FEAR | ANXIETY | MENTAL HEALTH
Fear is Contagious, We Must Learn to Control It
It is possible, I have experienced it for myself
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I’ve been thinking a lot about fear lately. Our world is consumed by it, and I keep reading article after article about how worried people are about the future—the future of our countries, the future of the planet, and the future of our very lives.
Of course, recent political events have exasperated this fear, especially in America. But fear is rampant not only in America but also here in Europe, where I find myself. There is a very real threat to democracy that is taking place, and it seems to be happening everywhere. But why is this? I believe that it is all caused by fear.
Fear is a construct of our minds
Let’s examine the actual definition of fear. When I googled the word, this came up.
There are two takeaways from this definition:
#1. the emotion is caused by the THREAT of danger, pain or harm — It isn’t actually there, it is just something that might happen.
#2. be afraid of someone or something as LIKELY to be dangerous, painful or harmful — They aren’t definitely dangerous, but they might be.
The interesting thing about fear is that it is all based on imagination. We create fear in our minds with our thoughts. Most of the thoughts we create are ideas that we form that are not based on true facts. They are figments of our imagination because we can’t possibly predict what is going to happen, but fear fools us into thinking we can.
We can’t control the future
Stop for a moment and consider what is worrying you right now. Ask yourself if you have direct control over it. I’m willing to bet that you don’t.
None of us can predict the future, yet we sit and worry about how we think it will play out when the only power we have in each moment is to consider what we will do next. We can only control each move we make as we make them. We can’t control what might happen an hour into the future, let alone months or years. So why do we worry about it? It’s a bit of a mystery. Isn’t it?
Fear invites more fear
I have an honest question to ask you. Do you find solace when others are worried or have fearful thoughts like you? Are you happier and more content when you have a partner with whom to worry about things? I’m willing to bet the answer is yes. This is because fear likes to create more fear, and it feeds off of it.
Just a few days ago, I had an experience on a bus that really put this all into perspective. My partner and I were moving from Albania's capital, Tirana, to a smaller city in the south called Sarandë. The weather was miserable, and rain and high winds pounded on the bus for much of the ride.
Just as it started to get dark, we entered an incredibly mountainous area. Through the low-lying clouds, I could see faint outlines of the mountains around us. Rivers cut deep valleys below, and the bus weaved along steep cliff sides, winding in and out of tunnels every so often. Sections of the road were covered in water, and our bus was moving quite slowly through it all.
A man was sitting across the aisle from me. He had a smooth bald head and looked in his 60s or possibly early 70s. I had heard him speaking English on his phone, so I figured he was from America or West Europe.
Earlier in the drive, I had noticed him looking a bit anxious, but then I started falling asleep and drifting in and out of consciousness. Occasionally, I would snap awake and look out the window to see what was passing us by, and this is when I started to catch glimpses of his body language.
He was sitting rigidly against the back of his seat, his hands and arms pressed down to his sides in a brace-like position. I thought it a bit odd, but wasn’t overly consumed by it. I just thought that maybe he was a nervous passenger.
But at one point, as the driver was navigating a particularly gnarly section of the road and driving very slowly, this man jumped up from his seat and went toward the front of the bus. He seemed to stop and start his way down the aisle, sometimes seeming like he would return to his seat, but then he would move forward again. Finally, without reaching the front of the bus, he returned to his seat and sat back down.
I was happy that he sat back down and couldn’t figure out what he was doing. Things seemed fine for a bit, but then, he did the same thing again. Once again, he never engaged with the bus driver, but this time, he seemed to be looking down on him and analyzing what was happening. He wanted to say something, perhaps, but was also not sure what he wanted to say. This was, at least, my impression.
He sat down again, this time with his back upright and his butt on the front edge of his seat. His arms were folded over the back of the seat in front of him, his head nestled between his crossed arms — his gaze set intently down the aisle and to the front of the bus. By now, I could see that he was very concerned about something, and his concern started to get me concerned. This was when my mind started playing tricks on me.
I started thinking about different scenarios. Did the man see the bus driver nodding off in the rearview mirror? Did the man see the bus swerve across the center line? Just what was his concern? I couldn’t figure it out.
Although I had no idea what was going on in this man's head, it somehow got me worried as well. Suddenly, I was eyeing up the driver in the rearview mirror and studying the road in front of the bus, making sure that nothing fishy was going on. My heart quickened, and my pulse raced a bit. I was no longer nodding in and out and enjoying my ride; I was on high alert.
Images of our bus plunging off the road and into the dark valleys below started to get the best of me. Surely the driver wasn’t falling asleep? Surely he was a good driver and was taking his responsibility for his passengers seriously. But what if? What if this man really knew something that I didn’t know? What in God's name was going to happen to all of us?
Thankfully, this episode didn’t last too long. In another 15 minutes, we were on the other side of the mountains, coasting down the straight and easy highway into the valley below.
As we left the danger zone, I could physically feel this man relax, and then I finally did as well. When I finally got my bearings again, I considered what had happened. I realized that I had been enjoying this bus ride, and if the man sitting next to me had not been so worried, I would never have been worried either. His fear literally sparked my fear, and this is how it goes.
A different story about fear
I have another story about fear. It occurred when my partner and I found ourselves locked down in Morocco and trapped in place because the borders were closed and the highways were shut down due to Covid.
We had been oblivious to how the virus was moving around the world and when the lockdowns began and restaurants started closing, we were totally caught off guard. With all the crazy restrictions happening so fast, I imagined a large black cloud of disease flooding over the planet, killing everything and everyone in its wake.
I can’t even begin to explain the intense fear that I was feeling. If there was ever a time I felt weak in the knees, it was this time. I worried about everything. I worried that Morocco wouldn't have enough food to feed everyone, that people would be dying in the streets, and that cats would be eating their bodies.
I worried that the locals would treat us as if we brought the plague and that police would round up the foreigners and take us off to some sort of holding facility.
I worried that I would never be able to return to Canada to see my parents. I had visions that, if we were able to go back, we would have to sail back across the ocean and then cross the continent by horseback to find them. Lord knew how many years it would take to get there.
My mind was a wasteland of craziness, and the thoughts just kept coming and coming.
I told some of my worries to my partner Chris — some I was too embarrassed to even sputter. Though I truly was concerned about these crazy things, I even knew in my state that they were far-fetched and I had best keep them to myself.
But each time I expressed some concern, he did nothing but reassure me that everything would be fine. He wasn’t concerned about a thing, and I couldn’t figure out how. But because of his steadfast consoling, I think I was finally able to get a grip on my emotions. He wouldn’t go down the rabbit hole of fear with me, which forced me to pull myself out of it. Remember, fear feeds off of other fears.
After a couple of weeks, this craziness passed. One day, I don’t really know how it happened, but I suddenly realized that all of the weird things that I was worried about were figments of my imagination. None of it existed; I had made it all up in my head. When this lightbulb went off, I almost burst into laughter. How silly had I been wasting all this time thinking about things that didn’t exist?
It was then, and only then, that I could dial it back to the present moment. As I realized this, I looked around the room with a clear perspective. My mind felt sane, normal, and rational for the first time in weeks.
I had a roof over my head, fresh and clean drinking water from the tap, and a vast garden space behind where we were staying that was growing all manner of food. I was safe in this moment.
I vowed that from then on, I would only worry about what I was doing at each moment. I would not allow my thoughts to wander far into the future, where I had no clue what would happen. I just needed to make sure that I was taking care of myself step by step and hold faith that everything would turn out okay in the end.
And guess what? It did.
Redefining Fear
My time in Morocco truly redefined my relationship with fear. When I understood what little control I actually had over the future, my anxiety lessened, my thoughts calmed, and my world became clearer. I no longer wasted time worrying about things that may or may not happen months and years in the future. And I finally started to truly live in each moment and tackle each problem in life as they arrived. This has been one of my greatest life lessons.
By sharing my experiences with you, I hope you can recognize some of your patterns around fear. Yes, we should all consider the state of the world and the direction things are moving in, but we must also tackle problems as they arrive, instead of worrying and anticipating problems that are to come. We can’t control those problems, we can only control each action we take in each moment we live them.
We can control our fear
There is no doubt that humans are connected emotionally. We feed off of each other's behaviors and feelings. When one person is sad, it is easy for another to fall into the same state. When somebody is angry, they can usually make others around them angry as well. And when multiple people are fearful, one of the easiest things to do is to make others fearful also.
But it’s time to change this narrative. It’s time to start living in a world that we want to live in — not one that we are scared to live in. Make changes in your world today, and I guarantee others will notice. Bit by bit, and one by one, they will start to follow suit. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen in time.
Take a look around you, decide to work on the things that you can control now, and try not to think about the rest. The rest doesn’t matter yet because it hasn’t happened yet. Will the things we fear happen? Maybe. But they also may not, and this is the point.
It is ridiculous to think that we can control the future, so we must stop trying. Our insane grip on trying to control our futures is what is driving our fear. We must let it go. But we can control our thoughts in each moment, and we can learn to control our fear. Our fears are born out of ideas in our minds that we have conjured up. If we can become aware of this, then we can stop them. It just takes practice.
These two stories about fear in my life will serve as constant reminders. We can either let fear get the best of us or choose to release it. It truly is up to us.
As we navigate these interesting times (yes, I’m tired of them being called this as well!), we must take a step back and sit with ourselves. We must calm our minds, lessen the chatter, and realize that we don’t have control over the future we think we do. But we do have control over one thing: how much we let fear get the best of us.
Stay safe, friends and remember, we are all in this together.
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