Comments on: bene gesserit litany against fear

By: HHaricot

HHaricot — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 22:54:49 +0000

yes, your rewrite is better.

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 21:47:26 +0000

All very true – I was having a bad day at work, which led to ranting and poor spelling. I think it would be better if it started like this:

I must not let fear control me.
Paralysing fear is the mind-killer.
Out of control fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

It’s weird what helps in times of stress. When a close friend at college was diagnosed with cancer (from which he has since recovered) I kept hearing a bit of a Betty Boo song in my head (Don’t you know, don’t you know, I still love you). Whether that was God speaking to me or a brain fart is a matter of personal belief.

By: Jax

Jax — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 19:22:20 +0000

Oh, and I also use Menolly’s song for Petiron to bring sadness under control when required, again it’s about remaining in control when required, I do think that a good weep can be very necessary and therapeutic, but not always practical (eg in car driving back from hospital after negative scan!)

By: Jax

Jax — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 19:20:48 +0000

yes, I use this when having catatonic response to fear, as in when sitting outside interview for example. I don’t find it at all contradictory – I view it as reminding myself that fear should be under my control rather than the other way around, and therefore while I can see your point about it being useful as a warning sign, if it’s paralysed you, it’s gone beyond a useful point, and needs to be sorted out.

Similar thing with pain, as I’ve done years of martial arts and a really detailed self hypnosis course, pain has become something that again serves as a pointer, but is not supposed to take control, rather you should control it.

Excellent points for discussion though

By: Helen

Helen — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 13:08:39 +0000

rofl at rant Bob! rant away. no , I never really looked at this that way. i have looked at fear as being the paralysis version only. My other mantra is – the only defense against fear is knowledge – which is equally waffly, but something I use a lot to the juniors at work.
I do occassionally have a ‘catastrophic’ response to fear [not at work] and it is useful to remind myself to put fear in its context.

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 12:33:03 +0000

I’m glad that you (and Jax and T-Bird) find it useful. I’m afraid I find it annoying and self-contradictory: “I must not fear” and then “I will face my fear” – if you’re not fearing, how come there is fear to face?

Fear is like pain – it alerts you to danger. Never being afraid means never taking a risk, and so growing more slowly. Being brave doesn’t mean never being afraid, it means doing things even though you are afraid. Was Merry afraid when she started BeadMerrily? (I expect so.) Were Katy and I afraid when we took J out of school? Yes, but I’m glad both happened despite the fear.

You can be paralysed by fear (face a danger too great for you to cope with) in which case it does become a bad thing. You can be afraid too much of the time e.g. agoraphobia, which is also unhelpful. But a general “I must not fear” is like “I must not feel pain”.

Sorry, this has come across all ranty and I didn’t mean it too.

By: t-bird

t-bird — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 09:00:03 +0000

ah yes, useful little mantra that one.