I have often shared with students that the worst form of motivation in learning (and unfortunately the motivation most commonly used) is fear. “If I don’t get a good grade ‘x’ will happen.” And “x”, as you can imagine, comes in myriad forms of reprimands or sanctions from the school system or parents. I would hazard to guess that for most of us this was one of the constants applied in our formative years. I have also witnessed that once “x” no longer holds the value of fear, then learning ceases which it should since the learning was never authentic. While this might sound like a description of intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, my reference for this comes from Buddhism and the Second Noble Truth which says the principle cause of suffering is attachment to fear/desire, or aversion/wanting. It is well to note that it is not only fear in play but desire as well. When we wrestle with fear, we wrestle with a mercurial two-headed coin. The question becomes what can one do to replace this inauthentic learning? While not buying in to fear/desire in learning is healthy it can also be crippling. For ten years I instructed students in an alternative education setting, where teachers, classrooms, and being a good student were very suspect. The lesson I learned was less what made them disaffected youth but not to fool myself believing that there aren’t parts in myself that fear has disaffected. This is what I know: Fear makes us devalue ourselves. Fear makes us to belittle our suffering and in turn belittle others’ suffering. Fear robs us of who we are at our core. The only cure I know from fear is human connection through empathy and laughter.
FROM APPLE FARM WRITER, John Stempien
I have often shared with students that the worst form of motivation in learning (and unfortunately the motivation most commonly used) is fear. “If I don’t get a good grade ‘x’ will happen.” And “x”, as you can imagine, comes in myriad forms of reprimands or sanctions from the school system or parents. I would hazard to guess that for most of us this was one of the constants applied in our formative years. I have also witnessed that once “x” no longer holds the value of fear, then learning ceases which it should since the learning was never authentic. While this might sound like a description of intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, my reference for this comes from Buddhism and the Second Noble Truth which says the principle cause of suffering is attachment to fear/desire, or aversion/wanting. It is well to note that it is not only fear in play but desire as well. When we wrestle with fear, we wrestle with a mercurial two-headed coin. The question becomes what can one do to replace this inauthentic learning? While not buying in to fear/desire in learning is healthy it can also be crippling. For ten years I instructed students in an alternative education setting, where teachers, classrooms, and being a good student were very suspect. The lesson I learned was less what made them disaffected youth but not to fool myself believing that there aren’t parts in myself that fear has disaffected. This is what I know: Fear makes us devalue ourselves. Fear makes us to belittle our suffering and in turn belittle others’ suffering. Fear robs us of who we are at our core. The only cure I know from fear is human connection through empathy and laughter.
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FROM APPLE FARM WRITER, Jo Marie Thompson
A few disparate thoughts about what Apple Farm helps me divine in the face of fear: That humanity is infinitely wiser than we're mostly courageous enough to let on. That courage and faith are particular doorways to the divine. That the charnal grounds and hell realms and endless fearful bardos really are a reflection of this mind and a disguise of the luminous. That though I sometimes feel like a quivering fearful mass alone in my corner of what is, there are, with certainty, others within arms length struggling to ignite the flame in their hands too. That a fearful dark night of the soul can become delicious, restful, nourishing, chthonic divine darkness That what lives us, personally and communally, IS TERRIFYING! in some vital aspect :-) FROM APPLE FARM WRITER, Karla Kauffman
In a pastoral counseling class many moons ago a classmate said something to the effect of, “we need anger.” I was intrigued with this novel view, and now I think of fear the same way. We need both for our survival; they tell us something is wrong. Last week my little car was hit by another, bigger car which slowly drove right into mine. I never felt a fear of injury, but that evening I kept track of my reactions to the accident. I found myself angry, tearful, jittery, sleepless, replaying the arc of the car coming toward me, my hand frozen on the gear. Thinking, ‘if only Tink hadn’t needed a second vet visit, if only I was concentrating better, if only…’ I thought of trauma survivors around the world who deal with much worse, and feel a bit of emotional community with them these days. Trauma recovery exercises helped, although my body and mind still remember. One of my favorite Christmas phrases is the angels’ “Fear not!” to everyone who saw them. Evidently they were a fearsome sight. The decision to ‘fear not’, after the first moments of physical reaction, seems a very advanced one. To not succumb to the body’s survival reactions, to stay and not flee, to actually hear what the angel said, is quite impressive, as I ponder it. Those words, spoken to Middle Eastern young women, old men, and shepherds 2,000 years ago, seem especially courageous these days. They remind me I can be courageous too. As I think of Apple Farm and its rich history, and what the Farm will become, I recall that we always face a future with many legitimate threats. But ‘fear not!’ seems a hopeful reminder that calming down to hear our angels’ message will enable us to see the potential awaiting us. What does Apple Farm have to say in the face of fear? What do I have to say in the face of fear?2/12/2016 FROM APPLE FARM WRITER, Marilyn Ashbaugh I encountered a playful face of fear the first time I walked the triple spiral labyrinth at the Hermitage. I was familiar with the circuit form of labyrinth: the weaving in and away from a clear center was comforting. Although the path was clear in the triple spiral, the center was not, and I became disoriented, experiencing a dizziness and a vulnerability that produced fear. I kept walking, there is no end or finish, weaving one spiral into another and another, and the fear changed to a feeling of freedom. What is fear? Is fear related to freedom? What is fear’s opposite? How do I respond in the face of fear? I have been circumambulating these questions: I gathered a number of quotes that struck me as helpful, and, for my own journey, I included some of my photographs taken as I pondered each quote’s meanings. I share these with you.
FROM APPLE FARM WRITER, Amy Carpenter-Leugs
From it's earliest appearances in our lives, fear can take over our bodies so completely – it's difficult to remember that we can have a conversation with it. As a child, one of my household chores was to walk our day's leavings out to the compost pile, often in the deep dark of the country night. The unknown became palpable in rustling noises, in the way the ground seemed to bump and rise unpredictably under my feet, in how the ice-glazed snow pushed up my pantlegs and scraped at my bare skin. By the time I had dumped the coffee grounds and orange peels behind the barn, I was ready to run flat-out back to the house. Sometimes I controlled the impulse and made myself walk. Sometimes I ran, but then caught my breath and composed myself before I walked inside. We often don't want to admit the fluttering wings in our chest, the feeling that we must hide, run, or escape. If we can't act on those sensations, then we feel the helpless shutdown – the pit in our stomach, the lack of air, the feeling we may faint. In this dark small place, we experience with our warm blood the cold fact that nobody leaves this world unscathed, much less alive. FROM APPLE FARM WRITER, Donice Wooster
The Indo-European root of the word “fear” is one of the variations of “per-“. Growing from that root, along with words having to do with fear, there is also the word “reverence”. Perhaps the last vestige of the link of reverence to fear in our time is the phrase “fear of God”, implying awe. It makes me wonder if fear and reverence are two sides of the same coin, opposites held in tension in the psyche. Noticing what we fear might also tell us something about what we revere (and vice versa). Fear and reverence both acknowledge the power of something. Fear often has a physical component, linking psyche and body. When we sense danger, our lower brain kicks in, adrenaline flows and our bodies want to fight or run. Fear in a dream often wakes us up, literally. Fearful dream images give us a chance, through active imagination or art or writing, to find out what the fear wants – to what does it want to draw our attention? I am remembering a dream in which the dreamer was on a landing, caught between wanting to go to the basement to follow someone and waiting for someone upstairs. The dreamer felt paralyzed by fear in the dream, believing the person in the basement was in danger but feeling unable to move. As the dreamer worked with the dream in active imagination, the dreamer was able to walk down the stairs, out of the grip of the fear, and then help the person in the basement with a task that signaled an end of something. This work with the dream led from fear to reverence. (I am making the details sketchy, and have the dreamer’s permission to share it.) By working with the dream in active imagination, the dreamer was able to explore what the fear was about and experience the lessening of its power as the dreamer took action. That would not always be what fear wants, but it seemed to be in this case. Fear is universally felt but individual in its meaning. As individuals, accepting the work of bearing fear, working with frightening images that come to us and holding the tension between fear and reverence is a worthy task on its own, and might help to ease the burden of fear in the collective. Fears follow this developmental path in children and youth: 1. Fear of the unknown – mitigated by curiosity 2. Fear of being alone – mitigated by bonded relationships 3. Fear about the body (fear of haircuts, going down the drain, injuries) 4. Fear about the self – am I worthy? Am I normal? Am I enough? 5. Fear of the voice of conscience – Am I ethical? Is this right? These fears emerge in children as they develop the cognitive and emotional capacity to feel and name them. For the rest of our lives, events both inner and outer can precipitate one or more of these fears again. By attending to the images that accompany fear we can discover the fear’s meaning for us now. FROM APPLE FARM WRITER, Sara Sage
I’m sharing some thoughts using the word FEAR as an acronym for several components of it here. I hope this encourages some personal reflection for you, too. Feeling Many of us experience fear as a challenging feeling. It can be scary to be scared. It often feels very vulnerable and uncomfortable. It is so easy to be scared by unpredictable events in the world, threats, uncertainties, and our own thoughts and growth process. Many people get angry or take immediate actions that are often not helpful to avoid feeling afraid. Yet – we are clearly “hardwired” to experience fear, and fear has valuable information for us. |
...it is in part by our response to the great stories of the world that we too can begin to find, each of us this individual story expressing the symbolic meaning behind the facts of our fate and behind the motives that determine the day-to-day choices of our lives. -Helen Luke, The Inner Story Archives
December 2024
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