I don’t follow too many celebrities on social media, since most of the time it’s clear their posts are being ghost-written or, worse, nothing is being written at all. I like George Takei and Clark Gregg and, especially, Jada Pinkett Smith. Her facebook posts are particularly thoughtful and poignant.
She posted recently about how fear affects our decision making, and it made me reflect on my own choices made over the years as I mourned the loss of my parents. The fact is that I had already lost everything, and you would think that would make me fearless. Quite the opposite: it instilled in me a deep terror of losing whatever I had left or whomever I managed to connect with. From the few pieces of furniture I managed to salvage from the house to my marriage, I clung desperately to the things I knew were mine because I was far too familiar with the feeling of loss to court it on purpose.
But fear is a lie. We believe we are being cautious, or wise, or sensible, when in fact we are simply avoiding the things that shake our heart. Losing someone we love is traumatic and shows us, like nothing else that we live through, the utter desolation of mortality. It’s scary, and we fear that, and everything resembling that. This fear makes us crave the approval of our boss or peers or family; drives us into careers or relationships that promise “stability” but at the cost of happiness; causes us to avoid relationships that are unknowns or contain any risk. Fear stops us from having another child, from getting married or getting divorced, or any number of things that put us out into the world.
Grief is isolating, and the the fear we experience is often grief trying to keep change out. We don’t know what the future holds, but we know that at one point the future held the death of a loved one. The future becomes something to fear and the emotion of grief preys on that feeling.
Jada talked about facing that fear head on, which is good advice. But more important, I think, is knowing that the fear is there. Religious people often put their trust in their god(s) as a way to alleviate fear, in the hope that an external force will triumph over what they believe is insurmountable. As a non-deist, I’ve had to spend a lot of time making the connection between my fears and my grief, and own up to the decisions I’ve made as a reaction to that instead of as proactive choices made with a mind towards progress and positive change.
What I find most important is to withhold judgment from that analysis. It has been very easy for me to look back in anger, frustrated at myself for staying in jobs long past the time I should have quit for instance, rather than practice compassion with myself. I did lose everything, and it was traumatic. I can’t condone some of the decisions I made or even be happy about them, but I must always understand why I made those choices, because that is how I can confront that fear, and move past it.
