Fear

Jiddu Krishnamurthy says that there are really only two emotions in the Universe: Love and Fear.

When I first read that, I scoffed. What about the 87 different emotions painstakingly laid out in great detail in the Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown, Mr. Krishnamurthy, I thought. That book makes perfect sense to me!

Over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to dig deep into myself and ask where are many of my negative emotions coming from. I have felt feelings of deep insecurity, FOMO, anger, resentment, betrayal, bitterness, hurt, and just plain and pure fear.

Digging deeper is not easy. My throat catches, my breath stills, emotions beat against my brain like a never-ending tide, red-hot anger sweeps over me, and drowning in all these emotions is far, far easier- I willingly swim deeper inside a vortex of negativity with each thought and dwell where all my actions have unbeatable justifications, there is no possibility of any blame coming to me, and I feel only blemishless, pure, untainted victimhood. Climbing out of the vortex requires first and foremost a stilling of the brain. For me, this is only possible when I write. Yogis and mahayogis describe the use of breath in stilling the brain- this hasn't worked too much for me before. My monkey brain leaps too fast for me to catch hold of my breath. Writing, on the other hand, forces the monkey brain to slow down for my hands to catch up to my head and that slowing down then helps my breath to take over.

Digging deeper requires the willingness to change. I know several people who refuse, who cannot imagine that there could ever be a different perspective and are afraid of being "proved" wrong- who are so attached to their truth because to be otherwise means that they might have been wrong about other things before and that can shatter the edifice of their life.

Digging deeper requires me to forgive myself. This has taken time. I have realized that if I cannot believe that there is forgiveness to be had, there is no way I can acknowledge my mistakes. So I will always be in a state of denial and more importantly, in a state of fear that my mistakes will be found out. To be able to forgive myself is to be kind to myself. I have heard all my life that I should be kind to others. I had never realized that showing kindness to myself is extremely hard. I think women especially are taught not to be kind to themselves- it is some sort of badge of honour to show that you treat yourself like shit: the last to eat, the person who wakes up first and goes to bed last, the person who doesn't take a break, the person who needs to be everywhere, doing everything, all the time, every time. Just like charity, kindness begins at home- if you can't be kind to yourself, you can't be kind to your kids or to anyone else.

Digging deeper requires me not to accept platitudes: Easy answers are fairly quick to come to mind. They also push the onus away from me and on to some external factor which is out of my control.

Digging deeper requires me to work through the signs of my body panicking- this is the sign that I am truly reaching the truth. When my heart starts beating faster, my eyes tear up and breaths start coming in gasps. This is the sign that what is true is actually deeply frightening. What started as anger, bitterness, resentment, betrayal, jealousy, envy and any number of negative emotions is actually deeply rooted in fear.

For me, fear of abandonment is the deepest fear of all. It manifests itself in various types of ways, it comes up in several avatars and underlies nearly every strong negative emotion I feel. It doesn't have to be abandonment by a particular person/s: it could be society (whatever way I define it in whatever situation). Fear of abandoment also shows up as fear of not having a legacy, fear of missing out, fear of being forgotten, fear of being passed over, fear of not-counting.

So, J Krishnamurthy was right: Fear is a root emotion of everything negative. By the reverse logic, I suppose love is the root emotion of everything positive. Love for a person, community, land, memory, things makes us feel all the positive emotions Brene Brown lists.

Today morning, I had a moment of visceral negative emotion. A group that I work with closely didn't include me in a research project in a field that I have been working in for a few years. I was upset last night going to bed when I found out, and I woke up upset. When describing this to RK, my voice broke, tears welled and I sobbed.... all the while thinking, why in the world am I so upset? Surely, this is not anything to get so carried away by!

Then I realized the reason- It is intimately connected to what I am considering doing next in my life: Here I am, thinking about doing a midwifery degree, which, from all descriptions, looks like it will be an intense study of 4-5 years. I am struggling with fears of losing out, of having these past years of work be forgotten and my contributions overlooked. I am worried that life is a zero-sum game: that if I gain something new, I will need to lose something else. My fears of abandonment manifested as feelings of betrayal and anger against a completely different object because of this context and what might have been a pinch instead became a gigantic ball of hurt.

So, this is a breakthrough: if I am feeling such intense feelings of fear about midwifery, and the journey it will take me on, clearly there is something here that bears further examination, of myself, of my perceived place in society, of my perceived role and stage of life.

On one hand, is familiarity, things that I have built by myself and where I am beginning to do some great work. But on the other hand, is a growing boredom. I have to admit that my brain is built for taking on the challenge (and stress) of novelty. Once I figure out something, I don't take a lot of time to do it and then I back to square one, wondering what to do with my time. My training and default avatar of a researcher also means that a lot of my work is mental. I feel the need to work with my hands... and not in a lab either. Logically, and heart wise, I feel ready to take on this new direction. But fears lie much deeper than logic or even desire. Fears stem from the lizard brain, the primordial part of us, where our basest nature lies. Fear can only be conquered by acceptance and love. I accept that I am afraid, that I fear oblivion, that I won't be seen as "serious" or "committed" to my current, socially acceptable, comfortable, settled way of life. I also probably will get lots of questions from various people about why I want to do what I intend to do. I myself no doubt will question my own sanity several times. And I will be starting from scratch- for the 5th time in my life: the first time didn't count as I was just starting my adult life in my 20s and decided to study Virology without having any idea about what it was; the second time was after we came back to India and I started work as a childbirth educator; the third time was when I decided to start a business; the fourth time was when I started work as a diagnostician in probably the most challenging period possible- during the Covid pandemic.

So, if this is my 5th time in 44 years, then I am averaging one identity-shift every 8-9 years. Really, by now, it's par for the course for me to reinvent myself every few years, it's actually become the norm.

But as I grow older, reinvention feels scarier... am I being biased by sunk cost? am I just tired of starting from scratch? Am I really starting from scratch though? If I am being honest, I have been working in public health as a diagnostician and will begin working in public health as a nurse/midwife. So, actually, one might say, I am actually deeply committed and serious about the same field.

Anyway, enough placating. And enough reflecting for now. No doubt the days ahead will bring further emotional upheavals. The main thing to know is that fear is a constant and I welcome it as a friend. Only then can I hope to understand it and transcend it.