How Fear Will Save the World
If We Only Learn to Listen
I’m scared to write this.
And that’s how I know it’s probably a good idea to do so: because its going to contain some information that will help me — and you — survive.
We desperately need to change our relationship with fear.
Since the basic function of fear is to keep us alive, our detachment from this feeling is a very real threat to our survival.
This short article explores the path of returning to fear as an essential energetic process in our collective evolutionary journey.
If the global climate/ecological movement learns to harness this energy, we might just have a chance at getting through this crisis.
It’s astonishing how rude we are about fear and how much we put “fearlessness” on a pedestal.
I myself have written about living and acting and serving from a “fearless place of love”, even in the context of the climate crisis.
But I look around at a world in free-fall towards horrific collapse, and I see a lot of scared people not doing anything. I’m one of them, most of the time. We’re just… frozen.
Our bodies are full of fear but we are absolutely refusing to feel that fear. This leads to a state of paralysis and inaction where we are ignoring very real and very obvious threats to our survival. Like, ahem, imminent civilisational collapse.
Something has gone awfully wrong here. Somewhere along the way we chose not to feel. And we are paying very dearly for it.
Our nervous systems are screaming at us to DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS.
LIKE, NOW!!!!!
But until we make a new decision and choose to let this energy in — to feel that really intense fear — then we are not going to do anything.
Our fear will remain unconscious and we will remain identified with it (it’s “mine”). We will judge it as ‘bad’ and refuse to feel it. All of this keeps us locked in a numb and inactive state of contraction and robotic reactivity (i.e. trauma).
So: instead of ignoring the immense fear of these times, it’s time to feel it, receive the information that it is offering us, and allow its energy to guide us to acting on that information.
Instead of judging, identifying and repressing, we can simply allow fear to come and go as neutral and selfless information-energy. When fear presents itself, we can choose to feel and receive this feeling-energy, grateful for the information that it brings us. This takes some practice, but it is completely possible.
For so many years I thought that fear is to be “overcome”, and is basically a “leftover” from the violence and stupidity of our evolutionary past — to be swiftly replaced by love. This is the NUMBNESS trap: a total bypassing and overriding of our perfectly functional fear-mechanism. And it might just kill us.
The basic realisation that I have had in recent months is this:
FEAR IS NEUTRAL ENERGY AND INFORMATION DESIGNED TO KEEP YOU ALIVE. IT IS NOT NEGATIVE OR POSITIVE. IT’S JUST FEAR.
FEAR IS NOT DYSFUNCTIONAL
FEAR IS IMMENSELY INTELLIGENT
FEAR IS ESSENTIAL TO OUR SURVIVAL
Fear is our full-bodied, full-intelligence, fully-operational survival system saying “here is a threat, and here is a solution. ACT NOW”.
It’s life-energy doing what life-energy does best: surviving and evolving. (Good luck navigating a global crisis without THAT in your locker, humanity.) We can ignore it and lose our survival-intelligence, or we can feel it and ride the energy to a safer and more sustainable world.
If our fear is unconscious (repressed, ignored) then we enter the “frozen” or “trauma” state: we become robotic and mechanical. And the cruel irony is that this protective mechanism actually increases our chances of dying, because we are then ignoring existential threats and refusing to let our fear guide us to safety!
Our subtle awareness of these looming threats introduces even more fear which we then have to try even harder (become even more frozen) not to feel. This leads to a vicious feedback loop in which we becoming increasingly vulnerable/threatened AND increasingly numb (each reinforcing the other).
Consciously feeling our fear breaks this loop by busting us out of the sleep of numbness and bringing us into confrontation with our existential threats. It is a harsh and terrifying awakening, but at least we are moving again, attentive to our mortality, dodging the blows of life and hitting back with all the grist and guts that we can muster.
Yeah — awesome, right? Kung Fu shit. Way cooler than numbness.
BRING ON THE FIGHT!
The choice to feel fear liberates its energy trapped in our bodies and makes it continuously available for intelligent and effective survival actions.
I have noticed that fear always leads me to ideas. Solutions to problems! However, I rarely act on these ideas: because to do so would require me to feel a higher level of fear than I am currently willing to.
As I learn to feel fear to increasing levels of intensity, I realise I am plugging back into the innate ever-present intelligence of my survival mechanism, unlocking new possibilities for life-enhancing activities, thereby coming into greater alignment with actions that are going to keep me — and the collective — alive.
If thousands of people started doing this, we would begin a mass shift of the collective emotional field — an opening in “what’s possible” towards the outcome of collective survival.
We can be that shift. But it will take some serious stepping into our fear. I’m going for it. How about you? Honestly — I’m scared that you won’t!
Look at it this way: with our fear offline, our survival mechanism is jammed. So how can we possibly hope to actually take the actions necessary to ensure our survival?!
Consciously feeling our fear is the work of the hour.
And the first step in that work is feeling our fear of feeling fear!
Next we learn to discern between emotional fear (stored up in our muscles that was never allowed full expression and feeling) and present-moment fear, or the “feeling” of fear.
Next we notch up the intensity . We lower our numbness bar and progressively become able to feel and utilise the energy of 30%, 50%, 75% intensity fear.
Ultimately, consciously feeling 100% intensity fear — or archetypal fear — enables us to freely contact and utilise the CREATOR ARCHETYPE of the MAGICIAN. We realise we can switch this feeling on or off at any time, so the magician intelligence is always accessible.
What am I talking about here?
Well you know when you’re scared to say, create or do something? And maybe nine times out of ten, you don’t. You stay small. But very occasionally we find ourselves dropping into the fear and acting from that place. Speaking when our heart is beating so hard and we don’t know what we’re going to say, and what comes out of our mouth happens to be absolute spontaneous MAGIC. That’s the essence of this work. Now imagine increasing your ability to do this, so that nine times out of ten you choose to feel the fear when it comes, drop into it, and enter the creative flow. Direct from the groundless void, this flow brings new energetic forms, ideas, and patterns into reality, allowing us to co-create a beautiful, harmonious and resilient world. If that turns you on, listen to this podcast.
There is only one group of people I know of who are taking fear seriously as an absolutely essential energetic mechanism for human survival. And that is the folks at Possibility Management and Startover.xyz.
Their work with Emotional Healing Processes can help us to go deep into conscious fear, allowing us to use fear’s energy and information to ensure our survival (amongst other things).
Hell, you can even join an online or in-person Fear Club and go further down the rabbit hole (of staying alive, that is).
You can use this Telegram Chat to connect with others doing this work, and request them to hold space for your process(es) – as well as learn to offer spaceholding for others.
(Hey, by the way: you could actually do this! You could book a session with someone TODAY that would allow you to go into a process with your fear. Sounds totally scary, right? BINGO. You know what to do, then.)
Read Directing the Power of Conscious Feelings by Clinton Callahan. This article by Tim Bennett is also essential reading.
At the very least, I advise that you put some time aside each week to feel and express your fear (whimpers, screams and all) in a safe and private setting. Enlisting a spaceholder will help you go even deeper. This is nothing to be ashamed of. This is deeply courageous work.
Look, this isn’t complicated. I’m scared. You’re scared. Everyone’s scared shitless by what is coming down the pipe. Let’s just fucking admit this and get on with the sacred work of feeling, living and surviving. Let’s bring our full-body survival-mode back online and feel the full incredible intensity of being human at this time. You can do the same for your grief, your rage and your joy.
It’s the choice between being ALERT AND AWAKE KUNG FU ECO-SORCERERS or sleepwalking wage slaves, numb to the world and to vibrant wisdom of our bodies. This choice is ours to make, people. And we choose a better way when we just admit “I’m scared because …” and let that terrifying unknown guide us to a new possibility. Practice saying this out loud, when possible, every time you feel scared. Work the muscle. Soon it will be easy (it will still be scary).
Declare to yourself: NO MORE NUMBNESS! Stick it on your wall. Tell your friends and family you’re busting out of prison. And that you’re absolutely terrified. But now you know there is another way to live, and that fear is going to lead you there.
Full intelligence, full aliveness, full humanity — every moment. Nothing less. No more shuffling around like numb and stupid robots! No Sir!
Good luck, my friends!
And oh, yeah:
Be afraid.
Be very, very afraid.
