The Bigger Picture: When we think of Halloween, we often think about children. At least in this culture, Halloween is a children's holiday where dressing up, trick or treating and negotiating sweets rule the day. It's all meant to be great fun!
And yet, in truth, it's a bit scary.
Leaving aside the sweets for a moment (and just a moment, as most people who know me know how much I care about this issue), Halloween with all its folklore and imagery can be frightening (a point parents and allies to young children should be aware of). For children or adults, it is in fact during this holiday that we enjoy toying with fear.
It is hard to really think about Halloween without considering the religious undertones. After all, whether you practise religion or not, religious beliefs set a foundation for our collective world view - that is, how we understand the world to operate.
Indeed, Halloween is really a Christian festival. In this tradition, we find the idea that each person has a unique soul that remains intact after death and ends up (eventually) in either heaven or hell.
With this comes the potential for lost souls in the form of ghosts and spirits, which form a possible threat to us.
Halloween was originally the festival of warding off this threat by either engaging in precautionary ceremonies or honouring them to keep them happily distracted from us.
Furthermore, modern Christian philosophy has a well-developed, rigid dichotomy between an ultimate, pure good and equally ultimate, pure evil. While the goodness holds the power for complete salvation, the evil is potentially overpowering.
The idea of such an overwhelming evil has also given birth to the possibility of intense fear of that evil.
This idea pervades our culture, not just at Halloween. We find entertainment in it, use it to generate profits, and encourage it to further political agendas.
Nevertheless, being fearful leaves us vulnerable and so easily influenced. It interferes with our thinking and creates confusion.
While some enjoy the sensation of being terrified in an artificial setting - the adrenaline, heightened awareness and exhilaration - the fact remains that persistent fear is debilitating to the individual and destructive en masse. It is, inevitably, disempowering.
It seems to me the greatest fuel for fear is doubt. When we are unsure of our nature or the environment around us, we feel a fear that is not easily challenged and penetrates our belief system. We come to feel threatened, even in situations where there is no threat, simply because we have never regained a more accurate sense of our strengths, abilities and environment.
Countering this fear, then, requires us to gain a clearer, more accurate perspective on ourselves. This often requires a decision to have faith in that which we have forgotten to trust about ourselves. Not an easy task, but one that makes a world of difference.
If fear comes from doubt, then it makes sense that our most overwhelming fears arise from questions about what happens when we die.
This is the one area of our lived experience we cannot have answers for (for obvious reasons). Interestingly enough, it is our religions that most often tend to formulate frameworks and perspectives on this.
As such, most of them assure us that if we commit to their belief systems, we will become free of our fears.
Regardless of one's religious choices, what we believe about the world and ourselves impacts greatly on our experiences of fear. Given that fear causes us stress in our minds and bodies, is debilitating and disconnects us from each other, it strikes me that choosing a belief system that empowers and strengthens us is most useful.
We want to keep thinking and trusting in ourselves when we feel fear. We want our children to be able to do this, too. This hope should impact on how we think about and treat each other at Halloween.
Finally, when we are less fearful and more empowered we are able to make better choices for ourselves and our children. This includes both our emotional and physical health. And so, I come full circle to the very important issue of refined sugars.
Sugar numbs us out. It has an effect on our central nervous system, similar to that of a drug. It interferes with our absorption of nutrients, disrupts our metabolism, and is addictive. It must be possible for us to enjoy and celebrate this holiday, and still treat our children well.
Thus, I have suggestions of possible healthy alternatives for our eager trick or treaters: You could give a small packet of nuts or an apple (although some children are allergic and unwrapped items are sometimes unhelpful), or you might consider some fun things that aren't edible, like pencils with fun erasers, small packets of crayons or party favours. Enjoy!
Shalini Sinha works as a life coach and Bowen practitioner in her clinic, Forward Movement.