Fear

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 259 of 529 · 20 per page

• From Simply Jesus (2011)

  But imagine what it would be like if you’d lived for years and years under the vicious and repressive rule of a foreign tyrant. You have no system in place to change things. No elections are held, or if they are, they’re rigged from start to finish. And imagine that this takes place in a world without radio, TV, or printed media. The only way you hear about things is by rumor (often very effective, and sometimes remarkably accurate) or by some kind of public proclamation—perhaps as it finally filters down to your town, far away from the center of power. Proclamations would be used too to announce a change of ruler, but the continuation of the system. The old emperor dies, but the power brokers around him will take care that, before the bad news of his death is released, the good news of his successor is firmly in place. Then the heralds are sent off to provinces, cities, and towns across the whole empire, with a message that carries weight, authority, and a sense that this isn’t a new idea you might like to think about, but a new fact that you’d better get used to. “Good news—we have a new emperor!” So when Jesus was in his late teens, and the old emperor Augustus finally died after his four decades as master of the Western world, we can imagine Jesus, perhaps in the newly rebuilt city of Sepphoris, not far from Nazareth, being in the market square when the herald came in to read the proclamation. “Good news—Tiberius Caesar is emperor!” The herald might well be accompanied by a squad of soldiers, especially in potential trouble spots. Everybody knew then, as people who live under tyrannies today know equally well, that a change of ruler is a moment of vulnerability, a moment when a revolution could erupt. The reason Sepphoris had had to be rebuilt, perhaps with help from local carpenters such as Joseph and possibly even Jesus himself, was that it had been the center of a major anti- Roman revolt after the death of Herod the Great, and the Romans had smashed it to the ground. The proclamation of a new emperor, then, carried weight. It wasn’t a take-it-or-leave-it affair. It meant that Tiberius was now in charge—and that his local agents, with his backing, had to be obeyed. Or else. Celebration, Healing and Forgiveness So what about Jesus’s own kingdom announcement? His going around Galilee saying, like one of Caesar’s heralds, that God himself was now becoming king would be a poke in the eye for two people at least. In the north of the country, where Jesus was launching his campaign, there was Herod Antipas, one of the many sons of Herod the Great. Herod Antipas wasn’t particularly powerful, but, though the Romans hadn’t allowed him to keep his father’s title of “king of the Jews,” he was the nearest equivalent at the time.

• From Simply Jesus (2011)

  It’s like mustard seed, which starts small and grows to a great shrub for the birds to nest in; it’s like yeast mixed into dough, transforming the whole lump. And, in a solemn warning that resonates with many similar ones, Jesus warns his hearers that they may one day see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets—and people from east and west, from north and south!—sitting down to eat in the kingdom of God, while they themselves will be thrown out (Luke 13:18–30). The time of Jesus’s public career is the time of fulfillment, the time through which God’s new creation, his earth-as-in-heaven new reality, is being launched, up close and personal. But this means it is possible to miss the boat, to lose the one chance. That is the warning that goes with the note of fulfillment. A New Creation The theme of new creation that bubbles up from these stories emerges in our third category: matter. Reality. The physical world in all its complexity and glory. Here today’s readers of the New Testament have to take an even deeper breath than before. We have been schooled to believe, as a bedrock principle in our worldview, that the material world is relentlessly and reductively subject to the laws of physics, chemistry, and the more specific sciences of astronomy, biology, zoology, botany, and the rest. But as with geography (space) and chronology (time), so here also the Jewish worldview begs to differ. The world of matter, no less than those of space and time, was made by the creator God. It was made not only to display his beauty and power, but also as a vessel for his glory. Again and again the prophets and psalms hint at what we might conceivably have guessed from the story of creation itself: the material world was made to be filled with God’s glory. “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of YHWH , as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14). Suppose that isn’t just an extravagant way of speaking? Suppose it means what it says? What prevents us from thinking in these terms, I believe, is the long and often unrecognized triumph of the movement called Deism—a modern version of the ancient philosophy called Epicureanism. As long as we are thinking in that way, with God or the gods a long way away and earth trundling on entirely by its own steam, we will never glimpse that vision. As long as we are still in awe of the great Scottish philosopher David Hume, who declared that miracles don’t happen because they can’t happen, we will not only find it difficult to believe in the ancient Jewish worldview.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  But he slept on, while the alarm clock on the cluttered bedside table ticked loudly in the silence. Suddenly, Jacob reared up and gazed ahead, his eyes fixed and frightened and yet also, I sensed, unseeing. He began to make a strange keening sound in his throat and for a moment I felt pure panic. This was it: he was about to have an epileptic seizure. Snatching the rubber teething ring that Jenifer kept by her bed, I carefully inserted it into Jacob’s mouth, as instructed, and pushed him gently back on his side. Then we both waited. I was frightened: I had no idea what I would see or how I would cope. Jacob was a big child, taller and probably stronger than I. How could I prevent him from hurting himself? And what if he did not stop convulsing? If he had not regained consciousness within ten minutes, this would be a medical emergency. Status epilepticus, I had been told, could be fatal. But I was alone in the house and the nearest telephone was downstairs. Suddenly Jacob stopped breathing for what seemed like minutes but was probably only a few seconds. His face became distorted, and his eyes brutish and angry. The color drained from his skin, until it finally took on the mottled hue of a dirty stone. Then, after what seemed another long interval, his teeth locked on the teething ring and his body started to jerk convulsively. Please, let this stop, I prayed to nobody in particular, while it went on and on. Then, just as suddenly, the convulsions ceased and Jacob relaxed. The teething ring fell from his mouth, and he fell into a heavy, comatose sleep, his breathing rasping and ugly. The color gradually seeped back into his face. It was over. But I knew that there was always the danger of another seizure. If that happened, I must send for an ambulance immediately. Gradually, however, Jacob’s breathing returned to normal and he slid into a peaceful sleep. It seemed so unfair. Jacob had only recently started to have seizures. Did he not have enough to deal with? I wanted to blame somebody, and God was the obvious target, but somehow I could not get into this. Did I really believe that there was a Being up there somehow responsible for everything that happens on earth, including Jacob’s disabilities? No, I did not. Not only did it seem highly unlikely that there was an overseeing deity, supervising earthly events, apportioning trials and rewards according to some inscrutable program of his own, but the idea was also grotesque.

• From Wild (2012)

  “BEAR!” I yelped, and reached for my whistle the moment after he turned and ran, his thick rump rippling in the sun as my whistle peeped its murderously loud peep. It took me a few minutes to work up the courage to continue on. In addition to the reality that I now had to walk in the very direction in which the bear had run, my mind was reeling with the fact that he didn’t seem to be a black bear. I’d seen lots of black bears before; the woods of northern Minnesota were thick with them. Often, I’d startled them in this very manner while walking or running on the gravel road I grew up on. But those black bears were different from the one I’d just seen. They were black. Black as tar. Black as planting soil you bought in big bags from the garden store. This bear hadn’t been like any of them. Its coat was cinnamon brown, almost blond in places. I began to walk tentatively, attempting to make myself believe that surely the bear was not a grizzly or a brown bear—the black bear’s more predatory ursine cousins. Of course it was not. I knew it could not be. Those bears didn’t live in California any longer; they’d all been killed off years ago. And yet why was the bear I’d seen so very, very, indisputably … not black? I held my whistle for an hour, preparing to blow it while also singing songs so as not to take the refrigerator-sized whatever sort of bear it was by surprise should I come upon him again. I belted out my old fallback tunes—the ones I’d used when I’d become convinced the week before that a mountain lion was stalking me—singing Twinkle, twinkle, little star … and Country roads, take me home … in artificially brave tones, then letting the mix-tape radio station in my head take over so I simply sang fragments of songs I longed to hear. “A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido. YEAHH!” It was because of this very singing that I almost stepped on a rattlesnake, having failed to absorb that the insistent rattling that increased in volume was actually a rattle. And not just any old rattle, but one attached to the tail end of a serpent as thick as my forearm. “AH!” I shrieked when my eyes landed on the snake coiled up a few feet away from me. If I’d been able to jump, I would have. I jumped but my feet didn’t leave the trail. Instead, I scrambled away from the snake’s small blunt head, yowling in terror. It was a good ten minutes before I could work up the courage to step around it in a wide arc, my entire body quaking.

• From Another Country (1962)

  I’ve read his book, and I must say”—he smiled his cordial smile, everything about him was held within decent bounds—“it’s a very remarkable achievement.” For an instant, Cass said nothing. She sipped her drink and watched his face, which was as smooth as a black jellybean. At first, she was tempted to dismiss the face as empty. But it was not empty; it was only that it was desperately trying to empty itself, decently, inward; an impossibility leading to God alone could guess what backing up of bile. Deep, deep behind the carefully hooded and noncommittal eyes, the jungle howled and lunged and bright dead birds lay scattered. He was like his wife, only he would never be able to step out of his iron corsets. She felt very sorry for him, then she trembled; he hated her; and somehow his hatred was connected with her barely conscious wish to have the ginger-colored boy on the floor make love to her. He hated her—therefore?—far more than Ida could, and was far more at the mercy of his hatred; which, from ceaseless trampling down, yearned to go upward, blowing up the world. But he could not afford to know this. She said, smiling, with stiff lips, “Thank you very much.” Mrs. Barry said, “You must be very proud of your husband.” Cass and Ida glanced briefly at each other, and Cass smiled and said, “Well, I’ve always been proud of him, really; none of this comes as any surprise to me.” Ida laughed. “That’s the truth. Cass thinks Richard can do no wrong.” “Not even when she catches him at it,” Ellis grinned. Then, “We’ve been together quite a lot lately, and he often speaks of what a happy man he is.” For some reason, this frightened her. She wondered when, and how often, Richard and Ellis met and what Richard really had to say. She swallowed her fear. “Blind faith,” she said, inanely, “I’ve got it,” and thought, God. She looked toward the dance floor. But that particular couple had vanished. “Your husband’s a lucky man,” said Mr. Barry. He looked at his wife, and reached for her hand. “So am I.” “Mr. Barry’s just become a part of our publicity department,” Ellis said. “We’re awfully proud to have him on board. And I’m sorry if I sound like I’m bragging—hell, I’m not sorry, I am bragging—but I think it represents a tremendous breakthrough in our pussyfooting, hidebound industry.” He grinned, and Mr. Barry smiled. “And hidebound so soon!” “It was hidebound the instant it was born,” said Mr. Nash, “just as your cinema industry was hidebound, and for the same reason. It immediately became the property of the banks—part of what you people quaintly call free enterprise, though God knows there’s nothing free about it, and nothing even remotely enterprising about the lot of you.” Cass and Ida stared at him. “Where are you from?” Cass demanded.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  I had no leisure to think about this, because I was gripped suddenly with a quite overwhelming fear. When I looked around me, the room was wholly unfamiliar, as though I had never seen any of these objects before. The world had become uncanny and horrifying. I did not know who, what, or where I was, but was aware only of my extreme terror, a cold, sickening dread that made everything around me seem brown, rotten, and repulsive because it had no meaning. And yet, of course, it wasn’t like that at all. I am trying to describe an experience that has nothing whatever to do with words or ideas and is not amenable to the logic of grammar and neat sentences that put things into an order that makes sense. Maybe I could explain it better if I were a poet. But I am sure that this is the kind of horror that Hieronymus Bosch tried to convey in his paintings. It is as though a comforting veil of illusion has been ripped away and you see the world without form, without significance, purposeless, blind, trivial, spiteful, and ugly to the core. T. S. Eliot describes something similar in the third poem of Ash-Wednesday. He is climbing a spiral staircase, a mythical image of the ascent of the mind and heart to spiritual enlightenment. But “at the first turning of the second stair” he sees a shape twisted into the banister, surrounded by vaporous, fetid air, and he is forced to struggle with “the devil of the stairs.” He leaves these convoluted forms behind, and at the next turning finds only darkness: “Damp, jaggèd, like an old man’s mouth drivelling beyond repair, / Or the toothed gullet of an agèd shark,” the underbelly of consciousness that lurks in the basement of all our minds. When the horror recedes and the world resumes its normal shape, you cannot forget it. You have seen what is “really” there, the empty horror that exists when the consoling illusion of our mundane experience is stripped away, so you can never respond to the world in quite the same way again. The revelation remains embedded in your soul and affects everything you feel and everything you see. But when you try to express this vision in words, you inevitably distort it and find yourself writing purple, melodramatic prose. Better to be as simple as Coleridge, when he describes the recurrent terror of the ancient mariner after his ordeal, which makes him feel Like one, that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows, a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  He is climbing a spiral staircase, a mythical image of the ascent of the mind and heart to spiritual enlightenment. But “at the first turning of the second stair” he sees a shape twisted into the banister, surrounded by vaporous, fetid air, and he is forced to struggle with “the devil of the stairs.” He leaves these convoluted forms behind, and at the next turning finds only darkness: “Damp, jaggèd, like an old man’s mouth drivelling beyond repair, / Or the toothed gullet of an agèd shark,” the underbelly of consciousness that lurks in the basement of all our minds. When the horror recedes and the world resumes its normal shape, you cannot forget it. You have seen what is “really” there, the empty horror that exists when the consoling illusion of our mundane experience is stripped away, so you can never respond to the world in quite the same way again. The revelation remains embedded in your soul and affects everything you feel and everything you see. But when you try to express this vision in words, you inevitably distort it and find yourself writing purple, melodramatic prose. Better to be as simple as Coleridge, when he describes the recurrent terror of the ancient mariner after his ordeal, which makes him feel Like one, that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows, a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread. The words are flat, and the image of the “frightful fiend” deliberately banal, but the simple description of a fear that is constantly beside you but just out of reach captures the sensation exactly. This was not an isolated experience. Some weeks later, while I was shopping in Cornmarket, the world seemed to have lost all connection with the fundamental laws that gave it meaning and coherence. It took on the grotesque aspect of a cartoon. The women ahead of me in the queue at Marks & Spencer looked as though they belonged in a primitive painting by Beryl Cook; their features became coarse and alien. Again there was that paralyzing fear. I had no idea where I was or what I was doing. When I reached the till, the woman sitting behind it seemed to be shouting at me, pointing to my purse. I stared back at her blankly, unable to understand what she was saying or what she wanted me to do. Somebody took my purse from me and opened it, but I could make nothing of the round metal discs inside. Dazed, I put down my wire basket and wandered out into the street. I don’t know how long it was before I found myself sitting outside Brasenose College in Radcliffe Square, contemplating the perfect dome of the Camera, an image of wholeness and harmony.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  Miss Armstrong, I’m afraid we’ve reached the end of the road.” The headmistress spoke pleasantly, and looked relaxed, but her words were ominous. It was a dark, windy summer day in 1981, and we were approaching the end of the school year. The head looked down at her hands for a moment, then turned back to me and smiled. “We’re going to have to let you go.” I stared back, feeling a cold clutch of fear. I had seen this coming. My doctor was trying new combinations of pills, and I had been off sick a great deal recently, as my brain and body struggled to adapt to the changes in medication. When my dosage had been increased by a half tablet, it had poisoned my system and become toxic, making me stagger round like a drunk, unable to walk across the room in a straight line. I had also had to ask for time off to see my consultant, and that had not gone down well at all. “Leave the school, you mean?” I asked stupidly, playing for time. Perhaps, if I could get my wits together, I could talk my way out of this—until next time. But one look at the headmistress’s face dashed these hopes before I had even begun to articulate them to myself. She was positively beaming with benevolence, her face a mask of kindly implacability. She nodded. “For a long time, it has been marvelous to have you here— worth it for all of us,” she said, leaning back in her chair and gazing reflectively into the middle distance. “You’ve given a lot to the school. You don’t need me to tell you how much we’ve appreciated your contribution and how we’ve all been enriched by your talents. And I hope we’ve given something to you too.” She waited, while I hastily forced a gesture of assent, unable as yet to smile. “And yes, we’ve accepted your illness as the price we’ve had to pay. But now the demand is becoming too heavy, you see, and it isn’t worth it to us anymore.” She leaned forward, her face suddenly grave. “We can carry a sick member of staff, but we cannot carry a sick head of department.” I was silenced. I could see the justice of her words. I probably wouldn’t have lasted nearly so long in any other school. But what in heaven’s name was I supposed to do now? I tried again: “Perhaps I could go back to being an ordinary member of staff?” I flinched at the thought of the drop in salary. With my heavy mortgage, I could scarcely manage on my far from munificent earnings as departmental head, but even a severely reduced income would be better than no income at all.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  The atmosphere was frigid, and sometimes even frightening. At night in our long dormitory we often heard one another weeping, but knew that we must never ask what was wrong. We lived together in community, cheek by jowl, but were so lonely that we might as well have been living in solitary confinement. We became entirely dependent upon our superior’s every move, and accepted her worldview and her opinion of ourselves as gospel truth. I was so young that I could draw upon no experience to counter this regime. So the world receded, and the tiny dramas and cold values of noviceship life filled my entire horizon. This type of isolation is central to the rituals of initiation practiced in the ancient world and in many indigenous societies today. On reaching puberty, boys are taken away from their mothers, separated from their tribe, and subjected to a series of frightening ordeals that change them irrevocably. It is a process of death and resurrection: initiates die to their childhood and rise again to an entirely different life as mature human beings. They are often told that they are about to suffer a horrible death; they are forced to lie alone in a cave or a tomb; they are buried alive, experience intense physical pain (the boys are often circumcised or tattooed), and undergo terrifying rituals. The idea is that in these extreme circumstances, the young discover inner resources that will enable them to serve their people as fully functioning adults. The purpose of these rites of passage is thus to transform dependent children into responsible, self-reliant males who are ready to risk their lives as hunters and warriors and, if necessary, to die in order to protect their people. Our training had been an initiation. We too had been segregated from the world, deprived of normal affection, and subjected to trials that were designed to test our resolve. We too were to be warriors of sorts—soldiers of God, who practiced the military obedience devised by Saint Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, whose rule we followed. The training was designed to make us wholly self-reliant, so that we no longer needed human love or approval.

• From Bestiary (2020)

  The first time I saw him install a water hose, I asked him what he was holding and he said a snake just to scare me. At school, when the teacher told us the snake was temptation and Eve was evil, I thought of my father cradling that green hose, feeding bushes that weren’t his, shucking petals off a flower and licking them like stamps to press onto my cheeks. When he turned the hose on, water sprang from its mouth and that was a miracle. I remember him whipping my brother with that hose, its metal mouth striking between my brother’s rolled-back eyes. I remember him saying, I’m sorry, but this is the only way you’ll grow. _ My mother got a job at a company that manufactured photocopiers. In the mornings, she drove west to a building so tall it sanded the sky smooth. All day, she sat at a desk and answered customer calls with an accent. The only reason you haven’t been fired is because you’re a minority, said the woman from marketing. When they promoted her to receptionist, my mother had official access to the black-and-white photocopier, where she made copies of handwritten notices to be circulated around the office: Please refrain from using air fresheners. Please refrain from bringing food with nuts or shellfish into the communal kitchen. Please do not flush menstrual products down the toilet. Menstrual, which she spelled minstrel. The day she was fired, she cleared the refrigerator of half-finished Caesar salads and waxen ham sandwiches, took them home in her purse, and ate them for dinner after cooking pots of fishball soup for us. She only ever ate leftovers, lifting the lace of burnt rice out of the cooker, sucking marrow out of the bones I didn’t eat clean. I’m on a diet, she joked. A diet called life. The day she was fired for photocopying my birth certificate, my mother watched the green laser swipe the glass pane like cleaning a window. The glass was blue-white and cool as ice. Beneath layers of powder, mother’s cheek was a swollen gourd. After photocopying both sides of my birth certificate, having seen on TV a story about a records office burning down, all citizenship undone to smoke—my mother pressed the start button again, though she had nothing left of me to copy. She pressed her hot cheek to the glass as the laser beam flitted across it. What printed was a map of her right cheek, its broken veins like tributaries, a bruise beginning to blue from nose to ear. She held the photocopy in both hands, lifted it to the fluorescent light. Folded it. She touched the cheek on her face, then the one on the paper. Couldn’t tell which was the evidence and which was the crime.

• From Bestiary (2020)

  In a week my skin’s still a stove, so Ma says, We have to amputate before it spreads. Jie boils the knives. You choose the night. The night before the amputation, I dream that Ma fills a bucket with hose-water and carries me outside like a bride. Ma washes my infected foot in the water, praying over it. Kissing the bark of my heel. You say it’s not a dream, but it has to be: When I wake, it’s back to blades. Ma’s knife is guiding the light into me. Ma’s hand hot on my ankle, pinning my foot to the cutting board. The infection in two of my neighboring toes, three rotten in total. My blood on the board looks fake, a staged slaughter. Dousing my foot in rice wine, she wraps it in a cotton shirt. Fills a jam jar with a brine of salt and rice vinegar, seals my three toes inside. They float for the first few days, then shrink to the size of bullets and sink. Ba sees my toes swimming in the jar on our windowsill and says, Those fish are dead. You’re listening hard now. You ask if this is why I tread lightly on my left foot, rely on the right. I hid the jar from Ba, grateful there’s one memory I can keep him from cannibalizing. While I’m frying in a fever, I sheathe a cleaver in a sock. Sleep with it between my breasts, arm myself for a war that happened before I was born. Still waiting for Ba to return. You remind me we used to share a bed, and you never saw me sleep with a blade. It’s time to bring him back, you say. I don’t recognize that voice in you. We’re in the kitchen. The holes you’ve dug in my yard are mouths again, spitting at our window. Your ama once taught me, I say, there are two categories for everything. Yours and not yours. Everything that’s mine is already here. Ama’s wrong, you say, and I laugh at the way your mouth can shape any sound certain as stone. You forget she’s been my mother longer than your grandmother. You forget I’ve had her blood longer. He’s not yours or Ama’s or mine. He just needs to be shown home. You tell me you know how to end things now. You say all this with a tail tucked in your pants, a tail that tapers into a blade.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  The next day I had to go to Mass at Our Lady of Victories in Kensington High Street, escorted as if under penal guard, and was subjected to a merciless scolding on my return. “Emotional indulgence. Exhibitionism . . . weakness of will”—I knew the list almost by heart. Nuns were not supposed to faint like wilting Victorian ladies; we were meant to be strong women, in control of our lives, exercising an iron constraint over our emotions and bodily functions. Ignatius had wanted his Jesuits to be soldiers of Christ, and we were to cultivate the same virile spirit. Whoever heard of a soldier fainting on the parade ground, crumpling helplessly into a heap as he stood to attention before his commanding officer? And so these blackouts of mine had been greeted with cold disapproval. “You must pull yourself together, Sister,” Mother Frances had concluded, tight lipped. But how was I supposed to do this? Whatever my superiors thought, I did not plan these bouts of unconsciousness. They terrified me. When I felt one coming on, I fought it to the last. And there seemed to be no reason for them. My superiors assumed that they were caused by my unruly emotions, but they rarely happened when I was upset. On that Holy Saturday night, for example, I had been feeling positively lighthearted. We were coming to the end of the penitential season of Lent and were all looking forward to the magical liturgy that evening: the lighting of the new fire, the strange unearthly chant of the Exsultet (the great theological hymn of the Easter mystery), the blessing of the baptismal waters, and the triumphant Mass at midnight. The ritual reenacted the passage from darkness to light, from death to life. There were also the simple earthly joys of Easter Sunday to look forward to: we had boiled eggs for breakfast, could talk all day long, and would read our Easter mail. When the attack had happened, I was feeling nothing but pleasurable anticipation. Where had it all come from: the smell, the fractured light, the sickness, and the slide into unconsciousness? Nobody ever thought that I should see a doctor. Fainting meant only one thing: hysteria. It had been the same at my school. When girls had fainted, they were subjected to a hostile inquisition and told in no uncertain terms to stop showing off. I had once watched my headmistress, Mother Katherine, grab a girl who had fainted during a seemingly interminable church service, seize her under the armpits, haul the inert body down the polished aisle, and dump it outside the chapel door, returning immediately, stony faced. Over the years, I had imbibed this ethos, and though I could not account for these attacks, I assumed that even though I might not be feeling especially upset, I was displaying some subconscious need for notice, love, or intimacy.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  Our training had been an initiation. We too had been segregated from the world, deprived of normal affection, and subjected to trials that were designed to test our resolve. We too were to be warriors of sorts—soldiers of God, who practiced the military obedience devised by Saint Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, whose rule we followed. The training was designed to make us wholly self-reliant, so that we no longer needed human love or approval. We too were told that we were to die to our old selves and to our worldly, secular way of looking at things. Of course, we were not buried alive in a tomb or anything of that sort, but we were constantly undermined, belittled, publicly castigated, or ordered to do things that were patently absurd. As Ignatius’s Rule put it, we were to become utterly pliable to the will of God, as expressed through our superiors, in the same way as “a dead body allows itself to be treated in any manner whatever, or as an old man’s stick serves him who holds it in every place and for every use alike.” Dead to ourselves, we would live a fuller, enhanced existence, as Jesus had promised in a text that we liked to quote: “Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it will remain nothing but a grain of wheat. But if it dies, it will bear much fruit.” On our profession day, while the choir sang the litany of the saints, we lay under a funeral pall, symbolically dead to the world and to our greedy, needy selves that clung, infantlike, to ordinary, worthless consolations. Now it seemed to me that I had indeed died, but I was certainly not bringing forth much fruit. I felt as though I had entered a twilight zone between life and death, and that instead of being transfigured, as I had hoped, I had got the worst of all worlds. Instead of being full of courage, fearless, active, and protective of others, like the initiate of a tribal rite of passage, I was scared stiff. Unable to love or to accept love, I had become less than human. I had wanted to be transformed and enriched; instead I was diminished. Instead of becoming strong, I was simply hard. The coldness and frequent unkindness, designed to toughen us up, had left me feeling merely impaired, like a piece of tough steak. The training was designed to make us transcend ourselves, and go beyond the egotism and selfishness that hold us back from God. But now I seemed stuck inside myself, unable either to escape or to reach out to others. An initiation prepares you for life in the community; I had left the community that I was supposed to serve and was inhabiting a world that I had been trained, at a profound level, to reject.

• From Wild (2012)

  I took one step and then another, moving along at barely more than a crawl. I hadn’t thought that hiking the PCT would be easy. I’d known it would take some getting adjusted. But now that I was out here, I was less sure I would adjust. Hiking the PCT was different than I’d imagined. I was different than I’d imagined. I couldn’t even remember what it was I’d imagined six months ago, back in December, when I’d first decided to do this. I’d been driving on a stretch of highway east of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, when the idea came to me. I’d driven to Sioux Falls from Minneapolis the day before with my friend Aimee to retrieve my truck, which had been left there the week before when it broke down while a friend was borrowing it. By the time Aimee and I arrived in Sioux Falls, my truck had been towed from the street. Now it was in a lot surrounded by a chain-link fence and buried in snow from the blizzard that had passed through a couple of days before. It had been for this blizzard that I’d gone to REI the previous day to purchase a shovel. As I waited in line to pay for it, I’d spotted a guidebook about something called the Pacific Crest Trail. I picked it up and studied its cover and read the back before returning it to its place on the shelf. Once Aimee and I had cleared the snow away from my truck that day in Sioux Falls, I got inside and turned the key. I assumed I’d hear nothing but that dead clicking sound that automobiles make when they’ve got nothing left to give you, but it started right up. We could’ve driven back to Minneapolis then, but we decided to check into a motel for the night instead. We went out to a Mexican restaurant for an early dinner, elated with the unexpected ease of our journey. As we ate chips and salsa and drank margaritas, I got a funny feeling in my gut. “It’s like I swallowed the chips whole,” I told Aimee, “like the edges are still intact and jabbing me inside.” I felt full and tingly down low, like I’d never felt before. “Maybe I’m pregnant,” I joked, and then the moment I said it, I realized I wasn’t joking. “Are you?” asked Aimee. “I could be,” I said, suddenly terrified. I’d had sex a few weeks before with a man named Joe. I’d met him the previous summer in Portland, when I’d gone there to visit Lisa and escape my troubles. I’d been there only a few days when he’d walked up to me in a bar and put his hand on my wrist. “Nice,” he said, outlining the sharp edges of my tin bracelet with his fingers.

• From Don't Feed the Monkey Mind: How to Stop the Cycle of Anxiety, Fear, and Worry (2017)

  monkey mind-set, you have to hit what you are aiming at. There is no room for error. Anything less than a perfect outcome means failure. While others find motivation from challenge, a higher purpose, a promised prize, or simply the joy of doing the thing itself, if you are a perfectionist your motivation is a fear of failing. Your mantra is, Don’t screw it up! Only when you’ve completed the social interaction or task without making any mistakes will you be able to relax. This mind-set is often triggered when the perception of threat is centered on your status within your tribe. If the outcome of a situation could result in you being judged negatively by your family, friends, peers, or superiors, your monkey mind will sound the alarm. To the monkey, losing status could mean fewer allies, less money, fewer choices for a mate, even total rejection—all potentially serious threats to your survival. When we are hijacked with anxiety we tend to think with the monkey. We overestimate the threat and underestimate our ability to cope with whatever rejection may result if the threat were to manifest. As a result, our daily agenda consists of a hundred little failings that need to be prevented. In social situations we must not get a fact wrong in a conversation, or worse, have nothing intelligent or funny to say. We dare not arrive late, dress incorrectly, or forget to use mouthwash. We must never make a fool of ourselves or be criticized for our behavior. We wonder, Did I make a good impression? Our social life is like a house of cards—one sneeze and everything tumbles down. The perfectionist strives to be the best, thinking that when you are the best nobody can criticize you. But since there is always someone who is better, or threatening to become better, you’ll always have something to prove. So you compare yourself to others, hoping to find that you are as good or better. More often you come up short. Perfect is pretty hard to pull off. The result is that you feel like an impostor and you work harder so that no one will suspect it. You put in extra hours at work yet never quite feel secure. The perfectionist can’t seem to hit the sweet spot where she just fits in. Yet our culture glorifies perfection. Successful business leaders are often self-proclaimed perfectionists, treating the label as a badge of honor. The great artist, musician, or sports hero’s “quest for perfection” sounds noble, but in fact, relatively few high achievers expect perfection from themselves.

• From Don't Feed the Monkey Mind: How to Stop the Cycle of Anxiety, Fear, and Worry (2017)

  might expose him to the judgments of others. He was in a cycle that kept him alienated and alone. Eric decided on a new strategy: to accept any invitation or opportunity to spend time with others. His coworkers had an ongoing lunch together on Thursdays, which he’d always avoided, so he put it on his calendar. We both knew that unless he was willing to risk making mistakes—- being seen as a failure—Eric wouldn’t follow through with his self-imposed work deadlines or social commitments. For those of us with the perfectionist strain of the monkey mind-set, fear of failure is the motivation for much of what we do. We don’t see fallibility as a normal part of the human condition, but as a personal shortcoming. If we do something poorly it defines us completely as unworthy, “less than” everyone else. Eric needed a new expansive mind-set to support his new strategies. What would an expansive mind-set for a perfectionist look like? You could say, Making mistakes, and allowing others’ judgments and criticism, are reasonable risks to take and opportunities for growth. Or, as Eric put it so succinctly on his way out of the office, I am willing to screw up. Here are a few examples of the I cannot make a mistake mind-set, coupled with alternative expansive ways of thinking to replace them. Monkey Mind-set: Mistakes, judgments, and criticism are signs that I am not good enough, am less than, or have failed. Expansive Mind-set: Mistakes, judgments, and criticism are signs that I have taken a risk, and are opportunities for growth. Monkey Mind-set: I only feel good about myself if I have done something well (conditional self-acceptance). Expansive Mind-set: I know I will do some things well and other things poorly, and neither reflects my worth as a person (unconditional self-acceptance). Monkey Mind-set: I am motivated by my fear of failure. Expansive Mind-set: I am motivated by excellence, creativity, and purpose. Monkey Mind-set: Being imperfect and fallible is a sign of inferiority. Expansive Mind-set: Being imperfect and fallible is part of being human. Monkey Mind-set: If others are better than I am at something, it means I am not good enough. Expansive Mind-set: It is more important to do my personal best than to measure myself against others’ accomplishments. Use the Perfectionist Mind-set chart available at http://www.newharbinger.com/35067 to help turn your own perfectionist mind-set into a more expansive way of thinking. Beyond Over-responsible Samantha’s primary safety strategy was calling to check on her alcoholic son. Her new expansive strategy was simple: Don’t call and check. In order to follow through with her plan, Samantha would need to change her default mind-set. She had always operated under the assumption that If something bad happens to him and I didn’t do anything to prevent it, it would be my fault. Her new way of thinking would have to be, I cannot prevent my son from hurting himself.

• From Don't Feed the Monkey Mind: How to Stop the Cycle of Anxiety, Fear, and Worry (2017)

  spattering on your sleeve. This is the fight-or-flight response, and while you may not enjoy the feeling, it has kept us alive for thousands of years. This early warning system is so quick and powerful that it overrides the rest of your brain. Whatever else you were focusing on—watching the walk light, thinking about the meeting you are heading to—falls away so dealing with the threat can take center stage. This is as it should be, for after all, the number one job of the brain is staying alive. The fight-or-flight response is the call to action of the monkey mind. Without it, we’d all be busy cliff diving and petting snakes. As if keeping us safe were not a big enough responsibility, the monkey mind is also instrumental in performing the number two job of the brain, that of keeping us connected to each other. In addition to threats like charging wild boars, club-wielding rivals, and speeding trucks, the monkey mind can recognize social threats to our survival. It’s hardwired to do so. Even in our earliest stage of life, infancy, we can perceive safety or danger in the facial expressions of our parents. Why is this necessary? We humans are thin- skinned, without sharp teeth or claws, and not very strong—what other predatory animals might call a soft target. We have always hunted and housed ourselves together in packs, so we can watch out for each other. Your ancestors’ social status within their families and tribes was crucial to their survival. In order to protect your social status, your monkey mind is always watching and listening to those around you, looking for signals telling whether you are respected, whether you are loved, and whether you belong. If you are alienating your neighbors, irritating your friends and family, or a subject of scorn to your community, even if you are not aware of it, the monkey reads the signals and sounds the alarm. A serving of fear, with a side order of shame, will focus your attention and remind you that you need to play well with others. Primordial Threat These two ever-present possibilities—death, and losing social status or being kicked out of the tribe—are universal, what I call primordial threats. The ability to recognize primordial threats is so important that it is built into our brains, part of our operating system. You don’t have to teach a toddler not to put her hand in the fire or walk off a cliff. The ability to recognize heights, loud noises, snakes, bared teeth, and other dangerous situations as potential

• From Bold Move

  I am often intimidated by these kinds of audacious visions. They scare me! The pain, the process, the likelihood of failing . . . all those fears that I am not being enough. But you are not reading a book on how to avoid: you are here to become bold, which is not painless. My brain won’t go there; it is just too scary. One note of caution before we start: the judgment brain is likely to intervene immediately and to try to put a big road closed sign up to warn us not to dream so big. My brain often has “helpful” things to say about my bold visions when I try to engage with them: You can’t possibly do this. You’ve attempted bold visions before, and you never achieve them! Who are you to dream bigger? Who are you to think that people will care about what you have to say? (A familiar companion voice as I write this book.) If your brain starts to spin like mine did, I suggest you pull out your TEB cycle reflection from chapter 2 and write out what is happening in your mind. This way you can create a pause and activate your thinking brain before proceeding. To Set your bold vision, I want you to engage in an exercise that I often use with my clients when I first start to work with them. In our first few meetings, I ask them what success would look like in the context of our work together. Usually, I get answers related to their fever: less anxiety, less sadness, less worry. These outcomes are important indicators that our work is progressing, but what I am really asking is, if we are successful, what does your “new” life really look like? And while “less” suffering is indeed a good goal, framing every answer with “less” isn’t quite as useful as picturing a life with “more.” More connection? More openness? More . . . ? And for this reflection, I want to push you even further to consider not just more but most : What would your life look like if you did what mattered most to you? In other words, what would it look like to live out your value fully? To be adventurous or humble? To feel a sense of trust or transparency from everyone around you? What would it look like to live every day prioritizing your core value? I have a hint for you: it might look very similar to your sweetness moment (and very unlike your sour moment). Take a moment to consider these question in your magic wand reflection below. Ricardo’s and Stephanie’s and My Bold VisionsStephanie’s bold vision had less to do with love in the relationship with her parents and more to do with her own acculturation process.

• From Bold Move

  She told me that she identified as a lesbian but had never told anyone before. I considered how difficult this must have been for her, to be eighteen years old and only coming out to a stranger who was essentially sworn to secrecy. I asked Sara to share with me some thoughts that crossed her mind as she imagined coming out and sharing her sexual identity with her parents. In response to that question, Sara looked like she was going to be sick. She stared at me for a second and said, “I will never be able to come out to my parents,” in a way that seemed to indicate that the very notion was completely absurd. Stating the obvious, I countered, “It sounds like the idea scares you.” She smiled sarcastically. “That’s perceptive of you.” I laughed, continuing, “And because of this, you believe that sharing your identity with your parents is impossible. How come?” “Are you out of your mind?” she asked me. “Do you know what would happen if I were to bring this up at my house?” I shrugged. “Try me.” “My father would disown me, and my mother would think the devil had done this to me and would want me to go to church with her daily to get the demons out. It would be a disaster.” “Sounds like you imagine losing both parents if you came out to them. I can see why you’re scared! After all, who wants to lose the ones that they love the most?” Sara seemed a bit calmer with my assurance that indeed her fears were valid and that I understood where she was coming from. It is important to note here that I needed Sara to understand that I was not saying that her fears were irrational. In fact, some of her specific fears relating to her family’s possible reaction to her coming out were likely to be true. What I was suggesting instead was that we needed to consider exactly what she was saying to herself, so we could uncover whether or not her thoughts around the situation were fueling her avoidance and keeping her stuck in place (as opposed to confronting objective real-life consequences). In other words, I wanted to uncover the specific statements that were causing her emotional temperature to rise to the point where her only option was to avoid. With that established, I then asked her permission to explore any other thoughts that crossed her mind regarding coming out. So, I asked Sara, “Imagine for a moment that you’re going home for the holidays and you’re about to sit down with your parents and tell them that you’re a lesbian. What thoughts immediately pop into your head?” They’ll hate me . . . My dad will never talk to me again . . . My brother will be freaked out . . .

• From Wild (2012)

  “I can’t believe a girl like you would be all alone up here. You’re way too pretty to be out here alone, if you ask me. How long of a trip are you on?” he asked. “A longish one,” I answered. “I don’t believe that a young thing like her could be out here by herself, do you?” he said to his red-haired friend, as if I weren’t even there. “No,” I said before the red-haired man could answer him. “Anyone can do it. I mean, it’s just—” “I wouldn’t let you come out here if you were my girlfriend, that’s for shit shock sure,” the red-headed man said. “She’s got a really nice figure, don’t she?” the sandy-haired man said. “Healthy, with some soft curves. Just the kind I like.” I made a complacent little sound, a sort of half laugh, though my throat was clotted suddenly with fear. “Well, nice to meet you guys,” I said, moving toward Monster. “I’m hiking on a bit farther,” I lied, “so I’d better get going.” “We’re heading out too. We don’t want to run out of light,” said the red-haired man, pulling on his pack, and the sandy-haired man did too. I watched them in a fake posture of readying myself to leave, though I didn’t want to have to leave. I was tired and thirsty, hungry and chilled. It was heading toward dark and I’d chosen to camp on this pond because my guidebook—which only loosely described this section of the trail because it was not in fact the PCT—implied that this was the last place for a stretch where it was possible to pitch a tent. When they left, I stood for a while, letting the knot in my throat unclench. I was fine. I was in the clear. I was being a little bit silly. They’d been obnoxious and sexist and they’d ruined my water purifier, but they hadn’t done anything to me. They hadn’t meant harm. Some guys just didn’t know any better. I dumped the things out of my pack, filled my cooking pot with pond water, lit my stove, and set the water to boil. I peeled off my sweaty clothes, pulled out my red fleece leggings and long-sleeved shirt, and dressed in them. I laid out my tarp and was shaking my tent out of its bag when the sandy-haired man reappeared. At the sight of him I knew that everything I’d felt before was correct. That I’d had a reason to be afraid. That he’d come back for me. “What’s going on?” I asked in a falsely relaxed tone, though the sight of him there without his friend terrified me. It was as if I’d finally come across a mountain lion and I’d remembered, against all instinct, not to run. Not to incite him with my fast motions or antagonize him with my anger or arouse him with my fear. “I thought you were heading on,” he said.