The Other Side of Fear

“Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear. ”
— George Addair

I am on a train headed toward Boston and away from New York. Which has me thinking about the idea of moving towards and away and about how one chooses what they want—whether you are choosing to move toward something or away from something. And much of our ability to make those choices is impacted by our experience of trauma—whether you have a history of trauma or whether your trauma is the more recent effect of the pandemic. Are you moving toward what you want or away from fear?

I have often said that trauma shatters.  And the pandemic shattered many of our old routines and ways of doing things. And it has shattered many norms and structures that may or may not have served us before. And with all of the coming apart—we have an opportunity to choose how we put things back together.

Trauma makes decision making difficult—because the usual means of decision making—paying attention to wants, needs and preferences is short-circuited by survival mode.  I am not knocking survival mode. It’s a crucial capacity for resilience—and it’s the reason many of us are still here and able to heal and grow and enjoy our lives. But the problem with trauma is that survival mode becomes a gear that we forget to shift out of, or more accurately—we don’t even know we are in it—and therefore we don’t think to shift out of it.

Survival mode is about protecting yourself—and these protections don’t just protect you from trauma---they become part of the fabric of who you are. They become part of the way you see the world. They aren’t choice so much as habit. And the habit of survival mode is to move away from fear.

And the thing that keeps us from unlearning survival mode is believing that moving away from survival mode will mean an absence of fear. Believing that the new behavior or choice will feel good. That if you choose to do the new thing and not the survival thing you won’t feel fear or anxiety. In fact, doing the new thing or heading into a new set of behaviors will often increase your fear. The problem is that the feeling of fear isn’t a reliable source of information about the present. It is an old map being used in a new territory. You feel fear and move to protect yourself by doing the old habit. And if you want to unlearn survival mode this isn’t how it works.

If have protected myself by not relying on people or asking for help—the opposite behavior—asking for help —will actually increase my fear—it will increase anxiety. Not necessarily because of what is happening in the present, but because of what I have experienced in the past and now anticipate happening again. Survival mode is about protecting myself from the trauma that already happened. It is an insurance policy against terror, helplessness, or being caught off-guard. If I continue to do things by myself, I will remain in survival mode. If want to move away survival mode and towards health—then I have to risk fear and anxiety to try something new. I have to live through the fear.

The key to unlearning survival mode is getting to the other side of fear.  I don’t think there’s enough discussion of the other side of fear because it’s a totally unfamiliar place. The reason it’s hard to imagine is because it’s a place that’s actually brand new. And brand new places, especially in adulthood, often defy language. When you have lived inside fear for so long—you get really used to the constriction of living there. And on the other side of fear—after crossing the bridge or the tunnel that is filled with fear—there is an expansiveness that is new. An elasticity. And it is this new expansiveness that gives you the beginning of your freedom of movement towards something that you want rather than moving away from fear.

The other side of fear isn’t the end point—it’s the space that allows the shift. This is what I think is missing in the discussion of most transitions. We think of transitions as moving from one pole to the other. And the truth is that transitions require a middle space—a space between this or that. The middle space is the space where we get to experience something new—which means we actually get to experience the present—what’s happening now—and not what already happened. And in the present is where we actually get a choice. It is where we can actually feel what we want or what we need because the information is available, and it is relevant.

© 2022 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

Even Better

One of the happy unintended consequences of the decade that psychology training requires are all the wonderful people you meet and all the ways these people change who you are and the way you see the world. I was lucky to have wonderful supervisors and clients who were my teachers about healing and growing. Supervisors who helped slow me down from the achievement zip-line that the educational track had me on—with one supervisor famously imploring me to ‘get a B’ that semester—to shift my view from perfection to really feeling and understanding what was happening—to allowing the messiness that is necessary for learning and growth. And another supervisor who helped me hear the ‘other conversations’ that the kids were having as they played with me. To listen to the melody, not just the lyrics.

But training in psychology (or medicine) is also a team sport: you are always with other trainees—other colleagues with you on the learning journey—and it’s less apparent sometimes in the moment to know what you are learning from them—other than them being fellow survivors of the hundred hour work weeks, looming dissertations or under-resourced health systems.

But as I drove north today in what turned out to be more traffic than I wanted, I heard the phrase in my head, ‘Even Better.’ And I smiled, because this phrase was entirely the gift of my fellow Post-doc Julianne.

This phrase came from Julianne’s mother. As Julianne taught me: whenever her mother would run into something that normally would make someone annoyed or angry—her mother would survey the situation and say, “Even better.” And she would find that even better.

The story that encapsulated this approach as I remember it 20 years later was a time when Julianne, her mom and her sibling were taking a bus to a family event—a birthday party or a baby shower—and they got off the bus –and they were lost. They had taken the wrong bus. They were far away from where they were supposed to be and too late to get back on the bus and get there in time. As it turned out, the bus stop where they got off was actually the bus stop for the zoo. So her mom said, “even better, let’s go to the zoo.” And that’s what they did.

Of course --not every disappointing or difficult situation can be seen through the lens of ‘Even better.’ That’s not my expectation or why I am sharing this story. There are lots of situations that are dire, unjust, tragic and dangerous for which you would never say, ‘even better.’ Nor do I think people shouldn’t feel annoyed or disappointed. I don’t think anything is wrong with feeling your feelings. But I do think that there is a lot of expectation in our lives that things should happen smoothly, or effortlessly, or that they should turn out a certain way. That we are supposed to plan, organize or be efficient enough for nothing ever to not go as planned. And we can find ourselves buried under disappointment or anger that we are in that situation for much longer than the event deserves.

‘Even better’ is a shift of figure and ground. Life doesn’t happen the way you wanted or expected. It doesn’t happen the way you hoped—you take the wrong bus or you get re-routed on your drive. The materials don’t show up for the program. Or the internet doesn’t work and you have to run it over a cell phone. More people show up for dinner than you planned and you turn your dinner into a casserole. Or, as happened to me this spring—my flight from a work event got cancelled and rebooked for three days later—so I had to reconfigure my work and plans that were supposed to happen the next three days. I was stressed and anxious. But then a colleague who lived in the city where I was stranded called me the next day and had found a place to rent bicycles—and I spent an afternoon riding bikes with a friend on a bike path—something I would never have done that week, so -- even better.

And today I smiled and thought of it as the traffic slowed to a halt and I could feel the rising frustration: I should have left earlier. I should have taken a different route. But when I heard ‘even better’ in my head—it quieted those voices. It made me take a deep breath and look around. And when I did I noticed I was in a beautiful part of the Hudson Valley. I looked at the mountains nearby. The green. The blue sky. And took in the landscape the way I usually take it in when I am hiking, or the way you take it in when you purposely pull in to one of those places that signal ‘scenic views.’ It was right there all the time, but the busy moving traffic had me paying more attention to the road and other cars. But stopping was actually even better: I got to be where I was.

 © 2022 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

*And if you want a fabulous book that does a figure-ground shift on time and time management, I highly recommend Four thousand weeks: Time Management for mortals by Oliver Burkeman


She let herself go

What I find amazing is that the statement, “She let herself go” is considered an insult, instead of a cause for celebration. True, it is what is said about (mostly women) who have gained weight or stopped caring about their appearance in the way that ‘they’ think you ought to care. It is a statement of judgement. Of lowering your standards. It implies that ‘she’ once had it together, and now she longer does.

My work life is reawakening from Covid and my travel and ‘in-person’ work is resuming again. This past week I was in Fairbanks, Alaska to work with a team and had planned in 2 extras days before the work started as a buffer against flight delays which have become the norm. One of my Alaskan colleagues asked if I had ever been Denali National Park and I said no. I’ve been working in Alaska for a decade now but had yet to go. It always seemed like a too big of trip to add on to an already busy work schedule, and I often wasn’t there in the summer. But here I was with two extra days in the height of summer, and she generously offered me her car for the weekend so I drove the two hours down to Denali.  

The second day of hiking I walked for four hours in wilderness on a trail that went to three different lakes. I had the trail entirely to myself. Just wind and birdsong. Wildflowers blooming everywhere: fireweed, delphinium, bluebells, bunchberry. And as I was hiking along the trail, that old refrain, “she let herself go” came back to me. It came first from the feeling of having ‘let myself go’ on this adventure to Denali. “I let myself go.” And the statement jiggled in my brain because it’s a statement that is supposed to make you feel bad about yourself, yet what I actually felt was exhilaration—and freedom.  I began thinking of how often this refrain is used. All the times as a kid I heard the adults say it about people they met at the store or who had come for dinner. Said in whispers as they left. How it was said to me by a less-than-caring relative when my marriage ended: “well, you did let yourself go.”

I thought of being back at work in person and having to wear pants after gaining weight during Covid. How I hadn’t gotten new work clothes in two years because all of my work was on Zoom and how in some ways we had all ‘let ourselves go.’  We let ourselves go in ways we hadn’t imagined we could. We let go of our dress codes and our old routines. We let go of the ways we thought we could work together and found new ways. We let go of the priorities we once had and are now in the transition to figure out what they are again.

I found myself hiking to a rhythm of ‘let…go…let….go…let….go…’

And as I hiked, with each footfall, I began to wonder what it would really mean own this statement ‘to let yourself go.’  If you really let yourself go, what would do or what would you stop doing? What would you stop caring about? What would you care more about?

If feels like the life equivalent of that moment at the end of a long evening of wearing really uncomfortable shoes—where you kick them off and stand in your bare feet. Where you feel relief not only in your sore feet, but your whole body—in your whole self. All the ways we hold ourselves back. All the ways we hide the parts of ourselves we aren’t sure about. All the ways we constrict our emotions, our words, our voice.

So rather than fearing the statement: she let herself go. Let’s seek it out—let yourself go. And if we hear someone saying “she let herself go’ about someone else, let’s smile and reply: good for her.

 © 2022 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

*And in this spirit of ‘she let herself go’ I am going to be posting more frequently, and perhaps less eloquently. I have found that over time I had a higher and higher standard to write this blog to the point that I wasn’t writing at all. It is my intention to write once or twice a week now with pieces less polished and perhaps with more questions than answers. I understand that this may be more frequent emails than you wish—and you are welcome to unsubscribe and check in on the website when you wish.

Look for what is growing

There is a weariness at the start of this year. If you are like most of the people I am working with or coaching—you are exhausted. You are tired of managing Covid, and kids and meetings and schedules. You are tired of having to adapt and adjust again and again. You are tired of getting your hopes up and the disappointment that follows. You are tired of doing half of the things you loved, or not doing them at all. And you are tired of waiting for it to get better—to return to what you remember as ‘normal.’

Recently, I found that a post-walk ritual has not only helped me with my weariness—it has helped to see that the way I look at the world and myself needs revision.

Most of you found some outlet for your pandemic anxiety-- I became obsessed with my garden. Fueled by watching British gardening shows online, I dug up 5 new perennial beds for flowers and planted 4 raised beds for vegetables. At the time it felt hard to imagine a future, so I decided to plant one instead.

In the fall of 2020 I planted 450 bulbs in my tiny rowhouse lot. And in the winter and early spring of 2021 I planted hundreds of seedlings under lights. So, the spring and summer of 2021 was a blast! I had all sorts of flowers and vegetables coming up—from crocus to zinnias to kale to potatoes. And every day in the growing season I had a ritual I called ‘the daily bloom’ where I would go out to my garden and see who showed up. I considered myself the welcoming committee and would greet each new arrival and tell them how beautiful they looked, and how grateful I was to see them, and I would take their picture.

Winter is a slower season. It is grey and dark and cold—and I found myself missing my ‘daily bloom’ ritual, so after Christmas I instituted a new post-walk ritual. When I finish my run or my walk, I walk down the alley next to my house and into the back yard and I look for what is growing.  I scour my garden beds for signs of life. Have the snow drops come up? Are the winter aconite up? Do the hellebores have blossoms yet? It’s a mindfulness exercise—it’s an observation exercise. It’s like a scavenger hunt. It feels like play.

I look for any new green shoots. For the daffodil shoots. For lady’s mantle leaves. I look at the buds on the shrubs. I look at the kale still growing, even through snow. I see the snowdrops are up, and one had a flower bud that is not yet open. The winter aconite shoots are up, but no sign of a flower. The pink buds on the hellebores are visible on one plant, but closed tightly against the cold.

And it occurred to me, that in the rest of my life and my work I don’t usually do this. I don’t look for what is growing. Like most people, I often turn a more critical or judgmental view on what I am doing—and look for what I haven’t done, or what needs to be fixed or changed. And this isn’t always wrong. Sometimes it is important to pay attention to what needs mending or repair. Or to look at what hasn’t gotten done. But I think that the constant stress and the repeated trauma many of us have been facing these past couple of years has us fixated on what isn’t there—on what we can’t do, didn’t do, won’t be able to do. We have lost sight of what is growing.

I think this is especially true in how we are holding other people right now. Parents are so worried about what their kids aren’t experiencing and aren’t getting to do that they are missing the lovely little green shoots of empathy and compassion that their kids are growing for other people right now. Their ability to be creative and adaptable. Kids who are living through the pandemic are growing the capacities to hold difficulty – the very capacities I so admired in my grandmother who lived through the Great Depression and World War II—capacities I endeavored to learn from her. I know there is loss, but look carefully, there is also something beautiful growing.

The thing about looking for growth is that it is small and subtle. Last winter I when planted seeds in seed trays and put them on lighted shelves— I raced downstairs every morning to see if there were any signs of growth. I would scour the trays –scanning for green. When the seeds started coming up, they were so small and so fragile and tender. There is such beauty in this state—in the state of true beginning. But we don’t treat these beginning places in us with the same kind of love. So much of this pandemic demands or invites growth—change—adaptation. And yet it is rare that we look at our new growth with the awe it deserves—with excitement that I shine on my seedlings and new green shoots in the garden.

So can we do this? With ourselves and the people in our lives?  If I looked for what was growing—what would I see?

 © 2022 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD