commitment issues as well.

    It won’t be easy. I see roadblocks ahead: fear of failure, anxiety about feeling boxed in, agitation about all the effort involved.

    Doesn’t matter. I’ll find a way to work through those blocks, or scoot around them, or I’ll kick those suckers down. For better or worse I’m going to rewrite my novel.

    Do you want to join me in this challenge? Do you want to be my commitment phobia-busting buddy? Let me know in the comments. What will you commit to doing?

    Category Fer Cryin' Out Loud | Tags: ,,,, | 21 Comments

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