#2 Postcards from Quarantine: Fear is a Four Letter Word
During this extraordinary time while self-distancing and WFHing, we want to capture the voices around our community in a singular spot.
This quarantine experience has inspired my creative writing muscle, I am being motivated to share my thoughts and emotions to encapsulate this moment and offer encouragement for what’s next.
I will publish blogs as I am stirred to put thought on paper and invite you to read and share them. But it’s not just about me, our social media feeds are full of many voices being published but I can’t keep up.
We invite you to publish your voices here on BrightSpot as a repository of hope. We are looking for encouraging messages and stories to build us up as we seek to rise in these uncertain times.
Simply contact us through our “Contact Form” and let us know you’re interested and we will communicate with you directly. We look forward to hearing from you.
April 2, 2020
Fear is a Four Letter Word
Fear is a four letter word, an acronym for “False Evidence Appearing Real”. My executive coach shared this acronym with me several years ago when I was fearful of low revenue, low cash flow, and increased costs. The acronym brought some relief in realizing that my fear was in my head. It seems almost trivial now in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
I admit I have a fear of the dark, sometimes worse than others and I can’t explain why or how I developed this fear. When I go to bed at night, I often walk out front of my house and study the night and the change to our neighborhood. The shrubs turn to shadows, corners are darkened, sounds are crisper, and my senses go into overdrive. I challenge myself to be still and learn from the dark, that all is well at night as in the day.
Light is a comfort for me, I can see my surroundings, I hear familiar sounds, shadows evaporate, and colors enlighten my view. What I have learned is that this comfort is as false as fear if I am not present and balanced with what is in front of me. There is a natural balance in life of light and dark, between self-serving and selfless, prudent versus over-prepared. I am at my best when I am able to be healthy and serve others. If it tilts either direction, it creates fear or denial.
Make no mistake, perception is our reality and our realities have rapidly changed without notice. I joked with my colleagues the other day that this is the largest change management experiment of modern times. Like any new program we implement into business operations, change is never easy or smooth. It is a series of plans communicated to a group of people of how to behave differently. Operations evolve through a bell curve of early adopters to laggards as the group of people learn these new behaviors. It takes frequent communication and reinforcement before we see prolonged true change. This is synonymous with our lives at the moment in quarantine.
Change creates an emotional response because it is unfamiliar, similar to how dark changes our environment at night. While I have a fear of the dark, others love the night and come alive in its mystery. This explains the myriad of reactions to the COVID-19 Pandemic as it has evolved over the past few weeks. Some have been gripped with fear while others reacted in denial as we all lost equilibrium with the abrupt change.
The spirit of humans breathes life into our world. Life is a four letter word too. An acronym I learned for life is to “Live In Freedom Everyday”. When balanced we are free from the clutches of our mind and can live from the goodness of our hearts. This change has created a new reality for all, a quiet moment to stare into the darkness of uncertainty to find ourselves. That is a gift from this change.