Why Dune’s Litany Against Fear Is Good Psychological Advice

Concern is the thoughts killer. That is the hanging first line within the Bene Gesserit litany towards concern. Dune followers have lengthy been entranced by the litany’s energy, and lots of of them have even tried to make use of it. In actual fact, Stephen Colbert shared that he was influenced by the litany himself after studying the guide when he was 19 years previous. “The guide combed into my view of the world,” he mentioned in his interview with Dune’s director. 

He’s hardly alone, outstanding creator Michael Chabon lately tweeted:

Dune’s litany towards concern could come from a piece of fiction revealed in 1965, nevertheless it occurs to be shockingly strong psychological recommendation. Repeated many occasions within the guide, the litany is on the core of the Bene Gesserit order’s powers. It is usually how Dune’s fundamental character is examined: Paul Atreides’ (performed by Timothée Chalamet) relationship together with his personal concern and his success in utilizing the litany is how the Bene Gesserit outline him as a “human” as an alternative of an animal.

The Bene Gesserit Litany Towards Concern:

I need to not concern.

Concern is the mind-killer.

Concern is the little-death that brings complete obliteration.

I’ll face my concern.

I’ll allow it to cross over me and thru me.

And when it has gone previous I’ll flip the internal eye to see its path.

The place the concern has gone there will likely be nothing.

Solely I’ll stay.

I need to not concern. Concern is the mind-killer.

Concern begins within the amygdala which quickly indicators hazard to the remainder of the physique, initiating the battle or flight response. In people, our larger cognitive mind can modulate that fear based mostly on what we’ve discovered. That’s why we will take pleasure in concern from an amusement park haunted home. However actual concern or going through life-threat has a manner of shutting down our larger cognitive mind because the fight-or-flight response takes over. The mind turns into flooded by concern; the prefrontal cortex goes quiet and incapable of strategic or advanced pondering. 

That form of concern can realistically be understood as a “mind-killer” as a result of it shuts down our thoughts’s means to suppose. Below concern’s affect, we truly default again to a extra animal response than a human one. 

I’ll face my concern.

I’ll face my concern. I’ll allow it to cross over me and thru me.

Few themes in trendy psychology and neuroscience over the past decade have been extra outstanding than this: that avoiding destructive feelings tends to make them stronger. That is significantly true with anxiousness and concern, the place a number of vital therapies are based mostly round serving to folks tolerate publicity to their concern with a view to progressively reduce it. 

In actual fact, analysis in optimistic psychology and the science of happiness discover that sitting with our destructive feelings tends to reduce them. And that really makes us happier. Dealing with our concern is the best way to go, however not if it floods us and triggers the “mind-killer” response. 

That’s why allowing concern to cross over us and thru us is essential. This mindfulness based mostly motion reminds us that we’re separate from our concern: we will observe our concern and let is cross us by. We are able to expertise it with out being broken by it. (Please notice: this isn’t good recommendation for processing traumatic recollections, that are skilled in another way. Please work on trauma based mostly fears together with your therapist.)

Solely I’ll stay.

And when it has gone previous I’ll flip the internal eye to see its path. The place the concern has gone there will likely be nothing. Solely I’ll stay.

This final step within the litany harnesses mindfulness to consolidate studying. By turning “the internal eye to see its path” we will course of our expertise of concern, together with it’s profitable decision. That’s after we be taught that “the place the concern has gone there will likely be nothing”—the concern has really left us. 

And what extra highly effective assertion of confidence and victory can there be than this: “solely I’ll stay.” That’s what going through our fears mindfully and processing them teaches us: we stay.