Reframing fear A cinematographers take

imagine a life without fear

completely fearless doesn’t that sound

wonderful

but is it really what we want and is it

even attainable

i don’t know about you but my greatest

fear is losing the people i love

working as a cinematographer i have

sometimes covered

humanitarian crises or conflict areas

where i’ve witnessed

the worst of that fear come to be

last year in mozambique the impact of

cyclony dai

left thousands without a home having

lost loved ones overnight

those in the city of bera saw most of it

destroyed

others in rural areas observed the

entirety of their crops for the year

flood and sweep away many populations

were inaccessible for weeks

people were handling mountains of pain

no food no electricity somehow

having to figure out what happened

i can still vividly recall an interview

with a woman

in a refugee camp in iraq

now she explained to me that her husband

had

strangled her nephew for being too loud

while he was sexually assaulting him

she looked like a shadow

in 2013 i covered one of the world’s

largest killings of demonstrators in a

single day

in recent history the raba massacre in

cairo

i followed several protesters for weeks

prior

normal people like you or i until that

day

august 14th and it was at that moment

where

in the midst of all the chaos a switch

went off

and people who had lost family members

or maybe their best friend started

saying things like

now i’m gonna show the government what

terrorism really looks like

now i am willing to die for the cause

many of the people in these stories

might appear

as though they had no fear

that was simply a reaction to the losses

and the trauma they’ve been exposed to

they felt they had nothing more left to

lose or to give

and their natural survival instincts

were completely drowned

by the grief

have a colleague and dear friend who

said to me you know i would much rather

work in a conflict zone

than go back to my family home it is so

suffocating there that i’d rather

operate in a war zone

the first time i went out on assignments

and bullets were flying i was scared

and my adrenaline was riding a roller

coaster

but i also realized that it didn’t feel

as unnatural as i would have expected

so i took a pause and did a bit of soul

searching and realized that

i’d grown up in a complex family with a

volatile home

in an unpredictable country mexico where

bullets did sometimes go flying and we

all had to proceed

as normal maintaining a high level of

alertness was a part of the landscape

sure this can come in handy very much so

in moments of extreme

pressure but it doesn’t mean that you’re

fearless

simply means that you’ve been exposed to

fear a lot and you’ve learned how to

work with it

it’s amazing how we will continue to

gravitate towards the familiar

relationships lifestyle line of work

until we truly decant whatever hang-ups

we’re carrying in our backpack

and it’s only once we do that that we

can truly operate from a place of

wholeness

knowing full well that we are capable of

overcoming challenges

but most importantly gaining

are better for our life and more

powerful than fearlessness

courage resilience

one of the hardest conversations i ever

had was

telling my father that i had been raped

what made matters worse is this it

happened with a family member

let me introduce you to my first cousin

he really was a lovely person

he was great at business he went to an

ivy league school

got married had a daughter

and to this day i just cannot

understand what got into him

because i had been raised to look up to

him as an older brother as an only child

that was really tough and

the worst part of that was i was trying

to explain it to my dad

and you know there’s a lot of discourse

out there around sexual violence but not

a guidebook on how to reveal something

like this to your father

i had a pit in my stomach pins and

needles in my head

my hands were shaking

and for a moment i considered a viable

option to just

not say anything at all because my fear

was going

what if we just don’t tell him in fact

what if we just pretend that this

never happened never tell anyone ever

sounded good till i realized that every

time there was a family gathering

maybe christmas or a dinner a birthday

i’d need a level of academy award acting

in order to pull off normality

i’d also have to carry the whole weight

of that on my shoulders

in silence for a crime i didn’t even

commit

nope i quickly moved on from that idea

and decided to tell my best friend

now at the time i was in mexico because

i’d been shooting a documentary and he

was in canada

so this happened over the phone and as

soon as i told him my fear went

okay we survived that but we are

absolutely never doing that again

he very wisely said you know the longer

you keep this a secret the harder it

will be

to speak about you need to just bite the

bullet and start

speaking out now he hung up the phone

and said he was calling me back in 10

minutes to make sure

that i told someone in mexico because i

needed support

then as soon as he hung up and i heard

that silence

it felt loud and

i didn’t know if i could do this to be

honest with you

then i realized yeah he’s right

i did want to disclose and this was the

best thing for me so

i called another friend and she drove me

to her house via a pharmacy

where i got a morning after pill i took

two eventually and

that was just in case no doctors were

consulted on that decision

but when we got to her house she dialed

my mom’s number

put the phone to my ear and just went

here just get it over and done with

all alarms are going off in my body at

this point i’ve got temple palpitations

i’m vibrating i can hardly feel my skin

but somehow i knew i’d built some form

of muscle

granted a very weak one at this point

just enough to keep going

so i picked up the phone very

reluctantly

and went high

and as soon as she heard my voice all

she said was

were you robbed or were you raped

i was shocked i mean how does she know i

don’t know if this was a reflection of

how

well my mother knows me or the fact that

in mexico city we are sometimes exposed

to a high level of violence

anyways i just started crying and

somehow got the point across

now so far i have been very lucky

because i’ve been disclosing and

receiving support

sadly it doesn’t always go that way and

i also had a chance of speaking face to

face with my aunt

my cousin’s mom she was my godmother

growing up and we were very tight

and unfortunately she chose to face to

face just point blank look at me and say

i do not believe you oh

that hurt to this day that hurts

and after that she proceeded to expunge

herself from my life

basically and a long chain of family

members proceeded to do the same

never speaking to me but just deleting

me off of social media

you better believe that every single one

of those losses was mourned

and grieved back to my father now the

fear

felt real i mean

what if i lost him too

and what if he decided he didn’t want to

see me again

we were sitting in the backyard the sun

went down we didn’t even notice

in a bench in the dark i could have

planned this better

sorry dad but i felt shame

and embarrassment and somehow

we got through now i wish that had been

like ripping off a band-aid and that

initial sting passes and then it all

starts to subside

no that was not the case this was

different

people were navigating uncharted

territory fighting an inner battle

digesting at their own pace everything

got

too much and one thing led to another

and my father ended up

in hospital with a stroke

and it was most likely caused by stress

so now my fear had skyrocketed because

now i’m going

okay what if this is how my father dies

and it wasn’t long before i found myself

going

this is how my father dies and i have

killed him

by revealing this information i never

should have done that this is my fault

this is how the story ends

when you’re in the thick of your fear it

is so easy to panic

you know i was experiencing

a level of anxiety and it’s anxiety

that’s

making us dread that hypothetical

outcome that may or may not be real

real fear is meant to protect us

and keep us alive it’s triggered by the

amygdala in our brain

and can send us into fight flight or

freeze modes so if a car skids in your

direction as you’re walking down the

street

it’s what kicks you into fifth gear this

was not that

this was another kind of fear which i

refer to as my excuses fear

and it’s the one that keeps you

operating on this high level of

vibration

and it doesn’t let you ground yourself

and also it prevents you from making

decisions that could have

very positive and lasting impact in your

life

so back to the hospital luckily my

father did not die that day

in fact he is very much alive and

kicking nearly a decade later

what did happen was that i chose to get

help

because i just knew that i couldn’t deal

with this alone

so in therapy i came to realize

that the reaction of my family was

actually quite normal for a rather

traditional conservative mexican

extended family and this kind of thing

happens

all over the world every day sadly

i also came to realize that confronting

reality sometimes

takes a lot of guts not everyone can be

ready at the exact same time

nelson mandela once said he never lost

he either won or took a lesson

i was terrified of losing the people i

loved the most

but i did and it hurt so what’s the

lesson

well i think it’s really important to

remain grateful

for all of the moments and memories that

we share together

because those make me who i am today

but it’s also okay to draw a line family

or not

and understand that people can be

wrongfully occupying in a place in your

life that they no longer deserve

it was time to part ways

i was once shooting a documentary in the

sahara desert with a tuareg who are

a nomadic tribe in the desert

and they have lots of crosses

and drawings and patterns and embroidery

jewelry and i wrongfully assumed that

this must be a religious thing until i

sat down with one of them and he said oh

no no no

these lines are arrows this is you

and this is everyone else you’re going

to meet in your life

you need to learn to appreciate that

intersection

because it could last a moment or a

decade

but in the end you’re on your life’s

journey and they’re on theirs

and it’s important that you welcome the

moment that you have to part

out of respect for each other’s

direction

i thought that was beautiful

and reframing our greatest fears

it’s not only possible not not only

possible but taking charge over them

to author our life’s novel is

almost like a human right in my mind as

creatures

of reason and creativity sure we all get

some miserable cards dealt at one point

or another

but the reality is that we get to decide

whether to play them

burn them magic trick them fold or keep

them close to our chest

transforming hardship and to fuel to

motor us forward

is entirely done by choice

now my aunt once told my parents that

they had to find a way to keep me silent

because if people found out about what

happened it would destroy

my life that was very much

her fear because speaking out about this

allowed me to lose the fear of people

finding out the big secret

and i was also able to empathize and

connect with people in a much

deeper level than i had before when

they’d gone through similar things

i was able to put my skills to the test

and use my creativity and

technical abilities to create a

multimedia exhibition

addressing the impact of rape alongside

24 other rape survivors

i wrote a book on it but most

importantly i regained my confidence see

fear of anxiety could have prevented me

from having an incredibly

beneficial outcome

so now the big question is what is it

that truly petrifies you that you know

is a roadblock in your life that which

your intuition

knows man if only i could get over this

i would feel such

freedom it doesn’t have to be extreme

it could be as simple as the fear of

saying i love you

or i’m sorry

in my line of work cinematography and

visuals it is impossible to compose an

image

without having the presence of both

light and darkness

they’re forever entwined one cannot

exist without the other

and i have always loved how this is a

real metaphor

for life because had we not the

dark painful moments we would be unable

to really enjoy those bright moments

that feel like perfection

and had we not the fear we would not be

able to

understand that we’re able to face it

navigate through it

and come out stronger the other side

sure it’s not a linear journey all the

time

because today i’m strong tomorrow i’m

not and in a few more days the stakes

have changed

but as long as we can continue taking

those little steps forward

just like making those phone calls it

all works like building blocks

teddy roosevelt once said and i am

paraphrasing here

it is not the critic who counts it’s not

the guy

pointing fingers at you saying how you

stumble and how you could do things

better

don’t listen to those guys it’s about

actually

standing into the arena of your life and

trying and failing and trying again

because there’s no effort without error

i tell you what there is no

self-confidence without conquering a

fear

so have a look around your life observe

whatever darkness might be there

befriend it understand whether it’s

there to protect you

or prevent you from something figure out

whether you need to

adjust your sales or stay firm on the

course

no matter the tempests and as you’re

navigating through the

depths with nothing but the crumbling

bits of your very last

nearly used up match and the broken

compass

just remember all the answers are within

we are all born with an inner light

and wisdom all we have to do is

pause listen to that intuition

reframe if we have to and let that

guide the way thank you