I wrote this a while back in support of everyone finding courage to speak truth to power. A brief look at overcoming fear from the physical to the spiritual. Ironically, as it took me outside my comfort zone, I hadn’t yet published it! I hope it strengthens someone somewhere. 🌿🌿🌿
Fear.
We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Fear not appears 365 times in the bible, so it is said.
Fear is the enemy of liberty.
Scared people accept anything for security.
Fear takes us into the oldest part of our brain.
This is the reptilian brain which controls the body's vital functions, such as heart rate and breathing. This part of our brain includes the main structures of a reptile's brain: the brainstem and the cerebellum, which can be seen as the two lowest structures in the diagram below. The reptilian brain is reliable, though often rigid and compulsive.
The Human Brain
When you’re under threat and need to flee or fight, being in fear and using your primitive brain benefits your survival. However, ongoing fear wears you down. It’s harmful to your well being, and keeps you out of your higher brain - the neocortex.
The neocortex enabled human culture to develop, through two large cerebral hemispheres. The lobes in the diagram make up the left cerebral hemisphere, which is mirrored on the right. These hemispheres make possible human language, abstract thought, imagination, and consciousness. The neocortex is flexible and enables almost limitless learning.
Ongoing fear takes us from our human brain into our reptilian brain, and away from consciousness, intelligence and humanity. In my opinion, it breaks the link with our higher selves and our G- d consciousness.
When people are kept in a state of fear, previously accepted ethics and values disappear. This is when unspeakable acts happen. These are the times that pose the biggest threat to humanity.
At times of ongoing threat, the ability to stand outside of fear, enables awareness, rational thought and consciousness. I see it as allowing you to keep your G-d consciousness. Being in this space, sets no limits on your humanity. You can summon up the power of good, or if you will, feel the power of G-d.
Nowhere is this more obvious, than in the story of David and Goliath.
David and Goliath
My edited version of Samuel 1:17
Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Give me a man and let us fight each other.” On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.
David, the youngest son of Jesse, tended his father’s sheep in Bethlehem. His father told him to take bread to Saul and the men fighting against the Philistines.
Early in the morning David left the flock, and reached the camp, just as the army was going out to its battle positions. Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other. David ran to the battle lines. As he was talking to his brothers, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out and shouted his usual defiance. David heard it. Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear.
David’s oldest brother saw him talking to the men and asked angrily:
“Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.”
“Now what have I done?” said David. “Can’t I even speak?” Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”
But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried one off from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck and killed it. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion, and the paw of the bear, will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”
Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”
Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him, and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.
“I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off. Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.
Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him. He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!”
David wasn’t afraid. He shouted back: ‘You come with a sword and a spear, but I come in the name of Jehovah. You are not fighting against us; you are fighting against God. Everyone here will see that Jehovah is more powerful than a sword or a spear. He will give all of you into our hand.
As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.
So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand, he struck down the Philistine and killed him.
When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran.
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David’s belief in G-d, kept him in his human, higher brain, unlike the other Israelites who were overcome with fear. They were operating from their reptilian brains, rendering them unable to think, let alone rise to a challenge. David’s belief, in essence, kept him free to use his intelligence and choose the best strategy for success. He threw off the cumbersome armour, that he had no experience of, and chose the sling that he knew and trusted. In this way, David overcame the giant, to achieve what might have seemed impossible. The others, on the other hand, remained diminished and crippled by their fear.
We have free will to choose whether or not to rise above fear. Being in a state of fear, long term, not only has a terrible impact on physical health, but importantly takes us away from our humanity and intellectual abilities. It leaves us open to being manipulated and dominated by bad forces. Having a strong belief in a greater good, or G-d, like David, keeps us in a higher consciousness where we can harness our intelligence to meet whatever challenge we face. It doesn’t mean we will always win, but it does allow us to realise the fullness of our own uniqueness and capabilities.
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