You should be afraid. This was part of a message I received from Freya a couple of weeks ago. Today I want to share a specific conversation I had with two of my gods, Odin and Freya. And not to sound like a broken record, but the conversation was about “The War” or as it is often called “The Tower Times.” If you would like some background on The Tower Times, no one says better than John Beckett and I will always encourage people to read his writings and to follow him.
Odin
The conversation between myself, Freya and Odin began with a check-in. I was preparing to co-lead a ritual for Paganicon and Odin is one of the deities in that ritual. I reached out my senses to Odin to see if he was available to talk. Over the last couple of years I have noticed that many of my deities have become very busy and don’t necessarily have the time to talk when I reach out to them. Which is okay, I definitely understand. Odin was a bit busy but had a few minutes to spare for me. He confirmed that the planned ritual was good, no big changes needed and that we had created this ritual for these times (the tower times, the war, etc). And essentially, Odin wanted to know what was I asking about, that this was all going as planned. Like many of us, the gods can be cranky when interrupted.
Journey to Wisdom
The ritual in question is called Journey to Wisdom. It is supposed to help attendees find their role in The Tower Times / The War. We are all in a fight. A fight for survival. A fight for our rights. A fight for freedom, for democracy and a fight for our religion. The Journey to Wisdom ritual is supposed to guide people into accepting their role in this fight. Are you someone who is going to be on the front lines, literally or figuratively. Are you a warrior who is going to be public about the fight? Or are you going to be a keeper, someone who fights through other, less direct means? Are you better suited to taking care of the home, cooking, holding down a regular 9-5 job so that the warriors can focus on fighting? Truly, we’re all both: warriors and keepers. We fight as we are able and we do our best to make sure our homes and loved ones are taken care of. The ritual is designed to help you decide which role has more of your focus and to accept that role. No one should feel guilty that they can’t protest at their capital every month. But those people who can’t travel, for a variety of reasons, can do things closer to home. And the world needs both. Journey to Wisdom validates your role in this fight and encourages you to keep fighting.
Freya
Although Freya is not part of the ritual that was on my mind, I thought I might check in with her while I was reaching out. Most of the conversation between myself and Freya has escaped my mind at this point. I’ve been trying to write this blog post for a week now, but getting sick put it on the back burner and in the meantime, I have forgotten the bits that my brain decided were not the essential part of the conversation.
The essential part of my conversation with Freya can be summed up in one line. You should be afraid.
I don’t think anyone reading this blog needs me to point out what we should be afraid of. Likely, we need help finding the good in life right now. Fear is a primitive response that humans have. It is hardwired into our brain to help us survive.
Fear
Fear is not an emotion most of us typically enjoy. Many of us may enjoy being scared when we watch horror movies or go to haunted attractions. Fear is the emotion that produces adrenaline, and many people enjoy a good but relatively safe adrenaline rush. In case you were wondering, I am not that person.
Fear does serve a purpose though. It is a survival instinct, it helps keep us safe. We are familiar with the fight or flight reactions. Fear compels you to action and helps you make wise and prudent decisions. Without fear, we likely wouldn’t live very long because we would not be aware of or care about the threats around us. You might dart across a busy road and be incapable of reacting in that split second when you realize that a car is racing toward you. When you get scared, your body reacts physically so that you can handle danger. Without this fear response when you’re in jeopardy, you wouldn’t have the energy, focus, speed or strength to fight or flee. This is an amazing phenomenon that many of us have heard about.
Fear Temporarily Boosts Your Immune System
In 2009, Coventry University in the UK did a study where participants were shown horror movies. Blood samples were taken from the participants before and after watching the movie. The results showed that physiological fear responses caused the film-watchers to experience a lift in activated white blood cells. The more white blood cells your body produces, the stronger your immune system.
I find this interesting since I am getting over this cold as I write. Although I am not a scientist, the concept of fear boosting our immune system makes sense, at least in the immediate. If you really do find yourself in a life threatening situation and your fear response kicks in, you don’t have time to not feel well. Your focus is on surviving. So in the moment, I understand how fear can help your immune system. However, I think there is plenty of evidence that prolonged periods of fear and stress are actually bad for your immune system. Humans cannot survive in a constant state of fear and stress. Which why it is all the more imperative that when we fight, we use our energy in a productive way so that fear does not become a habit or lifestyle.
Fear Gives You a Sense of Empowerment
Not only is adrenaline released when you feel fear but other chemicals as well, such as dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin and serotonin. There’s a good reason for that: serotonin, in particular, helps your brain to work more efficiently. Fear is energy. Every time you come through a challenge and accomplish your goals, you feel empowered. This natural, biological high often lasts longer than the time you spent feeling scared, which is why you feel so great afterward.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Do the thing, and you will have the power,” which means that the moment you decide to do something that scares you, you’ve already generated the energy you need to achieve it.
Fear Helps You Stay in the Present Moment and Focus
One of the things we fear the most is the unknown. We love to worry about the “what ifs” and the “maybes.” In today’s political climate, of which there is too much to get into, there are plenty of unknowns. The current occupant of the White House changes his mind hour by hour depending on his mood or the biased intel he is given. We wait each day to see what part of our government has been destroyed or which pilar of dictatorship has been strengthened by his greed and narcissism. There is plenty to fear. And it is so, so easy to spin out of control with the worry and the anxiety. In fact, it is easier to give in to fear than it is to try to do something about it.
But fear is an energy that can be harnessed like every other energy. Especially for those us who are used to working with energy. If you’re feeling a little worried or anxious—in other words, fearful—you can harness that fear to help you focus on whatever work or planning that needs to be done.
While the adrenaline that’s released when you’re scared alerts your nervous system to get into gear, norepinephrine, another hormone that is released, keeps you focused instead of panicked. Norepinephrine allows clearer thinking under stress, which is why it’s used in many antidepressants.
We live in a world of constant, mind-numbing distractions. Fear snaps us out of TV-watching and Web-surfing mode and into being fully awake and alert.
In this case, fear can help you focus on one issue (or a handful of issues) to fight against. I am not martial artist but I took taekwondo when I was younger (second degree green belt for the win!) and have seen plenty of movies that involved fighting. Fighters, whether fictional or real ones, are taught to focus on the immediate problem ahead. Yes, it will serve you to be able to think ahead and see the bigger problem. But you can only effectively fight the person or thing right in front of you. Once you defeat that enemy, then you can move on to the next.
Right now, that is hard to do. Part of the current administration’s plan is to overwhelm us. The amount of lies, distractions, executive orders and bills being pushed at us in a record few months is intentional. You can’t drink from a fire hose. And if we get too overwhelmed, we’ll give up. They want us to give up. We can use our fear to help us focus on the issues that mean the most to us. Or we can focus on the issues that we think we can tackle right now. We can’t all fight the same fight. There are too many fights happening at the same time for everyone to be involved in all of them at once.
Fear Socializes You and Bonds You to Other People
When you feel fearful, oxytocin is released, a hormone associated with prosocial behavior. Oxytocin makes you seek out the comfort of others. The brain’s survival instinct is to pair with other humans in order to increase the chances of survival. This is why when you get scared watching a movie, you want to hold on to the person next to you.
While oxytocin is a chemical reaction to fear, there can be social benefits to this reaction. As I said in the last section, there are too many fights happening at the same time for everyone to be able to engage in all the fights. One of the things we can do is to divide the burden. There are millions of us in the United States who disagree with the way our country is being run right now.
It would serve us well to divide the obligation amongst us. Let some of us focus on the fight to save the Department of Education. Others can focus on fighting for Social Security. Some of us can work on campaigning against tariffs. The list of current problems in America is extremely long. As individuals we only have so much time and energy, and we can’t do it all.
But our fear for the future can help us band together with our neighbors and fellow Americans to concentrate our efforts on certain issues so that we can make more progress on those issues. Yes, all of these injustices must be addressed but you have to eat an elephant one bite at a time. Make friends with people who want to fight the same issues as you. Suggest to your friends that they focus on issues that are different from the ones you are focusing on so that you can cover more ground. We can do anything and everything, that’s why the top 1% is so afraid of us. But we can’t do everything all at once, no matter that the movies say.
Fear Gives You Clarity on What’s Really Important in Life
Nothing brings you clarity on a subject like fear. The moment we truly feel fear of losing a loved one, or losing something important to us, our priorities suddenly become crystal clear. Oftentimes once we have experienced the fear of losing something important to us, we no longer take it for granted. Fear can show us what is most important to us. And once we know what is truly important, we can focus on it with clarity.
Freya is Right
Freya is right. We should be afraid. There is genuine reason to fear for our country, our way of life, our culture and our rights. As an American this is front and center of my reality. I wish it was just America that had to fight this battle but Europe is also struggling with the rise of authoritarianism. We should be afraid of what is happening. We should use that fear to fight back, use the clarity of fear to see what is truly important.
Stevie Take Us Home
We watch a lot of news at my house. Lawrence O’Donnell is a late night host on MSNBC and his show is called “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.” At the end of his show, he often ends with a sound bite from a politician or journalist and he says that they “get the last word.”
I’m going to give my last word(s) of this post to Stevie Nicks. These are lyrics from her song “Lighthouse.”
I have my scars, you have yours
Don’t let them take your power
Don’t leave it alone in the final hours
They’ll take your soul, they’ll take your power
Don’t close your eyes and hope for the best
The dark is out there
The light is going fast
Until the final hours
Your life’s forever changed
And all the rights that you had yesterday
Are taken away
And now you’re afraid
You should be afraid
Should be afraid
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