On Dreamshaping: Fear Itself

Mark McNease

The realization that many of the decisions we make throughout our lives are made from fear can be startling. Fear often determines the choices that shape our dreams and create our personal environments. When we’re children, we fear displeasing the adults in our lives, especially our parents. We watch them for signs of disapproval, and we become conditioned to pleasing them. Many times we succeed, and sometimes we fail. And it is the fear of failure, of not getting their approval or, worse, incurring their judgement, that sets a tone for our reactions to others, sometimes for the rest of our lives. I still recognize this impulse in myself in relationships, from the most intimate to the most casual. I tell a joke and watch to see if the person I’d told it to thought it was funny. Or I disparage someone who’d annoyed me, and I wait to see if my criticism is shared or if I should soften it with some kind of praise. Watching for the reactions of others is a lifelong human trait, and one of the things we watch for most is any reason to fear. Do they like me? Did they enjoy my book? Do they think I’m good at what I do? Or—and here comes the fear—do they think I’m a fakir, do they mock me when I’ve left the room, can they see the real me, for surely they won’t like it.

Fear wears many masks and offers many faces: the face of anger, insisting we have been wronged somehow or that we’ve lost the upper hand; the face of sorrow, immersed in the fear that we will never feel pleasure again; the face of gloom, our expressions set by the conclusion that the world we believed we lived in—our personal world, the world of our community and nation, even the planet—is changing for the worse. Fear undergirds it all. Fear is there beneath the surface, and if we’re willing to patiently scrape away those layers of anger, resentment, jealousy, insecurity, judgement, indignation, warpaint, we will find fear, the flame that provides the heat for it all.

Two primal fears motivate much of our behaviors and reactions: fear of losing what we already have, and fear of not getting what we want. In many instances, we can examine something we’re going through and ask ourselves which of these two it is. If I leave a job, will the loss of it cause financial ruin? Will I become unable to live the life I’m used to? If I speak the truth to someone and they don’t like it, will it cost me the relationship? If I say what I want, think or mean, will it change things for the worse? Think of it as a cost/fear analysis: the greater the cost, even if it’s only imagined, the greater my fear that I will lose something I have.

And the fear of not getting what we want can be paralyzing. Much of what we experience as stuckness comes from the fear of not getting the results we desire: we stay in situations, remain in jobs, put off writing that novel or painting that canvas or exploring that dream, for fear we will not get what we want—a better job, a book to publish, an adventure taken.

For me, a fear of failure is always in the mix. I may want to write a play, but what if nobody likes it? I may want to plant a garden, but what if nothing grows? The fear of not getting what I want is one face of a coin, with the fear of failure on the other side. In so many ways throughout our lives, it is easier to not try than to try and risk failing.

Finally, there are the fear merchants. Our world has no shortage of people who profit from our fear, whether it’s financial gain or political gain. The news is littered with headlines intended to keep us very afraid. Fear merchants constantly remind us that we have enemies real and imagined, and lead us to believe that fear is the only driving force that can create change, or prevent the destruction of everything we hold dear. And while they’re at it, please send money, money, and more money. A lot of people have made fabulous fortunes keeping us afraid.

As the macrocosm, so the microcosm. The greater world we live in is determined to exist in an atmosphere of fear, and we often take our cues from it. We make choices, or refuse to make choices, from the currents of fear in our own lives. But there is another way. I can see the masks fear presents to me and that I wear myself. I can brace for the loss, accept the risk of not getting what I want. I can allow the dreams of others, the dreams of the world itself, to be what they are and not to determine my dream. Fear is an instinct, an ancient means of survival, but it is also often a choice. My life changes for the better every time I choose something else.

Dreamshaping copyright MadeMark Publishing