Fear and Anxiety are Perpetuated Through Society.
Fear-mongering is a proponent facet of American society. Sorta feels like our new norm these days. This constraint is the idea of instilling fear into a culture or society to persuade hatred or anger towards a particular issue. A terrifying aspect of fear-mongering is when we individually do not think for ourselves by allowing whatever is populated to become gospel. Consequently, fear and anxiety are favorites of a society born from distrust and deceit.
Fear and anxiety are synonymous with:
– angst
– isolation
– tension
– fright
– dread
– dismay
Much of our society desires to have it’s members reside in this fear and anxiety to better control its population. However, the idea behind being able to tune in to oneself will ultimately allow one to work on fear and anxiety, triggering situations. This comes as one learns how to regain control of the body. In the timeless, everlasting works to the great James Hillman:
The external may cause suffering, but it does not itself suffer (Hillman, 1992, p. 63).
Who is controlling who?
Everyone from clergy to politicians to the on-slot of pontifical op-editors has waged in on the culturally significant topics. Ranging from Human Rights, Black Lives Matter, the Dakota Pipeline, LGBTQIA, the recent political forum regarding human lives as expendable figures, and many other horrific acts on humanity. Politicians tell us what side to act on to enhance our safety. This is worded as “Remove the threat of terrorism from American soil.” Or even the fear tactic of having all of our rights and weapons and dignity removed from us if we refuse to act sternly following our ‘constitutional rights.’ But do they suffer, or do we suffer?
One interesting, possibly perplexing, facet I witness is the inability for a society maintained to allow its population to be autonomous and have ultimate freedom in choice. We must only adhere to the way they all want us to feel. As if for some reason, our society has indoctrinated George Orwell’s 1984. Angst is often categorized as a feeling of deep anxiety or dread. Residing in angst is residing in another’s fear and not our own. Angst is created from external forces and attempted to be thrust into us.
The Freedom to Choose is an Autonomous Function of Human Beings.
Fortunately, we can become aware of our feelings and standings regarding how we are being affected by much of our country’s travesty. With growing awareness, we can tune in to what is being held throughout our bodies and our individual psyche. Similarly, Carl Jung eloquently postulated on how we as humans avoid feeling at all cost:
“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls. They will practice Indian yoga and all its exercises, observe a strict regimen of diet, learn theosophy by heart, or mechanically repeat mystic texts from the literature of the whole world—all because they cannot get on with themselves and have not the slightest faith that anything useful could ever come out of their souls (CW 12, para 126).”
I will not wage into the debate of soul here; I have attempted a little understanding here. You’ll find a small intro into how I orchestrate myself—too big a topic for this blog.
One of the founders of Gestalt Therapy, Frederick Perls, once said,
“Lose your mind, to come to your senses.”
Each of these philosophers I choose to follow in life has illustrated the much-needed return to the body or the self to fully understand the self. Political rhetoric forces alliance. The result of this is forcing unconditional support without genuinely checking in with the self. This can have grave psychological consequences. Especially if one is already plagued with fear and anxiety and dread and angst from their family of origin.
Awareness in motion.
Events that have transpired create a lot of sadness for me. I enjoy civil liberties that I’ve grown accustomed to, but the masses’ civil liberties fearfully overshadow an individual’s right to live in harmony. The right to live in harmony is forcefully removed, sometimes mortally removed. Now we have a paradox of protecting one’s civil liberty by threatening another’s individual liberty.
This is a well-known place of fear for me. I, too, have many emotions centered around death, anxiety, fear, uncertainty, you name it; I’ve felt it. I do not like the notion that one has eternal control over my existence in this world. However, I understand this fear in me and pay attention to what comes up for me at the moment. For example, when fear and anxiety come up for me, I ask, “who’s fear and anxiety is this?”
The manifestation of fear constellates as trembling, nervousness, and constant fear of looking over my shoulder. My chest begins to tighten, and my heart feels like it is squeezing the life out of itself. This is the moment of my dismay, fright, and dread. Allowing myself to hear the words, “you’re safe, there is nothing of imminent danger right now, and you’re fine,” allow me to center myself.
I must allow myself to come back to my center amidst rapid heart rate and shallow breathing. Then, I take a mental inventory and mental imagery of the immediate room. Finally, I then allow myself to tend to the anxious/fearful feeling. Maybe at this point, I allow myself to recognize the present tense and sit in the present moment with physiological symptoms. Recognizing these trapped energies provides internal freedom and strength. In severe cases, I’ll actually allow my body to do a movement to shake off the energy, to throw it off of my body if you will, much like a dog shaking its head around to recalibrate to the earth below him.
Not an easy task.
Feeling or experiencing fear and anxiety must be organic. This permission strengthens the internal drive to be free from such. As human beings, we rarely allow ourselves to be in the here and now. To release the monumental constraints, one must situate to the here and now of life. If we choose to ignore the feelings, this becomes an open invitation for anxiety to set up camp.
In events such as the Orlando onslaught on the LGBTQ community and the mass shootings that are ever-present, and the horrific attack on individual citizens on our streets, one can and does tend to manifest anxiety and fears around these situations. These situations are terrifying. These feelings are a normal reaction to being human. What is abnormal is the residual energies that keep us focused on the ineffective movements through life. This ineffective movement manifests as fear and anxiety post any egregious attack on humans.
Finally, my experience working with increased awareness through gestalt coaching principles, has increased my awareness of things I can control and things I cannot. Much like how I cannot control how COVID-19 was brought into my life, I can control how I react to the isolation, fear, and grief that has been created. As illustrated by gestalt therapist Joel Latner:
“The point of this [psychotherapy] is not to destroy our ability to exercise the kinds of control we exercise over ourselves in impairment, but to make that control available to us so that we can choose whether to continue or alter it … as therapy unifies us, it frees the jailer and the prisoner.”
As addressed earlier by James Hillman,
The external may cause suffering, but it does not itself suffer (Hillman, 1992, p. 63).
Again, who is in control?
This illustrates how society keeps us in suffering, but we can control the physiological effects of the suffering. The physiological effects will then determine our outward actions. Humans can go out and march in support of this suffrage. Do not automatically integrate acts of injustice; we can stand up to them and be the louder voice.
Have you ever felt this sense of fear and anxiety with or without seeing acts of injustice? If so, give me a call. A depth exploration and gestalt awareness understanding of your personal beliefs will help open your awareness and potentially your heart.
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Jeremy R. Allen
Son. Husband. Father. Coach
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