FEAR, ANXIETY, AND WORRY
DETERMINING THE QUALITY OF LIFE

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 INSTANT FEAR MANAGER

See this when you are in fear and need to get out of being at the effect of the fear for now (and address later if you wish). 
FUTURE OUTLINE Use the one above for now.  
   
In construction but very usable.  The links are usable.  Read the key pieces and peruse the "read per interest" pieces.  (The outline below, until linked separately, is in the pieces in "read per interest", below.)  Many of these can be found using the search engine, though we'll put in all the links as we rewrite this section.

    ABOUT FEAR - How It Is Created and Disappeared 

          THREATS AND FEAR - What is real and how to look at it
               Our Core Desires And Fears
          THE ANXIETY PROCESS - How to create it or uncreate it.
          STRESS/ANXIETY MINIMIZATION IN LIFE - The daily "pre-flight" list.  
               See also "Stress Elimination" section.
          SOLVING EACH FEAR - Talking you through the big overall ones and also each individual fear.
                Something's Wrong
                Creating A Base of "Safety"

    HOW DOES ONE MANAGE HIS/HER EMOTIONS?

           CONTROLLING THE EMOTIONS IN THE BODY - Simple And Quick.  The "circuits" run both 
                 directions, so we can control the emotions in the body rather than letting them control us!              REACTIVITY VS REASONING
           MOOD MANAGEMENT
           THE WORRY-ANXIETY PACKET - Tools, differentiating between worry and aliveness.
                                                              What it takes to grow up.

    THE ANXIETY/FEAR/STRESS MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS - Follow these at the chosen levels, 
         with expected time, in hours, in parentheses:   Quick overview (   ), the short process (  ), the 
         midlevel process (  ), the high level completion process (  ).

    SUPPORTING PIECES

            EXERCISES, TOOL, AND FORMS For Managing Stress, Fears, Anxiety, Worry
                  TESTS - Emotional Maturity, Anxiety, Stress
            RESOURCES - See "Best" and then peruse others to see if want to review them also.  


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 RELATED

Fear Section in Contents/Links
     - Fear And Emotion Mgmt.

The Fear Management Program - Readings, fear lists to help identify, and Tests (Take these two tests to see where you are at.)

Fearlessness - Reducing Or Virtually Elliminating Fear - Essential understanding. 

Losses - Trigger for fear 
Anxiety - Result of fear 
Worry - Practice "to ease" fear 
Stress - Spiral, body/mind effect
Peace Of Mind - Break cycle
Problem Solving - Break trigger
Creating A Base Of Safety
Mood Management
Panic - Spiraling, mind/body
Grieving - Fear and loss related
Death - Fear of loss; perspective 
SEARCH ENGINE:

 


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Yes, understanding something is essential to maximum progress, but you've also got to DO SOMETHING!  And if you don't install it, then you'll not reap the full benefit.

 It helps to have a format to guide you: 

Changing Beliefs - Discussion  
The ABCDEF Super-Worksheet - A form that contains all the steps to change a belief.


We fear "loss" and "future hardship".  But with proper perspective we can see that 99+% of all fears have no real basis and the rest is all adjustable.

Finish the fiction and you'll be virtually fearless.  See What I have, for sure, and also the grounds for fearlessness.  And we can also eliminate all criticism of ourselves and vulnerability to others.

                                                                  The BuddhaKahuna
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Process Diagram:

      Belief                →        Fear        →            Anxiety        →     Depression
(There is a threat.)                 Emotion,                 Worry (habit)              
                                    (Physical response)                       
                                                               
                                                                                      Excessive         
                                                                                           ↓
                                                                                       Stress                                                                                                                              ↓                
                                                                                   "Breakdown" &
                                                                                   Unhappiness

Cure - Same For All Of These!  - And it is also the path to happiness!

Correct my belief system
    Especially disengage from the false & excessive connection with survival.
Gain "having" and "enough" perspective
Create sufficient certainty foundation  
Change in habits, especially frequency; rewire brain   

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SECTION CONTENTS/LINKS:                                                                                                                     
INTRODUCTION TO FEAR:  DISCUSSION, HIGH POINTS (below)                
Sections: (All linked to from Contents/Links - Fear And Emotion Mgmt.)

ANXIETY SECTION - Result of fear, often frequent and incapacitating 
      Depression Main Page - A subset from anxiety and fear.
WORRY SECTION - A practice believed to  "ease" fear, but...
STRESS SECTION - Fear's body impacts, creating abnormal psych reaction  
PEACE OF MIND SECTION - Breaking the self-reinforcing downward cycle.
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CONTENTS, THIS PAGE

Introduction To Fear:  Discussion, High Points   

     The cycle
     The costs
     Eliminating the fear
     Understanding the process; see the changepoints

How Does One "Manage" His/Her Emotions?           
      Go also to special section:  Fearlessness - Reducing Or Virtually Elliminating Fear    

Continue on to:  

The Fear Management Program - Readings, fear lists to help identify, and 

    Tests - Take these two tests to see where you are at.
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Definition:  A distressing emotion (agitated feeling) aroused by thought of impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined.

Purpose:  To implement action to prevent injury and to assure survival


DISCUSSION

Fear is the biggest factor in determining the quality (or lack thereof) of life!

Other than a few instinctual fears related to actual physical danger, 99% of fears are created from a false belief about there being danger.  If we add an element of believed powerlessness to that, then we add the fear that we won't be able to deal with things when they happen (as opposed to Fearlessness).

(Somehow, we have to convince you that your belief that your fear-beliefs are real and accurate is just not true.  You can actually get to the point where you see through them with a perspective of their not being real, but just made up.  This is one of the things taught in all major disciplines, such as Buddhism, as discussed on this site.)

And then, we take most fears too seriously, as they are of minor consequences which need to be accepted as part of life.  (See Accepting Reality as a primer.)

Since fear is "anticipated loss", there are two elements to handle:  

1.  Our prediction that we won't be able to handle what comes up (we dramatically exaggerate our 'inability')
2.  Realizing that there are only a very few real losses, and all the rest is simply a "lessened gain".  When you see that your "base" is solid, then 90+% of your fears are just brief passing thoughts with zero charge.  The perspective:  What I Have, For Sure.


THE VICIOUS CYCLE

The cycle is simple:

Believed threat --> Fear emotion --> Stress --> Hyperalarmism  

The vicious cycle is perpetuated and exacerbated by our adding programming of ourselves to be hypervigilant, essentially hyping up our natural emergency alert system (which is already finding far more things to be concerned with than actually merit concern).   

We clearly must intervene in the cycle at some point and preferably at several points.  But if we change the core cause, the fear-stress process has no beginning, so we would emphasize changing beliefs.  This is discussed further, below.


THE COSTS

The amount of completely unnecessary stress  is immense. 

Fear shows up in subtle ways from choosing not to do something that would be beneficial and/or enjoyable to an assessment of one's worth or how good one is -  a positive version of the latter is essential to being happy.   Essentially we 'make up" something, such as 'I must be worthy to have people like me so that I will be fed since I am powerless..' - and then we spend our time in fear of losing something that doesn't exist.  

Fear can destroy relationships or at least highly reduce how good the relationship feels.   

And we spend lots of time "spinning" in the fear thoughts.  


ELIMINATING THE FEAR 

It is vital that we 

1.  Understand it thoroughly, first,  then 
2.  That we understand how to deal with it, and, finally, 
3.  Thoroughly practice what works - in other words, do the work to implement what works and to change your life dramatically upward!

Incidentally, our criteria for how much fear to eliminate is 80% or more - you can keep up to 20% if you prefer, but your life will be much better nevertheless.  

Why 80%?  Because it is a reasonable, attainable standard - and we want to stop the fear-based practice of having to be limitlessly perfect or better and better.   


UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS; SEE THE CHANGEPOINTS

Fear (the thought of loss) causes the body to emit emergency emotions (chemicals).  These emergency emotions create a spiral of fear thoughts and more emotions, so intervening to manage those emotions is essential.  This is discussed below. 

If you do not accept the cycle, it will be hard to break out of it.  You must learn to accept this model:  

 Event -->      Thought/Belief      -->      Emotion          -->          Action
                               1                                   2               3  

                       (Interpretation                   Physical                   Seek relief
                    Thru Belief Filter)         Chemical Reaction       (or more pleasure)

Changepoint 1 = Solve the cause (initiator) of the problem

      Change one's beliefs  

Changepoint 2 = Solve the reaction level so that the emotion is not so 
      heightened

      Learn peace of mind techniques, including changing the brain 
             Peace of Mind 
             Rewire" the brain
      Medical intervention to change chemicals in body

Changepoint 3 = Change the strategy (belief about what to do) so that the 
      resulting action behavior is a better one

      Learn anger management techniques 
      Learn what works in relationships
      Learn what works in coping with fears    


There will be more detail later, but basically the event is almost always "neutral", but we perceive it through a belief filter that includes a prediction that could be of loss or hurt or of pleasure.  At that point an emotion is created by the body to either repair the threat or to continue the pleasure.  If one has alot of fear beliefs, one experiences "stress".  If one has a hypersensitized alarm system and/or body reactivity, one experiences more extremely painful emotions.  

This is a "causal chain", where the extreme cycles can be broken at the belief level and/or at the physical reactivity/response level.  It is imperative that one understand this in more depth if one wants to be the true master of one's emotion and, accordingly, of one's life.

You should understand how the perception of a threat is almost always not based in reality or truth and understand the process.  Read the piece called  THREATS AND FEAR .

Understand how we experience life and the effect of love and fear on the quality of life:  Read  THE EXPERIENCE OF LIFE  



HOW DOES ONE MANAGE HIS/HER EMOTIONS?  

Mostly, by managing the beliefs that cause the emotions!  (See the Beliefs section.
Note especially the three primary underlying beliefs that sabotage us.)

Three parts:

1.  Rework the underlying beliefs that cause the "negative", unhealthy emotions.
        (There's three primary overlays that when dealt with disappear others.)
2.  Rework one's underlying philosophy of life to create a super strong 
       foundation!
3.  Manage/eliminate the emotions in the moment, effectively!

Using these techniques, which have been proven over and over to work, will help you live a more stable, more powerful life where the emotions no longer rule.  Managing one's emotions well can enhance one's motivation and one's thinking so that one is actually and feels very powerful and effective

The ability to see and manage one's emotions is called Emotional Maturity, or Emotional Intelligence.  See what your level is by taking this test:: The "Emotional Maturity" test

As a part of your learning and implementation process, read and understand   CONTROLLING THE EMOTIONS IN THE BODY - SIMPLE AND QUICK , as these actions and techniques are directly doable and practical and don't require some quantum leap in thinking - i.e. they're not hard to do.

You'll find that the Stress section has a number of methods that you can use to manage/eliminate your fears and to reduce stress dramatically.  

Fearlessness. It is actually possible to become virtually fearless, by realizing a few key realities.  Read below.  See especially those pieces related to Fearlessness.


REDUCING OR VIRTUALLY ELIMINATING FEAR

Fear is a natural (wired in) emotion/reaction to something that fits the picture of a threat of anticipated harm happening to oneself.  However, in most cases, it occurs from something that is not actually harmful to oneself.  This takes some "convincing" to have you see that, but it is definitely "seeable".  We can modify fear

1)  Ahead of time (Changing Beliefs)
2)  While it is occurring, (Thought or 
3)  Once it has occurred.  

All "wired in" behaviors and responses came about from those genes which happened to help us survive, quite appropriately, surviving  - fear being a major one of those.  Fear helped us engage in fight, flight, or freeze, all of which contributed to us surviving in some way.  Because of its importance, the emotions from fear are extremely powerful, and very negative.  (Read how the mind evolved and developed, under Managing The Mind section. Then read Rewiring The Brain and The Rx For "Psychology".)

However, real fear is only about avoiding harm to the body that would hurt our chances of surviving.  (If we weren't concerned about future survival, we would have no fear.  See Fearlessness.)

We've added to the true fears a whole panoply of made-up fears, which, if we looked at them with reasoning, we would choose to no longer keep!

To reduce or virtually eliminate fear, the following are necessary (and the strategies chosen actually accomplish these:

1.  Reducing the oversensitivity (and hypersensitivity) of the physical mind to danger signals, so that the false alarms are no longer going off.
2.  Reducing the "triggers" for fear (eliminating the belief that one will be harmed by things that are not truly harm, such as temporary loss).
3.  Reducing the intensity of those triggers, which helps us keep our ability to reason, in order to better handle and eliminate the unnecessary fear reactions and actions.  Examples would be calming/coping  thoughts set up ahead of time and available immediately to us
4.  Using reason to handle the situation (modify it, make it into something non-threatening, solve it).
5.  Using methods which reduce/eliminate the feeling and/or body impact of the fear.

Read the quick overview About Fear  - How It's Created and Disappeared - this is the essence.   

Incidently, the opposite of fear and something that when inserted in life pushes aside much fear is Gratitude - I recommend that you read that section and start the practices as soon as possible!
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Continue on to:  

The Fear Management Program - Readings, fear lists to help identify, and 

    Tests - Take these two tests to see where you are at.