SECTION CONTENTS/LINKS:
STRESS SECTION - Fear's body impacts, creating abnormal psych reaction
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CONTENTS, THIS PAGE
INTRODUCTION TO FEAR: DISCUSSION, HIGH POINTS
The cycle
The costs
Eliminating the fear
Understanding the process
FEAR - The pieces to alleviate fear.
READ PER INTEREST - Various pieces to select from to contribute to your understanding and effectiveness.
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.)
THE CYCLE
The cycle is simple:
Believed threat --> Fear emotion --> Stress --> Hyperalarmism
The vicious cycle is perpetuated and exacerbated by our programming of ourselves to be hypervigilant.
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.
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
Changepoint 2 = Solve the reaction level so that the emotion is not so
heightened
Learn peace of mind techniques, including changing the brain
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.
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!
GROUNDING SUMMARY MODULES - To put this and overall life into perspective
living
KEY PIECES TO READ FIRST
THREATS AND FEAR - Just reading this can assist you in getting rid of fears, but
also it is a good idea to use the "Fears List" process below.
the body reacts from our pre-conscious emotions - and what we cannot do (that,
unfortunately, many people try to do or believe they can do) and what we actually can
do, simply and very doably - so you can actually do what works!
life is either fear or "love" (actually positivity, progressiveness, etc.). It is one or the
other; it can't be both at the same time. By recognizing and controlling those
sources, the quality of your life will improve dramatically.
sooner rather than later! The quality of your life is at stake!
TESTS
handle fears and emotions?
decide what you are committed to enhancing in life.
READ PER INTEREST:
semi-outline form for quick review. It is essential to understand this from this
perspective.
Anxiety Process - Differentiating with regard to what negative living looks like versus
positive living. Get clear on why you are creating anxiety.
be clear on those things you can control and what you can't. Finish this here and
now.
but it takes a good perspective and understanding.
from The Intelligences, Life Management)
thoughts about past failures is essential. And in this process we convert those
thoughts to something more realistic and/or compassionate statement.
"fear" that something is wrong (here or with me).
Fears Lists
lists to identify yours, and then there is a program for "handling" them - mastering
this will change your life dramatically.
Emotional Discomfort
"fear" that something is wrong (here or with me).
Fears - Specific Ones Or Types
do in relationships.
a Fearlessness course attendee (see www.option.org).
from a busy mind at 4 a.m. Wednesday of a full week Fearlessness course
(option.org), in which the author realizes that there is no usefulness to fear and that
there is actually nothing to lose and nothing that isn't workable for creating happiness
from. See Option.org for the workshop or CD on this.
Managing, Monitoring
you need to commit to every day and the level of rest and relaxation needed to have
less anxiety and/or stress.
rating for the day and the practices and habits for the day. Valuable "feedback"
technique.
Problem Solving - Review and understand how to do Problem Solving and to make Effective
Decisions. Click on that link to go to the full section on this. An example:
problem is not really a problem at all. Seeing it more neutrally and then
reconnoitering to see what is actually wanted can created some real breakthroughs.
Stress
you need to commit to every day and the level of rest and relaxation needed to have
less anxiety and/or stress.
Worry: Go to the main page on Worry, which has much more on it, that you can use to be
happier.
RELATED TOPICS TO READ UP ON
Subtypes Of Fear:
ANXIETY - Specifically narrow to this mode of fear, covering from social anxiety to
panic control.
WORRY - Reduce this substantially, getting rid of the useless and doing something
more useful with the time and energy.
Related Topics:
PROBLEM SOLVING - Helps prevent undesired or feared outcomes, plus it helps on
making better decisions, for a much better run life!
and useless "danger" signals - and it'll help rewire the brain to do alot of this
automatically!
is a mood, that lower your vitality and make you needlessly more susceptible to worry and stress
