Column

How to cope with fear of the future

For example, try practising the worst-case scenario exercise. Write down a list of your fears and what would happen if they came true, and keep going until you’ve exhausted the list of worst possible outcomes. In so doing, we can process our emotional reactions and separate them from reality. This can give us a sense of control over the situation.

Finally, try to remember that, as Beckett poignantly put it in his 1953 novel The Unnamable: “You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” I was in Los Angeles when I learned that Russia had invaded Ukraine. pecifically, was sitting in my friend’s car, all hot and bothered and panicking because my corona-check app wasn’t working, and we had made lunch reservations. Reading the notification, was hit with that coldness only self-alienation can bring – how silly am I to even think that not getting into a restaurant could matter.

Since coming back to the Netherlands, the resonating emotion seems to be a kind of pervasive guilt. I feel guilty that I am not doing enough to help, I feel even guiltier that I am still worrying about banalities in my personal life, and I feel guilty that I think my emotions matter at all. I also feel guilty about how relieved I am that the pandemic seems old news. It is as though we are all willing ourselves into a kind of social amnesia, which feels wrong, so I feel guilty. I Google climate change and read about how scientists warn it is quite literally a now or never situation. I then panic and feel more guilty. I mean, I still eat meat.

I become so full of guilt that I cannot do anything in response to it. I panic and fret, and then I put my laptop away. But I think the problem is not that I feel scared; we live in frightening times. It’s that I do not know how to manage these fears. But why would a kind of toxic guilt be my brain’s coping strategy for fear of the future? And are there alternative methods we could use to manage these fears?

Toxic guilt can function as a defence mechanism

In Civilisation and its Discontents (1930), Freud argued that while certain forms of guilt can be helpful, there is another kind of ‘unconscious guilt’ expressed in various self-torment patterns. For Freud, this kind of guilt is rooted in one of our earliest fears – the loss of love. For example, imagine a child who is punished for behaving aggressively. The punishment sparks fear that the child will lose their parent’s love, which also means they will be unprotected, threatening their survival. The fear they now feel is immense. So, the brain adapts by introjecting both the fear and punishment and turning it into ‘guilt’. In other words, we develop a conscience that prevents us from acting in socially unacceptable ways and therefore safeguarding our parent’s love.

This type of guilt often turns into the hyperresponsibility type that mentioned earlier. find it typical amongst my generation, and I believe it is to do with the fact that we face threats to our lives – climate change, war, a pandemic – that feel as unbearable as the loss of love did when we were five.

So, my anxious brain does what it learnt to do: it turns that fear into guilt so that I can attain an illusionary sense of control over it. But the problem is that in so doing, I have found my conclusion; I am self-obsessed and part of the problem. This is an uncomfortable thought and one that I don’t want to dwell on, so it renders me actionless and stuck in a perpetual state of panic.

Okay, but how can we manage these fears?

One of the most helpful ways to feel the fear – rather than turn it into chronic guilt – is to allow yourself ‘windows of intensity’ throughout your day. it for five, ten or thirty minutes and think about how frightening and strange the world is. Try to take deep breaths and feel as much of it as you can. Then, once that window is over, try to go about your life as best you can.

urther, try to find ways to regain a sense of control. For example, in the case of climate change, I should eat less meat. That is a clear-cut way I can channel my anxiety into a call to action. In the case of war, donate money, provide clothing, offer shelter, or whatever it is that you can do. But, if all of that still feels too close to the fear, try first to regain control in simpler ways.

Written by Molly Fitz

Modern Dutch Heroes: Ireen Wüst

The Winter Olympics in Beijing ended on 20 February this year and, as with every Olympic, there were records broken, superstars born and those special moments that can only be called ‘Olympic moments’, and all of it with the backdrop of the corona virus (albeit the tail end of the lockdown-worthy Omicron variant). And as with many games – summer or winter – there are the favourites from each sport and each country. For the Netherlands in the winter Olympics, the favourite sport is indisputably speed skating.

Anyone who has spent any time in the Netherlands knows that skating is almost like biking: everyone does it to the point that its almost a part of the actual D . remember that during the first really cold winter I was here (January-February 2021) I asked my very Dutch landlady if she and her family went skating when her children were young. She looked at me bewildered and said directly, ‘Of course!’ She found it more unusual that I didn’t skate! (I did not grow up in a place in the US where skating was popular.)

With its at geography, shallow canals and lakes, and winters that are well below zero for the typically five days needed, it s no surprise that speed skating on the ice is so popular here. Reaching far beyond a fun winter activity, the Dutch have become masters of competitive speed skating and since the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo have dominated all disciplines within the sport. There have been dozens of Dutch Olympic champions, some of whom have stood proudly with gold medals around their necks as the national anthem (the Wilhelmus) played. But only a few athletes have truly risen to the standing of a Modern Dutch Hero, among them the unbelievable speed skater Ireen Wüst.

A native of North Brabant – one of the southerly provinces, including Eindhoven, Breda and Den Bosch – Ireen Wüst began skating, like most Dutch people, at a very early age. At age 18 she made her national debut at the Dutch Single Distance Championships and at age 19 made her Olympic debut at the Winter Games in Turin, where she won the first of many lympic gold medals. he was the youngest Dutch Olympic champion ever and was also named Dutch Sports Personality of the Year – an honour she would again receive in 2014. Since then, Ireen Wüst has become the most successful Dutch speed skater in history and the only Olympic athlete from any country in any sport at either the Summer or Winter to win gold medals in five consecutive ames. he has done what no other athlete – even Michael Phelps! – has been able to do, making her one of the greatest athletes of all times. Upon returning home to the Netherlands, after her last Winter Games in Beijing, Ireen, along with the entire national Dutch skating team, were honored in the Ridderzaal, part of the 13thcentury government complex Binnenhof, by Mark utte. or her outstanding performances at five Olympics and her national and international speed skating wins, records and medals, Ireen Wüst was honored with one of the highest national honours in the Netherlands: Commander in the Order of Orange-Nassau – the highest civilian honour ever given to a Dutch athlete.

The Winter Games in Beijing had many other superstars, including another highly decorated speed skater: Sven Kramer, who has won as much as Ireen in national, European, world and Olympic competitions. This season was the last for the two mega athletes and both were given a farewell sendoff in the speed skating capital of the Netherlands, Heerenveen, with the King and Crown Princess in attendance. Both skating champions were shown a synopsis of their career achievements as a long banner with a list of competitions they had won was slowly scrolled to the rafters of the world-class skating arena. Each skater’s achievements were so great that only the European, international and lympic competitions where they won first place were listed.

While Sven Kramer and others (Irene Schouten, Suzanne Schulting, Kjeld Nuis and many others) are speed skating heroes, Ireen Wüst stands alone as the only athlete to win gold medals in five consecutive lympics, and that catapults her into being a true Modern Dutch Hero.

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Nicolas Stemann, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne A theatrical exploration of The Stranger by Albert Camus. 14 – 15 June, ITA

ANTARCTICA

Mary Finsterer, Sydney Chamber Opera, Asko|Schönberg Contemporary opera about the mysterious southern continent. 5 – 6 June, Muziekgebouw

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THE MURDER OF HALIT YOZGAT

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