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Unnecessary Fear
Then say to me again the words I could not hear
When I was tense and troubled by unnecessary fear.
My dear friend Amy offered me that couplet 41 years ago. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Amy can do that to you. She can say beautiful things casually, as if they are nothing much; and they turn out to be something huge. As this one did.
Fear of what we will hear can keep us from listening, from asking, from learning, even from being interested. It can make us change the subject, darting frenetically among the points until we collapse and cannot find our way back even to the person. Fear of what we will hear can keep us from collaborating, solving, rejoicing.
But central to her point is the word “unnecessary.” And central to our engaging with each other well is our distinguishing between necessary and unnecessary fear. What, I wonder still, is a necessary fear between people in conversation?
I don’t think there is one.
There is nothing we can hear that we can’t handle. If what we hear is hard, it is just hard, that’s all. It is not lethal. It is not even disabling. It just feels bad. Maybe for a while what we hear seems un-tame-able, impenetrable even. But to hear something is not to experience it. To hear something is to process it. Fear makes processing ragged.
So the wisdom from Amy’s words is, I think, that we have a choice in the moment to fear or not to fear. To hear or not to hear. It is almost always the assumption, “I cannot handle it” that fires up the fear. “I can handle whatever I hear,” obviates the fear. “I can handle it” protects the brain, and thus the heart, and thus our attention, and thus our intelligence.
Maybe, after all these years, I could reply to Amy with this couplet:
Please say to me whatever words are true,
And I will hear them all, as I love you.
Stand
What is your purpose?
What are your dreams?
What are your values?
I love those questions. I revisit them regularly, as any committed stay-on-track person would. Just as often, I confess, they pop up like swivel-eyed, hand-waving gnomes determined to save me from big stupid decisions. And probably like you, I find them disarming artillery as a coach.
However, my all-time favourite questions are:
What do you really think?
What do you really want?
If it were entirely up to you, what would you do here?
What do you know now, that you are going to find out in a year?
And then there is the un-huggable-because-ruthless, use-with-caution culprit-finder:
What are you assuming that is stopping you?
And the thoroughly huggable:
If you knew…, how would you…?
For decades I’ve been perfectly happy with those six beautiful questions. They are worth three lifetimes at least.
Then I heard about this question:
What do you stand for?
A friend mentioned it. She said it came from a book by Paul Ingram. 1 It has become her favourite question. I can see why. It scoops up everything. Just try it.
You are at the checkout till, your basket loaded with sugar-packed this and that, “What do you stand for?” You are seething in an email exchange in which neither of you sees or hears the other, “What do you stand for?” You are screaming at your child, “What do you stand for?” You are presenting ChatGPT as your own writing, “What do you stand for?”
You re-shelve the sugar. You re-think the email. You breathe. You write.
Actually, maybe it is better to reverse that order. “What do you stand for?” Fill your basket. “What do you stand for?” Re-think the email. “What do you stand for?” Address your child. “What do you stand for?” Write your piece.
I think we might ask ourselves that question before we do anything.
What do I stand for?
Good question.
I first encountered these ideas in the 1970s in a body of work called “Values Clarification” by Sidney B. Simon, Howard Kirschenbaum, and Leland W. Howe. Their work was in turn based on the original body of thought by Louis Raths.