Fear not!

Some thoughts on fiction and life

“These are the times that try men’s souls.”  … Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

This is the first sentence of Paine’s essay urging retaliation against Britain’s control over the colonies. Now, over two centuries later, both men and women must grapple with the aggressive Coronavirus pandemic.

Fear. It can make one blind. It can steal common sense, causing otherwise rational people to fight over toilet paper in the aisles at King Soopers. It can burrow into the subconscious, sucking the joy and happiness from our days without our even being aware of it.

While a few of my RMFW author friends are fearless (and my heroes), most of us are intimately familiar with fear. One of the mainstays of the Story Magic method of plotting is isolating our characters’ Worst Fear, which plays into the dark moment’s Worst Fear Realized. It’s the magic sauce that motivates them as they fight through their character arcs to a satisfying ending. We’re experts at fear—only so long as we’re focused on fictional characters rather than ourselves.

Are you afraid? I am. Because fear is so frequently associated with weakness, most of us are loathe to admit it. That denial makes fear more powerful than it should be.

No one in their right mind would jump into a roaring fire. Some anxieties are practical, and caution is prudent. When it’s excessive, it’s crippling.

Use reason and be diligence to separate the two. To fail at this will chain you to fear as its slave and condemn you to a life of limits and lethargy. To be successful at this means you will live in a world of freedom, creativity and adventure, free of the paralysis that accompanies anxiety.

Since we’ve become adept at working through our characters’ greatest fears, let’s be brave and make ourselves the protagonist. Try this out.

I challenge you to write a basic plotline for you.

Using Psychology Today’s essay, Five Steps from Fear to Freedom, study your life journey. This study will help you assess where you are on your path.

Step 1. Do you unconsciously avoid the Danger Zone? It may be free-floating anxiety, a vague fear that the unknown is dangerous and to be avoided at all costs. It’s better to be safe than sorry, so you cling to the familiar and cringe from all else. To get closer to freedom, ask yourself, “Is my comfort zone really protecting me?”

Step 2. Conscious fear of the Danger Zone is progress! You still have anxiety and worry and avoid the unknown to control your world—but now you’re aware of it. You know that shrinking from your new or feared experience can hold you back. It’s like wearing a comfortable sweater that scratches because you can’t have fun adventures if you’re waiting for absolute certainty in the future.

Step 3. Acknowledge that the unknown may not be dangerous. You may still be ill at ease, but you’re willing to be cautiously curious and let fear of the unknown teach you. To successfully pass this obstacle, question everything. Stay open about new avenues. Be curious. Don’t be afraid to look for possibilities without fear. That means silencing that old gatekeeper, Danger Zone Voice, and at least consider the new.

Step 4. Once you’ve navigated Step 3, you may find the unknown to be seductive. Discovery is sexier than certainty, and this newfound courage may drive you to recklessness, much like the gambler who wins a small jackpot after his first pull at the slot machine. You can pass this step by entertaining the unknown with enthusiasm tempered not by the blind refusal of steps 1 and 2, but by discernment—discriminating decision-making fueled by your intuition rather than fear.

Step 5. Surrender. You may not know, but you trust anyway. You’re neither afraid nor seduced by the unknown. Good or bad things may happen, but you realize there is meaning (and learning) in all outcomes that involve trust as opposed to fear. In the spirit of discovery, you value freedom more than certainty.

You may follow the five steps in order or you may bounce from the first step to the fourth. Whatever the process, after you’ve successfully navigated the five steps, you’ll discover that staying in that state of surrender requires constant effort. 

Don’t judge yourself, and trust your own timing.

Other tips for fear-fee living:

Stay focused on the good in your life. You have made it through hard times in the past, and you now have greater skills to do so the next time. Accept anxiety as a temporary discomfort and move on so it doesn’t gain power over you.

Practice mindfulness through controlled breathing and connection with a loved one or a pet.

Focus on the “now” because events in the past can distort how we view the present. Realize there is nothing you can do to change the past. You can learn from it. Stay in the present.

Remind yourself that you are worthy. You don’t need advertised products or constant education or sustained youth and beauty to be happy.

You are enough.

Do things that make you smile. Spend time with children, for they remind you to be excited about the future. Listen to music. Enjoy art, books and fun websites. Sing.

Laugh at fear by embracing both darkness and light. Ask yourself, “What am I learning now?” because with every fear comes the chance to learn and grow.

* * * * *

With its dangers and global implications, the coronavirus is a powerful fear generator. Here are a couple of strategies that I have found helpful.

Knowledge is power. There’s an enlightening video that highlights the timeline and mistakes made during the Spanish flu pandemic that lasted three full years from January 1918 to December 1920. During that time it killed anywhere from 17 to 100 million people. (Record-keeping throughout the world at that time was challenging.) It was devastating, but we can learn from that tragedy and move forward to the future.

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDY5COg2P2c

Do what you can to prepare. Keep yourself in good health, with diet, exercise and preventative care, which includes immunizations. Practice good hygiene—hand washing and disinfecting. Remember that the virus lurks hopefully on your hands. It desperately needs you to touch your face, nose, and eyes with them to gain access into your body. If you refrain from this, keep your hands virus-free and maintain a safe distance from others during this phase of the pandemic, you will do your part.

Limit your exposure to the news—once a day is enough. Be very discriminating about the news you read or watch. SNOPE-check anything on social media—better yet, avoid it completely and stay with established news sources.

Practice mindfulness. Avoid magnifying the likelihood of a bad outcome.

Isolate as advised, but reach out safely with a phone call or in person at a safe physical distance when you’re stressed. Help those near you, including any elderly neighbors who are too fearful or unable to travel for groceries, prescriptions, or health services.

To all my dear friends reading this, I close with one of the most beloved lines in fiction: “God bless us, every one.”