Fear: Breathing Space Panjee Lopez Panjee Lopez is a journalist with the Manila Star, a major daily newspaper. She wrote a column about the work of the School in relation to what was happening in Manila at that time. I have been re-reading a wonderful book, Freeing the Soul From Fear, by Robert Sardello (published by Riverhead Books). The book talks about the role of fear in our lives, its effects on our souls and bodies, how to work with it and how to let love flow back into our lives to finally free us from fear. Robert Sardello and his colleague, Cheryl Sanders, will be in town end of this month to hold workshops on this topic and I wanted to re-acquaint myself with the material. Given what is happening in our country today, I was glad to have the book and even more thankful that the workshop was coming to town! I had just put the book down and was enjoying some quiet time when my husband walked in and said there had been a series of bombings and scores were hurt. I was incredulous, angry yet strangely detached. I thanked God my family was spared, said a silent prayer for those who weren't and let the rest of the day pass uneventfully. The next day, the sight of a bloody, mangled child on the front page of a major daily made me scream. I involuntarily threw the paper down, looked pleadingly at my husband, whined, groaned, and then took several moments to let my pounding heart settle down. There had been no time to shield the baby in my womb from this violent visual assault. I was so distraught. At that moment, I felt major forces were conspiring to make me fall apart. Since then, I notice I have been entertaining more than my usual share of fearful thoughts. I see the little survivor, Jomarwin, on television. Throughout the day, I think about this innocent 3-year-old angel who, in a matter of seconds, had been senselessly robbed of a father and a leg. Even as my heart reaches out to him, I feel myself tense-up and curl inward. It is a monumental effort to steer myself back to the place I know to be my reality. "With terrorism, fear becomes amplified a thousandfold," Sardello says in his book. "Fear becomes a commodity bought and sold, exported and imported, transported anywhere; it becomes a tangible thing, respecting no boundaries. It may be just around the corner for any of us, ready to leap out without any warning whatsoever." He further says that terrorism brings death into conscious imagination, laced with the violent images of the kind that have been crashing into our senses of late. "Terrorism kills the sense that we have a future, a life destiny", he continues. "Once the possibility of being subjected to this sort of terror enters the soul life, our capacity to look toward the future with joy and anticipation dulls. Our interest subtly withdraws from the world; there seems to be nothing of value to do anymore unless it is for our own immediate benefit or pleasure. The effect of terrorism is not merely to kill people but to commit soul murder on those of us not directly affected. It views people as objects, and we become objects, even to ourselves." This single act of terrorism happened several miles away from me and didn't directly affect me, yet I couldn't deny that it had somehow manifested itself in my life. "Everything that we experience-particularly fearful experience-reverberates into the body and continues to do so long after it is conscious", Sardello says. He reveals that it steals our soul and reduces our physical nature and even after the immediate psychological effects subside, our organs remain affected. Is it any wonder, then, that most of us feel somewhat suspended in time, are battling particularly virulent strains of the flu and have been feeling anything but energetic, positive and vibrant? A few days later, as my husband and son prepared to leave for a day trip, I felt an uncontrollable, albeit irrational, urge to keep them home. I was suddenly overpowered by dread, but thought that keeping them near me would accomplish nothing more than hold them prisoner of my fears. I knew what I was feeling wasn't foreboding brought about by real intuition, as that feels like a deep, somewhat calm well of knowing. What I was feeling was akin to little fish darting frantically through very shallow waters. So, I took hold of myself, kissed them both, bathed them in my love and let them go. Though I thought myself initially detached from that terrorist act, my nagging fears proved that it had permeated deeply and continued to wreak havoc on my being. The terrorist bombing, its gory visual legacy, images of the steady yet arbitrary stream of sobbing fall guys the police keep presenting to the public, the escalating tension in the impeachment trial and all the mind-boggling information it has brought forth (money laundering, blatant stock manipulation and insider trading, bribery, betrayal, lying, cheating, stealing, etc.), the mountains of uncollected-nowhere-to-go garbage threatening disaster and disease, the dwindling value of the peso, the economic crisis that promises very difficult times ahead-- all these situations do not sit latently in isolation. Everything finds its way into our souls and creates a kind of fear that takes root and spreads debilitating negativity into our daily lives. Part of our pain and frustration stems from a feeling of utter helplessness; that we are not in control and can't possibly do anything to help the situation. How do we protect our children and ourselves from the growing, gnawing fear? What is there to do? Individually, perhaps not a lot, but Sardello does say that we can "work with how the soul is engaged with the terror it (terrorism) produces". Though in this particular passage Sardello speaks primarily of terrorism, I believe the same principle applies to fear in general. "Of course it seems that the best solution is to find a direct way to eliminate terrorism. We always want to do away with what we do not like. But as with any fear, it would be a mistake to assume that eliminating the proximate cause would bring an end to the fear altogether. Getting rid of terrorism without changing the undercurrent of hatred associated with it can only mean exchanging it for some other fearful situation-like a removal of human freedom or living in some sort of police state. When we assume that a threat can be removed without inner change, we do not see the phenomenon for what it is." I emphasize the last two sentences because I feel it to be a call that can no longer be ignored. Again, reference to inner work and change point us towards healing. This, I feel, doesn't just refer to our own individual fears, but to the current state of the nation. Fear is such a negative yet potent force that can literally take over and alter our lives for the worse, but we do not need to surrender to it, nor should we wage constant war with it. Inside us is the capacity to creatively and imaginatively free our souls from fear. "Freeing the soul from fear first of all means keeping the body vitally responsive to the world, free from numbness, even in the presence of factors that would effectively narrow and constrict relationship with the world," Sardello says. "Becoming free of fear does not mean getting rid of it, but rather developing the inner capacities to stay with it, which gradually produces transformation, not only within us but also within the world." I find solace in Sardello's words. Taken in this light, it is a definite salve to the feeling of helplessness. It eases the feeling of powerlessness. What this brings home is that we have a choice in everything. Life hurls things at us but we, as human beings, have the capacity to choose how we accept, assimilate or reject them. "Every human act alters the world, " Sardello says. "Everything we do in the course of the day enters into and becomes part of the world. If we act out of fear, fear becomes inscribed into the world. If we act out of love and beauty, that also becomes imprinted." Put this way, I think the choice is incredibly clear.

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