Finding Shelter in a Fearful World

Fear seems woven into the air we breathe right now. Whether it arrives through the news, through the weight of climate grief, through uncertainty in our communities, or through something quieter and harder to name, many of us are walking through the world feeling unsettled in our very bones. I want to talk about that honestly, and to offer some ways through.

I write this from the English countryside, surrounded by ancient burial mounds that have stood for thousands of years. The people who built them knew fear, such as flood, famine, raid, loss. They did not have the luxury of imagining that their world was safe. And yet they built monuments to beauty. They gathered. They made meaning. They found ways to stay rooted even in uncertain soil.

We can do the same.

Work outdoors, if you can

Why Fear Feels So Overwhelming Right Now

One of the gifts that a shamanic worldview offers, alongside the rigorous lens of science, is the understanding that human beings are not wired to process the volume of threat signals that the modern world delivers to us daily. Our nervous systems were shaped over millennia for a very different landscape: one where danger was local, visible, and temporary.

Today, we absorb fear from across the globe in real time. The body cannot fully distinguish between a threat happening to us and one we are reading about on a screen. Each notification, each headline, each anxious conversation can trigger the same ancient alarm response. Over time, we can end up living in a state of chronic, low-level fear, exhausted, hypervigilant, and disconnected from the present moment.

"Fear is not the enemy. It is a messenger. The wisdom lies not in silencing it, but in learning to listen , and in knowing when you are safe enough to put it down." - Kathy Postelle Rixon, Magic in Harmony

What the Shamanic Traditions Teach Us

Both the Norse and Andean traditions I work within carry a deep, practical knowledge of how to navigate dark times. They are not traditions of spiritual bypassing or of pretending the difficult does not exist. They are traditions of walking into the difficult with eyes open, with allies beside you, and with an awareness that you are held by something far larger than the immediate moment.

In the Andean tradition, there is a beautiful concept called ayni, sacred reciprocity. The understanding that we are in constant relationship with the living world around us: the land, the elements, our ancestors, the unseen. When fear contracts us into ourselves, ayni calls us back into relationship. Back into the web. This alone is deeply healing.

The Norse tradition speaks of holding to one's centre, what might be called the megin, the inner strength, even when the storm rages. Not rigidity, but rootedness. The great ash tree Yggdrasil bends in every wind and yet its roots hold. We can be like that tree.

Seven Practices for Troubled Times of Fear

These are not abstract ideas. They are things you can do, today, with your body and your attention.

Ground in the Physical World

When fear rises, the first invitation is downward - into the body, into the earth. Stand barefoot on the grass if you can. Place both hands on soil, bark, stone. Breathe slowly and feel your weight. The earth has held life through every upheaval in history. It is holding you now. Let it.

Limit Your Intake of Fear-Based Media

This is not about ignorance: it is about sovereignty. You can choose when and how you engage with difficult news, rather than allowing it to pour into your nervous system at all hours. Consider a deliberate window: a single check-in each day, followed by something that reminds you of beauty.

Call on Your Lineage

You are not the first human to feel afraid. Your ancestors lived through wars, plagues, famines, and upheaval, and they carried you through to this moment. In shamanic practice, we can consciously call upon the strength of our lineage. Sit quietly, place a hand on your heart, and inwardly say: "I call upon all those who came before me who knew how to face hard times with courage. Lend me your strength."

Find Your People

Fear thrives in isolation. Community is medicine. You do not need to have all the answers. You only need to show up honestly with the people in your life, or seek out a circle that shares your values. Something shifts when we allow ourselves to be witnessed in our fear, and when we offer the same presence to another.

Create Beauty, Deliberately

This is a profoundly shamanic act. In the darkest midwinters, our ancestors lit fires, sang songs, and made art. Beauty is not a luxury; it is a declaration that life still matters, that the human spirit refuses to be extinguished. Cook something lovingly. Tend your garden. Light a candle and say a prayer. These are small acts of power.

Sit with the Fear and Ask What It Wants

Fear becomes bigger when we run from it. In journeying practice, we learn to face what frightens us, not recklessly, but with curiosity and respect. Find a quiet moment. Breathe deeply. Invite the fear to show itself clearly. Ask: What are you trying to protect? What do you need me to know? What is the one small action that would help? Often, a feeling of overwhelm resolves into something much more specific and manageable.

Return to the Sacred, Repeatedly

Whatever your spiritual anchor, whether it is the turning of the seasons, a meditation practice, a relationship with the land, prayer, or drumming, tend it. These are the roots that keep us from being swept away. Not because they make the world safe, but because they remind us who we are within it.

A Final Word

I do not believe that the answer to living in a fearful world is to feel no fear. I believe it is to become intimate with our fear and to meet it with compassion, to learn from it, and then to consciously choose where we place our energy and our attention.

The world needs people who are awake, present, and rooted. Who have done enough of their own inner work that they do not add to the noise of panic and division, but instead become, however quietly, a source of steadiness for those around them.

This is the shamanic path: not escape from the world, but a deeper, more courageous engagement with it.

You are capable of this. The strength has always been there. Sometimes we simply need reminding.

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May you find your ground. May your roots hold. May you remember that you are never truly alone in the long human story of facing the unknown with grace.