That’s right. He’s white. He thinks himself god’s gift. He does what he wants. He obeys no one except, sometimes, M (which, by the way, stands for Max). He’s good with the ladies. His Bite is worse than his bark. He’s scared of the vacuum cleaner and he, daily, goes for a walk around 7pm to the local park to take a dump and chase away the neighbour’s cats.
I’m talking about my dog, James Bond, aka Bondie, in case you haven’t figured it out yet.
Today, he finally got tired of the vacuum cleaner and decided to attack it. Being more passive than aggressive, it decided not to fight back. He learned that it’s not going to hurt him, left it alone and chewed on some kibble.
Why am I telling you about my dog’s fears? Well because they’re no different than yours.
“what if I can’t do it”, “what if I get rejected”, “what if I lose my job”, “what if she cheats on me” and so on. You get the idea. And I can tell you that they’re no different than Bondie’s feelings about the electric sucking machine, but you’re gonna think it’s asinine to compare the two.
So consider this. Fear is native of your instincts. Our mind feeds us with recurrent doses of fear to control our behaviour. At an unconscious level, everything we do is either motivated by our desire for positive feelings, or our need for survival by avoiding negative feelings. Fear is an example of the latter.
Our mind wants to preserve our own definitions of our selves. So if it believes the job, the Mrs or the ego are more important to our existence than the potential inducement of any action, the mind will inject our nervous system with adrenalin, increase the heart rate, and send subliminal messages to our conscious mind making it think that it’s afraid, that it probably won’t even enjoy whatever we are about to do, and provide all kinds of excuses for why we don’t want, don’t need or don’t care enough about whatever the potential reward is. And like Bondie after a lost fight with that one nasty kitty, we retreat with our tails tucked in.
Sometimes the fear is justified. Afterall, our unconscious mind knows how to safeguard us. But if we always listen to our fears, we never cultivate our own potential, never experience phenomenon outside our comfort zone and never learn the pleasures enjoyed by adrenalin junkies. So how do we know which fears are ok to have and which aren’t? And how do we conquer them?
Well, I don’t know what works for you, but personally, when faced with the test of what I should & shouldn’t do, I always visualise the scenario with someone else going through my impending predicament. I imagine them being undecided and asking me for advice, and I advise them as a third party bystander, thus making rational decision uncluttered by emotions and fear.
Then more importantly, I get over the inner voice of ill-reason by “thanking it”. This might sound peculiar to some, but you should do this anyway, at least once.
Next time you are faced with an unwelcomed, debilitating fear, take a moment, close your eyes and say the following...
“Thank you for looking-out for me, thank you for ensuring I don’t hurt/embarrass/.....[fill in your unwanted feeling] myself. Thank you for ensuring my survival. And just as I know you want the best for me, you will now take back the fear, and provide me instead, with the confidence I need to ..... [fill in action] with success. I rely on you to give me all the tools I need to move forward in this and all future ventures, because without you, and your support, I will never be ...... [fill in your personal goal/outcome]”
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Dear wiseOWL,
ReplyDeleteI am so happy to have found someone who isn't writing about how scary this economy and job market and the world has become. Thank you.
I've found and joined this wonderfully upbeat, playful and supportive group on Facebook called Fun Not Fear http://www.tinyurl.com/funnotfear --we started a few weeks ago and have around 4200 members, a newsletter, and we have a conference call on April Fools Day with Bob Mankoff, the Cartoon Editor at The New Yorker.
This group advocates channeling the energies we spent on driving us crazy on the negativity in the world, into creating something that would turn the situation into a positive one. Here is the link for you to check it out, http://www.tinyurl.com/funnotfear
Please join the group, blog about it, and join the discussion. We are creating a discussion thread for like-minded bloggers to link back to their blog posts
I think it's time for someone to inject a shot of optimism into this pessimistic environment that is corroding our mind, our emotions and our physical well being. Thanks for helping to do that.
We need to change the way we look at this fearful world, from the-glass-is-half-empty to the-glass-is-half-full. Otherwise we'll be driving ourselves mad.
Please join us to make this world full of hope and fun. Let's tell fear to go take a hike.
Thank you.
-- Elaine