Horror Can Be Healing
FIREDANCE: Horror can be healing
FEAR is a natural response to danger: it is the body-mind getting your attention, and preparing you to fight or run. "Freezing" is more infrequently a positive and healthy response, but one common to people abused in childhood, when they really WERE helpless.
The truth is that "stress" is not a problem. TOO MUCH stress, enough to overwhelm coping mechanisms, IS a problem, called "strain." And while FIREDANCE teaches you to deal with the physiological sides, breathing, we also go through the heart with gratitude. And the head?
Well…frankly that's where fiction can come in. You don't feel fear when you are in flow, so a HUGE trick is to find useful activities and do them with such fervor the rest of the world drifts away.
You have escaped suffering by entering flow.
And you are relieving pain through taking effective action.
Flow state is the doorway to both excellence and real heartspace connection, so you are embracing joy.
If you can embrace joy with an open heart, you become MAGNETIC to people trapped in pain seeking an ethical way out.
How does entertainment help with this? Well, "flow" state, in many ways the ideal state of consciousness (if properly focused) demands a balance of challenge and mastery. Enough challege to keep your attention--if you are bored, your attention wanders. But if it is TOO challenging you begin to watch yourself failing, and "pop out."
A LOT of what we do in life is seeking this "Flow Zone", and we work to adjust our tension and "challenge" levels up and down, to stay in a Zone where we function, and hopefully function well.
Right: entertainment. If bored, we might seek adventure, or a roller coaster ride, which simulates danger safely. Paradoxically, such "safe stress" can act like giving an "upper" to a hyperactive child: it actually trips a circuit breaker and calms you down.
Exciting films can do the same thing, and while we all know how stressful adventure and horror films can relieve boredom, it is less clearly seen that watching or reading of someone struggling with a life-threatening situation can actually allow us to "hit the circuit breaker" and calm down!
To this end, creators who learn to very carefully build their horror stories atop REAL fears, actually tap into their REAL concerns, not merely "lets write a scary movie/book" but "I want to express this very real terror in my heart. Take it out of my heart, process it, and put it on the page" are engaged in a public service, addressing the concerns of a very real segment of the population: No fear is unique to a single human being. Others have experienced anything you have, have feared or loved anything you fear or love. Go deeply enough into your individual concerns, and you emerge at the universal.
There is an unspoken contract between readers and writers: "you will give me an emotional experience I need to function, and I will share my time and energy (money) with you in turn" is the basic connection, from the reader's POV. "I will dig deep, find real emotion to share, and develop my skills to improve my ability to express it. You can trust me to deliver my truth to you in a way that helps you guide your emotions to a better place. In return, share your time and energy (money) with me."
That's a very real aspect. Understanding this allows you to both CHOOSE which art and artists to support. And helps artists understand how they can improve their connection to a wider audience, demonstrating value that earns money.
Horror helps us cope. As both consumers and creators, Tananarive and I want to talk about this, how horror can be self-care in a trying time, as valid as comedy for adjusting stress.
JOIN US for a deep dive. After the talk, we will brainstorm with the attendees on creating and executing plans for a better life. The "buy in" is a commitment to escaping suffering, embracing joy, AND BEING OF SERVICE. If this is your commitment…we want to help. The best way to change the world is to teach teachers.
JOIN us tomorrow, Friday Nov 22 at 12 noon Pacific at www.thefiredance.com for a FIREDANCE ZOOM that can change the way you see horror, entertainment…and your path to mastery.
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Steven Barnes is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Firedance Recurring
Time: Friday, Nov 22, 12 noon Pacific
Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 823 9051 3179
Passcode: 597329
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