Fear Talking

“That’s just fear talking,” I’ve reminded myself too many times lately. Fear shapes my mental conversations easily: I come from fearful parents, one afraid of authority, the other afraid of shame. The combination is both helpful and deadly, depending on degree. For me, keeping them in balance with courage and wisdom has been a lifelong effort.
I almost let fear keep me from attending my sister’s wedding this weekend. I focused on the obvious problems, physical and financial: how to get there, how to pay for it, both seeming impossible.  But underneath was a swift current I couldn’t see but knew was there: how could I possibly be myself with these family members clumped along two opposing branches? Would I revert to my old fearful self, forced to chose one branch or the other or forever dangle between?
With massive support from friends, the physical and financial problems were set aside. My fear of shame got me on the road, then family love pulled me there. The event itself was an emotional morass, but a good one, maybe even healing.
And that’s how it’s been these past few months, dealing with one fear after another. Every time I tackled one (and sometimes that meant sneaking up on it,) I experienced the truth that fear itself is so much worse than the thing we’re afraid of.
Many of us are living with a great deal of fear right now, mostly fear of consequences of our country’s economic decline. If you’ve lost your job, you’re fearful of losing your home. If you’ve lost your home, you’re fearful of losing everything, including yourself. If you haven’t lost your job, maybe you’re fearful of losing it. The possibilities are endless.
To some extent, those fears are the undercurrent of heightening fear surrounding the upcoming election. Whether we look at the Presidency, our federal and state governing bodies, propositions and bond issues, even our local city councils and district boards, a sense of fear is growing about the outcomes of November. You can taste it in your mouth, feel it in the air.
I think it matters very much who is in the White House, although I don’t think one man by himself can take back the power we’ve given to corporations. That will take millions of us, and we’d better get started. Likewise, I think it matters very much who sits on our city councils and school boards, but until the residents relearn the ropes of local participation, our communities will still be in too few hands.
Feel worried and stressed over the upcoming elections? That’s just fear talking. Make it hush, learn about the issues, and we’ll all have less to worry about come November. Fellow Lindsayites, come to the candidates’ forum at the Wellness Center Thursday, Oct. 11th at 6 p.m.
-Trudy Wischemann is an election-phobic writer on community issues.  You can challenge her with your ballot-box ideas - P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA  93247.