A few years ago, I participated in active shooter training, which taught me strategies for recognizing potential threats and reacting appropriately. Having spent years in the mental health field, I thought I’d do okay. However, I was caught off guard when the training suddenly changed.
For most of the day, we were seated in a conference room, listening to lectures and keynote speakers, taking notes, asking questions, and watching videos of past incidents. It was all so informative. I got it. I looked at the clock, wondering when things would wrap up. Then, out of the blue, I heard a loud crack and a boom, reverberating off the walls. Someone opened the door and ran into the room shouting, “There’s a shooter in the building! Lock the door!” Our group leader announced that we should use our training right now, right there.
All of the participants did different things. Some raced to the door. Some screamed. Some tried to find something they could use as a weapon. I remember a baseball bat. Some froze. And me? My fear kicked in hard, and I ran to hide under a desk, curled into a ball, and covered my ears to drown out the sound of the shotgun. I stayed frozen until someone tapped me on the shoulder, “It’s alright. It’s just part of the training. It’s not real.”
The surprise was part of the training, but it felt real. My heartbeat took a while to slow down. I reacted differently than I thought I would. I didn’t stand up to the shooter like some of my peers. They were going to take him down! My fear paralyzed me.
I’ve spent most of my life learning how to make friends with different degrees of fear, how to be more open, how to embrace discomfort, and how to look at what scares me right in the eye. Over time, I’ve learned to stop stressing so much and relax with the less pushy relatives of fear, like worry and nervousness, but I still have much to learn when the big one startles or shocks me.
There is a Buddhist story I’ve heard many times that I never quite tire of. During the 16th century, a Zen monastery was attacked by an infamous warlord and his army. All of the monks fled, except for the abbot. He sat peacefully in front of the shrine. The warlord entered the courtyard, approached the abbot, and pulled out his sword. He bellowed, “Don’t you know that I am the kind of man who could run you through with my sword without batting an eye?”
The Zen master smiled and replied, “And I am the sort of man who could let you run me through with your sword without batting an eye.”
The warlord bowed and slowly backed out of the courtyard.
I am nowhere near having such grace under pressure or facing death with such equanimity, as witnessed by how quickly I ran away from danger (just like all those monks in the monastery). However, I like to believe there’s still a chance I could be.
“He who is not every day conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Enjoy the Passage of Time.
Sharon
© 2025. Sharon Kreider. All Rights Reserved.
One thought on “FEAR: Forget Everything and Run”
Sharon, Thanks. That Zen story is also one of my favorites. It is an aspiration but I feel far from realizing it. There must have been some intense debriefing after that part of the training!