We become insecure from a toxic culture of being watched or the perception of being watched (both are real), and that insecurity threatens our emotional and psychological safety.”
—Mukta Panda, Resilient Threads
I have experienced this fear of being watched, mainly in the professional realm as an adult. I have heard this fear expressed by many, especially in the last few months.
Unpacking this fear for myself, I have journeyed through the responses of freezing and even fleeing. Fighting is not natural to me, it evokes even more fear. Instead, freezing and fleeing are more natural. Many times, this freeze/flee instinct itself feels suffocating and just not right. I get angry with myself, and I feel like a coward. I lack the confidence, the courage to fight. I feared the risk of what if’s, such as what if I slipped and the damage was irreparable?
It took many years of painful unpacking and reflecting on this fear as an intentional ritual that helped me face my insecurity.
I realized my fear stemmed from one major issue: I felt different, I looked different, I spoke different, I ate different, and I wore different clothes. Was I different?
Being different, I felt I was always under scrutiny. I felt dehumanized and devalued. I became hyper vigilant, always on the edge. Through a ritual of self-reflection and reflection with my community of trusted relationships, I was able to reframe and refocus my fear. Was living on the edge really fear provoking? Was it the edge or was the edge really the perception of being different and feeling scrutinized? How do I face and overcome this fear and hold on to hope?
I had to reframe and find strength in my difference. Was different bad, or was I not proud of my culture, my heritage, and my gifts? Indeed, I was! How could I use my difference to strengthen me, my environment, my work, and my purpose?
This refocus and reframing helped me focus on compassion and empathy, first for myself so that I could share the same compassion with others and see the same in them. It helped me gain confidence and self-respect—and respect for others. It helped me feel more true to myself, to my integrity. Doing so built trust. I trusted myself, which helped me view others without the lens of fear.
My engagement was more authentic. I continued to look the same, speak the same, dress the same, and eat the same as before, yet I felt less different, less scrutinized.
Instead of freezing or fleeing, I found in me the fortitude to face the edge. I forced myself to reframe the positive, to create a community of friends. Forgiveness for self and others was easier. I was able focus on which side of the edge to tread with a firm conviction and, most importantly, with my faith! I felt hopeful and a sense of freedom from this fear.
Indeed, this freedom is liberating because it unleashes our inner true gifts, our creativity! This makes all the difference!
What allows us to hold on to hope when we experience fear, feeling devalued and dehumanized?
Online Retreat Coming in March
Reframing Resilience, Renewing Leadership: An Online Retreat for Weaving Joy and Meaning with Courage. Reclaim joy and meaning with courage, exploring in a Circle of Trust® how to weave your life’s threads into life and work as 2021 unfolds. Choose from a weekend option, March 5-6 or a four-week series on Thursday evenings that begins Thursday, March 18. Learn more and register here.
As we enter 2021, how will you tend to self-care, community and resilience? I will continue posting reflections on these themes and invite you to join in the conversation here or on Twitter or Instagram with your thoughts or what you are doing for self-care and care of others. My book explores such ideas too: Resilient Threads: Weaving Joy and Meaning into Well-Being.
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When Psychological Safety is Threatened
Life is never a smooth ride for anyone, and no one offers anything on a plate for nothing; there are always competitions, expectations, and even confrontations. It is a question of survival of the fittest, the qualities of which include robust health, presence of mind, strength of spirit, courage to accommodate and adjust, and the wisdom to make the right choices.
Being on edge is normal. What makes the difference is how wide is the edge, how firm is the perch, and how wisely one has kept the alternates in mind. It is like a game of chair race; one plans to vacate the occupied chair only when the next is available. Believers know that when God closes one door, He always open another.
Other than freezing, fleeing, or fighting, there is fourth choice too, that is of diverting or changing the course. Ships do so on the high seas, so do the climbers high up on the mountains when the headwinds are unfavorable. The wise should do the same, divert the path without losing sight of the destination.
When I was in school and would always come last in my sports, my father used to say that one should always compete in the field of your choice, not the ones of others excellence. If you are good in studies, compete in that arena, excel and be a winner. I learnt and I did. There never is a fair or level playing field. The art is to find your own level and your own playing field.
Ups and downs are part of life, so is the change. Nothing stays the same forever. I am reminded of the famous couplet by Sufi poet Rahim. It says, be quiet and still when in unfavorable situations since all shall be well once things turn around.
‘Rahiman chup ho baithiaye, dekh samaya ko pher, Jab neeke din aayenge, banat na lagi hai der.’
Feeling afraid when threatened is normal. To threaten and intimidate is the way to subdue others when the just and fair means fail to work. Only those who feel threatened, have feelings of insecurity or have any complexes, resort to use natural differences of gender, ethnicity, race, or religion to exploit opportunities to their own advantage and at the cost of others. It is no wonder that many succumb to these intimidations and pressures and simply freeze or flee. Those who choose to fight do so at their own risk, the wise simply change the course. What makes them to do so is the wisdom of Rahim’s philosophy, as well as their own faith, courage, and self-confidence. Belief in hope gets us through when everything seems to be stacked up against you.
Moreover, as Gita says, no one is the doer, neither they nor you, only He controls us through our destiny. Other’s actions should be viewed in this context; maybe they are unknowingly guiding you towards a better future?
‘We are all puppets in the hands of destiny that controls us through its unseen threads’.
This is how we hold on to hope, with our faith and our self-confidence.