The following post is an email that I sent out this week to those subscribed to the FFS Media newsletter. Many found it potent and useful, so I decided to post it here so it’s accessible to all who might need to hear this message.
One of my Enneagram teachers shared with me a story about her client Chris (not his real name). Chris was a competitive endurance cyclist and had a big multi-day race coming up. He was also a Type 6, the Loyalist (core fear: being without support or security).
As the race day drew closer, Chris became fixated on the idea that his bike chain might snap when he was in a remote section of the race. This wasn't the Tour de France, so it's not like there were camera crews and volunteers all around. This particular fear became a vortex, sucking in his attention until he was nothing short of fixated on the fear.
The problem was that he couldn't think of a solution and wouldn't let the possible outcome remain unsolved. His bike chain snapping while he was in a remote area was a worst-case scenario that he couldn't think his way through. He didn't see how he could keep going if that happened. He was without a good answer, no matter how much he fixated on the potential threat.
With some coaxing, he participated in the race anyway. On his next meeting with my teacher, Chris told her that the worst had happened: on the final day, with the finish line not far away, as he attempted to pedal up a long and steep hill in the pouring rain, his bike chain broke.
The worst happened, and he didn't have a solution.
When she asked him what he did in that scenario, he showed her the front page of the local paper. It wasn't a picture of the race winner victoriously crossing the finish line, their arms pumping in the air. Instead, it was an image of Chris. But not just Chris.
Two other cyclists had seen him struggling with his broken bike chain. Rather than forging on, they had him get back up on his bike and locked hands behind him, and together they pedaled him up the hill and helped him finish the race in the pouring rain.
Chris's fear of his bike chain breaking had given him such tunnel vision, left him so panicked, that he'd overlooked the obvious, and perhaps the only possible solution: other people would show up for him. Lo and behold, that's what happened.
Fear plays tricks on our attention. When our amygdala, the fear-processing center of our brain, lights up, it hijacks our attention, focusing it on the source of the perceived threat. This is great for avoiding or defusing that threat, but it's terrible for our creative problem solving in the meantime. Our field of vision narrows down to the source of danger, neutral gestures by others may be perceived as threatening and less trustworthy, and we will struggle to divert our attention elsewhere until we sense that the threat has left us... and can find a way to convince our adrenaline-filled bodies of that.
You can probably see how sensing a looming threat isn't great for our ability to write books. The creativity required for making up stories is so greatly hindered by fear that facing fear becomes unavoidable work for the storyteller at one point or another.
And if I had to guess, I'd say many of us are feeling a little anxious or even downright terrified this week. We're Chris, staring at a worst-case scenario, so focused on the probability of it happening, and agonizing over what possible solution there might be to prevent it from happening, that we're completely unable to see the obvious thing: that something unexpectedly good might come along. That we don't have to take this on solo. That something better than we can imagined could happen, too.
We might not win the race, but we can find something more sustaining when we look to each other and look out for each other.
When I stack up some of the facts of my life this year, I could legitimately say it's been a tough year. I've taken some hard knocks, suffered losses, and had to accept harsh realities. I could say it's been a tough year. I don't, though, because when I look back on this year, all I can see is how many times things turned out better than I could've imagined.
Our imagination is limited by our cynicism (cynicism = fear). If we want to, however, we can start searching for more hopeful data to balance the scales. The data is already there, by the way, but we filter it out because it doesn't fit the cynical narrative we're building. Cynicism puts a finger on the scales, tipping it toward bad shit will happen in an attempt to better prepare us for said bad shit. But cynicism's biased narrative is rarely backed up by cold, hard data. In other words, it's a lie.
I'll be honest, I struggle to see a path forward right now where the election has an immediate fantastic outcome (according to my judgment), but I don't need to see a positive outcome for a positive outcome to unfold. When I start to feel the future tunnel toward the source of my fear, I'm practicing taking a step back, unclenching my fists, rolling my shoulders back, and saying, "Maybe it'll work out better than I can imagine."
Meanwhile, most of us learned somewhere along the way that if we expect the worst, the worst won't hurt as much when it comes to pass (I count myself among the "most of us," FYI). This is a bit of armor we pick up along the rocky path of life. As someone who spent a lot of time over the years forcing myself to rehearse how much it would hurt when my dog died only to realize that no amount of pre-grief could've actually made it hurt less when the time came, I encourage you to question whether dread is actually effective or if it only eats up the joy in the present.
What hope and comfort are you forfeiting today to armor up and rehearse for the worst? The worst-case is gonna hurt no matter how much you prepare. And if something better than you imagine does happen, look at all the days you wasted, beating yourself down in an attempt to numb yourself against the potential pain.
I guess what I'm saying is that you're allowed to hope. You don't have to know how things could work out to have faith that good people will show up when they're needed. You don't have to attempt to control an outcome you have very little say in to know that no matter what happens, the people who love you will continue to love you, and the world will always need hopeful stories.
When our well-being today depends on a guarantee of ideal future outcomes, we're likely to never spend a day feeling okay.
Maybe you're right about that bad thing coming to pass. Maybe the bike chain will snap. But maybe two strangers will clasp hands to carry you up the hill. You never know, and that's the point.
Cynicism, dread, and anxiety don't protect us the way we think they will. But if we cultivate hope in humanity every day by intentionally bringing our attention to where things worked out better than we could've imagined and where others showed up for us unexpectedly, then we'll be in a much more centered and steady place to take on whatever undesired outcomes come our way.
Here's my challenge to you: Spend a few minutes finding one or two times this year when things worked out better than you imagined. Maybe the outcome wasn't what you'd hoped for (the bike chain broke), but something positive and beyond your imagination showed up instead.
If you can't think of anything, that's not a sign that it didn't happen; that's a sign that you could use a little work cultivating hope and faith. Might as well keep trying. It's tricky to maintain a creative career without these two emotional tools.
Writers are epicenters of culture. Our ideas spread far and wide. When we cultivate hope within ourselves, that spreads. And when we cultivate fear within ourselves, that spreads, too.
It's always up to us to decide which seeds we water.