One thing is sure: the attacks on Charlie Hebdo raise many questions and uncertainty about how we will all move forward. 

Living in Paris, the last week has been tragic.

Wednesday’s attacks on the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo put the city into a state of mourning, many gathering in the evenings at Place de la République to pay their respects to the slain.

There are many things to say about last week’s events, many things to analyze. One thing is sure: there is no right answer, no right policy for moving forward. If we are to find an answer, it will only be a complex, multifaceted one. Because the Charlie Hebdo attacks are not the only attacks that took place in the last week. On the same day as the Charlie Hebdo attack, around four dozen were killed by a car bomb in Yemen. Several days later, an attack in Nigeria left so many dead the number was unknown. Amnesty has estimated that it is in the thousands.

Of course, we mourn things that we have a proximity to, be it geographical or personal. We can be in the place of an attack, or live close by. Or we can know someone in a place that has been attacked. We can have friends and family there. Or the place of attack can be a place that we have visited and loved, certainly the case when it comes to Paris.

For me, living in Paris meant watching a city work its way through trauma and fear. A tension hung over the city until the attackers were eventually killed last Friday. It was hard to concentrate on anything else.

When millions gathered in Paris on Sunday, I joined them. It was intended to be a march, but the mass of people made my own experience more of a “stand,” crammed into the street with thousands around me, so many that it was hard to move. People held signs, chanted and clapped. They sung “La Marseillaise.”

I couldn’t help but wonder if millions would come out for those slain Nigerians. Unfortunately, I think we all know the answer. For most of us our proximity, both geographical and personal, is nonexistent for the attacks that happen around the world on a regular basis, and so they don’t get the same reaction, the same coverage and the same attention that others like Charlie Hebdo do. But that of course doesn’t make them any less important. As Teju Cole wrote in the New Yorker, “we may not be able to attend each outrage in every corner of the world, but we should at least pause to consider how it is that mainstream opinion is so quickly decides that certain violent deaths are more meaningful, and more worthy of commemoration, than others.”

Personally, yesterday I gathered in the streets of Paris because it was all I knew how to do. After a week of tragedy, I was searching for answers, searching for some way to move forward. Gathering with the rest of the city was a way to do that. It was a personal way to take a stand against violence and racism. I do not believe hate is the answer, and if there’s anything that we can do to move forward it’s to focus on tolerance. I am sure that I stood next to people who didn’t have the same political leanings that I do, and probably wouldn’t choose the same policies moving forward. But at least for one day, we agreed on the fact that hate and terror are terrible things.

This tragedy will eventually fade from our minds, and unfortunately, we’ll go back to politics as usual. There has been talk of a French Patriot Act – similar to what was enacted post 9/11. There’s no denying that the far right in France will continue to rise, and many will make this tragedy into a black and white issue of the Western World versus everyone else.

But we live in a world of many shades of gray, and if we look to find answers in the midst of terror, we are sure to choose the simple ones, that will only have more detrimental effects down the line.

Let us all remember that human lives are all equally valuable, no matter where they come from or what they look like. Let us build a world of tolerance, because we all deserve to live without fear.

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Daily fear can be a major stumbling block to an abundant life. Here’s how to stop worrying and enjoy every moment.

When the tune Don’t Worry Be Happy comes on, you can’t help but smile at the thought of not having to worry because everything will actually be alright. But after the song comes to an end you’re back to thinking about all the nasty fears that could come true in the future. Fear sets in and you become a worrywart once again. But what if the song could actually be your reality? Here’s how to stop worrying and start living.

How To Stop Worrying in 6 Easy Steps

1. Create a worry period.

The best way to learn how to stop worrying is to contain the damage. Set a certain time period aside for worrying. From 5:00-5:30 pm everyday you’re allowed to run through your list of worries. Worry about whatever is on your mind but after your worry period is up, move on. If another worry comes up after your worry period, put it off until your next worry period.

2. Ask yourself: “Is the problem solvable?”

Let’s get realistic here. Is your problem solvable or is it something that just cycles through your head, driving you crazy? Though we like to think that we’re working toward a goal by worrying, in reality, worrying and problem solving are two totally different things. If you’re a chronic worrier then you’ll find that the vast majority of your worries are things you can’t solve–so why waste the energy?

3. Feel your emotions.

Worry is just another way of suppressing your emotions so you don’t have to feel them. But the truth is emotions are not always rational. In fact, they’re messy just like life. Feel your emotions and stop trying to organize them.

4. Accept uncertainty.

Worrying is an attempt to predict the future and prevent unpleasant surprises, but in reality it can do neither. If you want to learn how to stop worry, you’ve got to be willing to ride the waves of life. While goal setting is important, understand that not everything is going to turn out the way you planned. And that’s OK. It’s not what happens to you in life that matters but the way you react to it.

5. What is the evidence that your thought is true?

In the whirl of thoughts that cycle through your mind, how many of your worries could actually happen? Is there a more positive and realistic way that you could look at the situation? Learning how to stop worrying starts by not allowing yourself to get worked up about improbabilities.

6. What would you say to a friend who had your same worry?

We tend to treat ourselves worse than we would treat anyone else. What if your friend were to have the same worry? How would you respond to them? Would you think they were being crazy to even have the thought? Likely, the answer is yes. In the end, our worries and thoughts can be so irrational that if anyone else were thinking this way we would tell them to calm down, take a breath, and get real. Give yourself the same advice.

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Image: hang_in_there

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No matter how accomplished, cool, or experienced we are, all of us get scared sometimes.

Even veteran National Geographic photographers, like Paul Nicklen, who was, as he says in the video below, terrified, before meeting up with a huge leopard seal in Antarctic waters. Nicklen says, “my legs were shaking and I had dry-mouth.” What happened? How did he deal with facing fear? You have to check out this gorgeous video to find out! 

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QuoteDaily quotes at EcoSalon.

“The things you dread have the most to teach you. Dive in.” – @themindfulist

Image: Brent Bat

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Did you see the archetypal serial-killer looking guy lurking around our place the other morning? He was wearing a hoodie drawn low over his eyes. He might as well have been holding up a sign that say “Cross the street or I will eat your liver with fava beans.” Yes, I crossed the street. After I watched him continue past our house. No, I didn’t notice the small dog he was walking. Maybe if the dog had been wearing a hoodie, I would have.

But am I more fearful than the average woman? Hyperbole aside, no. I’m not afraid to leave the house alone, nor am I afraid to do recreational activities by myself. I do admit to a heightened awareness of my surroundings, as I was raised by a former FBI agent. (One of my best friends is also the daughter of a G-Man and she reacts to situations exactly the same way as I do. High five, progeny of J. Edgar Hoover.) But am I more fearful than my husband? Yes, it would seem that I am.

The world is unquestionably a dangerous place for women. The “gift of fear” is often bandied about in pop culture without really revealing what that means. Yes, it’s a good to be on your guard in a dark parking lot. It’s a good to check to make sure the shady-looking person you just passed on the street isn’t following you. It’s good to lock your doors at night. But I’ve never thought of fear the same way I’d think about, say, a charitable donation or a new handbag. It doesn’t feel like a “gift.”

Fear likely doesn’t feel like a gift to the people for whom it has become debilitating. Anxiety disorders, phobias, post-traumatic stress disorders or neurotic fear, are very real and best addressed by medical professionals. Nor am I talking about the fears someone might experience living under totalitarian rule. Rather, I’m talking about the natural, everyday concerns that surround our lives which can be rooted in, simply, fear of the unknown.

These are fears than can pervade women’s lives. But when do they hold us back? The fear inspired by a nightmare is probably the closest many people get to real terror. Women often attest to a gut-wrenching explosion of terror if they wake up thinking someone is standing over their beds.

But if you think about it, isn’t it the same feeling some of us have carried through our lives? It was the fear we felt as children when we thought something was under our beds. The fear some of us we felt as adolescents when we dreamed of walking into school naked. This became a fear of career failure, a fear of a young mother, a fear of the bogeyman on the street. Namely, it’s senseless, primal, reasonless fear – and often, it seems to call on women.

What would a world without fear look like? Via ScienceBlog, the Journal Current Biology recently reports on a woman who cannot experience fear. She is a 44-year-old American who suffers from an extremely rare genetic condition called Urbach-Wiethe Disease. She can feel other emotions but not fear. She’s been studied for almost two decades by researchers. According to the journal, “based on interviews with her and her three children, the authors suggest that she probably has not experienced fear at all throughout the whole duration of her adult life, despite having encountered an unusually high number of traumatic and life-threatening events.”

This woman has had a knife held to her throat by a drug addict and was once nearly killed in a domestic violence attack. And yet, she is completely unafraid. After all, as Discovery points out, fear is nothing but “a chain reaction in the brain that starts with a stressful stimulus and ends with the release of chemicals that cause a racing heart, fast breathing and energized muscles, among other things, also known as the fight-or-flight response.” This woman’s fear response doesn’t work.

Do we envy her…or fear her? What would our lives look like without fear?

Images: Claus Rebler, showbits

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