Finding Security in the Face of Fear
As we all face a new situation with COVID-19, we have the opportunity to notice how we respond and where we find security. For some, financial systems that seemed to offer security have suddenly become unpredictable. For others, living without such privilege, resources are even more difficult to access. For the least fortunate, bodies that seemed healthy succumb suddenly to illness and death. So much dramatic change can trigger fear, but it can also motivate you to turn squarely towards it. As you do, it’s natural to ask where you can find security.
While this may seem like a big and deeply spiritual question, it’s possible to begin to answer it in small ways. The simple act of choosing where you will direct your attention contributes to a sense of security. Without the ability to direct your attention, fear will direct you to unhelpful strategies like ranting at politicians, hoarding toilet paper, or pulling all of your money out of the system and putting it under your mattress. Fearful and reactive behavior reinforces more fear and insecurity.
What contributes to security is what has always contributed to security, but it’s a bit more obvious when other strategies are taken away. When you direct your attention toward central values like meaning, purpose, generosity, love, and community, you naturally experience a sense of security.
Directing your attention toward a particular value / universal need, then taking action on that value has the opposite effect of fearful behavior. Value driven behavior leads to greater sense of security which leads to greater expansiveness which leads to more security and value driven behavior.
The key is taking action that is authentic, specific, and doable for you. For example, at a time when many are caught in thoughts and experiences of scarcity, you decide to live from generosity. So you ask yourself the question, “What’s one thing I could do today to extend my energy and resources past what I usually do?” If you allow yourself to think in simple terms there are likely many things you could offer; for example:
Offer more listening to someone than you usually do.
Call someone you know lives alone and offer to play a game online with them or listen to what they want to share with you.
Volunteer to do data entry or make masks.
Donate to local businesses or nonprofits that will be especially at risk.
Put in a garden for someone.
There is something that is unique to you that when you find it, it’s obvious how you could extend and live from generosity.
Creating the habit of moving your attention to universal needs and the actions to live in accord with them is a practice that requires courage and strength. It asks that you say no to the drama and pull of the media. It asks that you trust something deeper than quick strategies for distraction or perceived comfort. It requires that you set up reminders throughout the day that call you back to center. Over and over again, you ask yourself to attune to the values you want to live from. Each time you shift your attention from the ever-changing content of life to the substrate of life you feel more secure.
Such shifting of attention to what matters most is not effective as a purely mental exercise. It's only helpful when done from the intention of becoming grounded in and accessing the felt sense of a given value. This means you experience a change in your body. Your face relaxes, your chest opens, and the muscles in your shoulders soften. You notice a sense of warmth and expansion.
Each time you shift, you are building the strength to interrupt the habit of fear and grasping whether it be in the form of opinions, beliefs, control, or insistence on being right. Any bit of holding or tension in your body is likely a sign of fear or grasping. You don't have to know what you're grasping at in order to practice releasing and returning your attention to what matters most.
As your practice stabilizes, you will find that more and more you release the idea of security in constructed things. Instead you find security in the universals of life that unite us like meaning, purpose, generosity, love, and community. You eventually find that your practice of shifting your attention to what matters most has transformed from a simple practice into your ground of being.
Practice
What is most deeply important to you right now? How will you act on this today?