Fear can be an effective motivator in the short term. AND fear can cause even worse problems than this COVID-19 virus itself (or anything else). Remembering the fear that kept me in check in Catholic school. It helped them while I was there, but it hurt me for a lot longer. I have seen fear cause people at worst, to make the most dangerous, damaging, irrational, and cruel choices. Fear causes us to re-act, rather than respond.
Here is an article in the NY Times that stands as an example: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/nyregion/co-op-board-coronavirus-nyc.htmlaction=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
What we need now is to respond, not because we are afraid, but because we care about ourselves, others and the world, knowing that we can not live without each other and knowing that we can not “know” everything that will happen to us or every consequence of every choice we make.
So what do we do to help ourselves or someone else who is afraid?
- – We listen to our fears without judging or siding with them automatically.
- – We acknowledge that if fear is there, it has its good reason to be speaking in us. There is something it doesn’t want us to have happen to us (or someone else). There is something that it doesn’t want us or someone else to go through or feel. No wonder.
- – We remind ourselves and those who are afraid that we each are bigger than our fear…we can hold our fear with compassion and make decisions out of a bigger place in us.
- – And, we hug our fear as we pay attention and act, instead, out of our desire to care and respond, not just for ourselves, but for others and the world we live in.
Care is a better motivator than Fear.
And it is also true that caring alone is not enough…. Care must be informed by what we CAN know about any situation.
So gather all that you can know, hug your fears, and act out of an informed, caring place in you.
