Stalemate: Ruminations on when we move in fear

I Am Afraid

I am afraid. I tell myself that my fear is only because I am in this particular moment. This particular shift in employment or lack thereof. This particular societal situation: COVID-19, could really be replaced by anything in this crazy world when you are a POC or when you are “woke”: Black Lives Matter, Me Too, Culture Vultures, etc.. This particular moment as a parent, with three children all at pivotal moments in their young adulthood…

Anyway, my point is, there’s a lot of shit to be afraid of. Bravely stating that I am afraid, really becomes bullshit when I realize nearly every aspect of my life could cause me to be seized in fear. So I am afraid and I don’t like it, and I know it is not the way I should move. I know that while “moving” in fear, I am really not moving at all, I am in stalemate with myself, my life, my purpose.

Having spent the last 31 years engaging in some form of community education from the grassroots to unified public education levels, I considered myself a person willing to have courageous conversations and move in fearless ways. But this particular moment in my life: COVID-19, longest lasting financial struggles EVER, turning 50, walking away from a job I loved, has forced me to examine myself, what I’ve achieved and what I haven’t yet.

(I know…we’ve all had this revelation, I never said I was telling you something you didn’t already know)

History..Root..Foundation

So what do I do next, with so many dormant ideas rushing to the forefront of my mind?

Like most people, I drowned myself in social media, having never had enough time to do so before. Everything that was happening around me, was messaging that THIS is my moment; My opportunity to live and work on my own terms. I excitedly wrote some ideas down, I read a chapter of a motivating book, I talked my husband to death about EVERY SINGLE idea that came to mind, and then I scampered back into my shell…colorful, fanciful, loud…but still…a shell…and returned to Edjoin, my job searching site of choice, and began to look for a new job. For all thoughts of me being a courageous person…I ran towards safety and security like most people. Hmmm, it seems I may only have spotlight courage: Only showing up when I have center stage or when everyone is there to see it. But, when in the dark, those quiet spaces with no one to cheer it on, it curled up quietly in its shell.

Let me rewind and tell you a bit about myself, it may also give some credence to my opinion..or not:

Although a product of teen parents; who both struggled significantly with substance abuse, fairly soon and extensively throughout my childhood, creating tattered holes in my sense of security, comfort, and executive functioning, they were both deeply sensitive and intelligent people. These qualities came in spurts throughout my life, but were essential to my movement through life with hope, joy, and openness. My mother was my primary caregiver and with her I experienced homelessness, various forms of something that meandered between neglect and abuse, daily inconsistency, spirituality, mysticism, unconditional love, and the constant belief that blessings were always around the corner. My father spent much of my childhood in prison and living thousands of miles away from me. But, he gave me his parents. My paternal grandparents were an incredibly grounding factor in my life. They took me in at the lowest points of my childhood and released me upon request back to my mother, every time, no matter how sad it made them. Through my grandparents I saw how families should pray together, how parents should work as if they understood the legacy their children represented, and how unconditional love was a necessity in order to create possibility out of deep generational pain.These experiences both painful and joyous are what I took with me out into the world. These experiences are the foundation of love in my life: love of self, love of my people, love of children, love of possibility…they are also the source of my fear.

Fear is Real

Now here we are, today, and I am frozen because every move I think of making comes with the love and fear that made me who I am today. Every move seems to lead to a possible checkmate but I soon find that I am in fact in a stalemate. No one has done this to me, this fear is of my own doing. The fear is real. It can be easy to rationalize our fear: bills, healthcare, lack of experience, no one has done it before, lots of people have done it before. I’m not here to tell you that the fear is not real, it is in us and likely what made us who we are, for better or worse.

My urging is not to allow fear to guide your movement. This is not a consistent understanding, the world around us is a powerful influence, a convincer of our incredible ability to fail. Fear as an accelerator is what needs to be avoided. We can’t avoid fear, it is ever present; this is everyone’s constant challenge, and in this moment, mine too. Locked into my day, my home, my mind, in a terrible maze of my own creations, with turns I don’t remember placing, leading me towards another dead end. I could feel myself spiraling, anxiety cycling, and then me choosing to run towards what I lacked in my childhood: security.

Choosing not to have enough faith in the fact that being true to myself, would in fact provide me with that very same security. Making this choice had given me immediate and temporary security time and time again in my life. To shift from my ‘go to’ response, I needed to remember that this was just a knee jerk reaction and allow myself to be and the blessings would come. This understanding is what we learn when we choose not to move in fear.

Are you frozen? Have you found yourself in stalemate? I offer to you, the idea that it is fear keeping you in the wrong space. What is the root of your fear? Mine is security and stability. Yeah, yeah, everyone wants financial or emotional security, but for me, those years of never knowing exactly what would come next can take the driver’s seat in my life if I am not intentional about how to manage it.

Intentional Ways

How do we manage fear, before it manages us? We move in intentional ways, I’ve looked at my experiences and pulled what I found to consistently help me:

• Leading with LOVE: This is more than just “assuming good intent” from others, but, is really about believing in the possibility of others. If you start with an understanding that the “other” has some understanding of love and positivity in their own lives, then you can engage with them or it from a stance of love and it will be fruitful. And because it is love, it will even be okay when things don’t work out.

• Be Honest with myself: We don’t and likely shouldn’t share every bit of ourselves with others, since we don’t really know their intentions. But, lying to ourselves should never be a practice. Looking at our choices and the situations we are in and asking ourselves, What did I do to get here? Often this question is misunderstood as blaming yourself, when in fact it is a reflective question that understands that only you control you. Even when systems are in place to disrupt you, what choices did you make that caused you to fail to understand the system or avoid the systemic potholes or better yet, change the system? Be brutally honest with yourself, even if you wear the mask with the larger public.

• Know when it’s time to Flex and when it’s time to Flex: Life happens, shit happens, and in the end you can really only control your response to those happenings. Knowing when to Flex your muscle, your strength and set the damn record straight is powerful understanding. I like to say this is when I remind myself (and sometimes others) that my ghetto is in my back pocket, so you might want to watch yourself. Just as important is knowing when to Flex and allow yourself to go with the flow. Be cool with not always needing to control this river called life. Sometimes moving with the moment is the most powerful thing you can do. Allowing someone else to lead or find their strength through your flexibility says so much more about you.

• My Joy is the only thing I truly Own (Own your Joy): Make the choice each day to leave your house happy. Laugh freely and often. As little time as possible should be spent on feeling insecure, because happiness is free. This is no secret. As a Black person in this country, well throughout the diaspora, this has been the key to our survival…being able to laugh and maintain joy. It’s in our DNA and since all life started in Africa, it’s in all of our DNA.

• Remember the Village: Knowing that you have and must maintain community. Allow people to build relationships with you, with respect and love as a basis vs what you each have to gain. Especially for your inner circle. Think about the people around you that know you, see you, push you, support you. When you think about the folks that have shared moments with you and can think of you with their own joy…it is a powerful inoculation from fear, because you know that you are not alone.

I enjoy the 13th Century Poet, Rumi, when I think to Google him. Even though he only pops up randomly in my mind, whenever I search his thoughts on a topic, they are always right on time. His thoughts on fear are no different.

Keep Walking, by Rumi

Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.

Don’t try to see through the distances.

That’s not for human beings.

Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty & frightened.

Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.

Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Still, I am a work in progress, just like you. I woke up and moved through most of this day, afraid. Then I trusted myself and wrote this article to remember why and who I am and that my next step may be unknown, but it should not and will not be frozen by fear.

Checkmate