Fear, Fear, Fear
November 8th, 2008
The last few days have been glorious.Our presidential election has been about so much more than democrats and republicans. It’s been about possibility.
Everyone in the United States now knows that anything, yes absolutely anything, is possible. It doesn’t make any difference what religion, race, disability, body size, etc. anyone has or is. Anything is possible for any person.
I have noticed today, however, that there is one feeling that is back with a vengeance – and that is fear.The stock market has dropped like a little stone in the last couple of days and Americans are feeling that our economy is going to hit rock bottom. People are afraid that they are going to lose everything – jobs, houses, the ability to put food on the table, self-respect – a time where all of the horror stories that we have heard about the Great Depression might come true. Today the New York Times was talking about deep recession. People are wondering if it’s time to panic!
With fear on my mind, I was fortunate enough to read in Tucson’s Thursday morning newspaper a column by Dale Dauten about Franklin Roosevelt’s first inaugural address. When Roosevelt took office, thousands of banks had failed, bank deposits were uninsured, unemployment was at 25%, people were literally jumping out of buildings and Roosevelt had just survived an assassination attempt that killed the man who was shaking his hand.
When he began his address, Roosevelt walked up to the podium and he was simply full of confidence. He began his address with the famous line, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” – the kind of fear that is nameless, unreasoning, literally unjustified terror which can paralyze a person. Roosevelt then began to list all of the things that were wrong with the country and this list sounds very much like the list we would make about the conditions in our country today.
Roosevelt then went on to say, “Our difficulties concern, thank god, only material things. Our distress comes from a failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered, we have much to be thankful for.” He continued by saying, “Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of the creative effort.. The joy, the moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These days, my friends, will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves, to our fellow man.”
Roosevelt’s speech was one of the most fitting and powerful speeches he ever gave. I now think about our “golden age” of the roaring 90’s and actually up until this year we’ve been riding pretty high. Consumerism in all of its forms has been the name of the game. Everyone in our society was thinking that if they only had the latest in clothes, cars, homes, jewelry, etc. that they would be the best. “I want it all!”
Our me, me, me generation needs to realize that we’re in the midst of a veritable paradigm shift. We’re experiencing a green revolution to help save the planet. People all over are buying smaller cars and are trying to economize, and are giving up conspicuous consumption. It’s just not cool any longer. It’s also going to become cool to give of ourselves.
And this is where eating disorders come in – we have wanted all of the material “stuff” and we also wanted to be the thinnest on top of it and if we weren’t ALL of these things or if we didn’t HAVE all of these things, we weren’t worthy!
Right now I do have the choice – am I going to stay in a place of fear or am I going to choose something else – maybe like health?
So if I’m going to choose not to fall into the fear trap, what do I do? The first thing I do is to make sure that I’m the healthiest person, physically and emotionally that I can be.
If I want to become physically and emotionally well, I might begin by getting therapy and/or treatment for the eating disorder. People are saying, “I have to save my $$. I might not have any more anything. I can’t afford treatment.”
The big question becomes, “Can I afford not to heal myself? If I’m not healed, how can I go out and “minister unto,” helping all of the people out there that might not be as fortunate as I am. Since eating disorders are truly deadly conditions, can I truly “afford” to wait?
Am I going to allow myself to “be scared to death?” Or am I going to be open to possibility – the possibility that I can be healed and live the life, free from fear, that I dream of living.
