relics
05-02-2007, 01:56 PM
Fear
Fear is something that is….ironically feared in this community and reality in general. We consciously fear being afraid of approaching, escalating, endings, failure, success. We fear living; we fear dying.
I want to take a look at fear. I am creating this post not just for public viewing, but for my own benefits as well. Taking a view on my view of fear that is so prevalent in today’s world is profoundly satisfying.
Why?
Why do we fear? It’s like the proverbial question: What color is red? However, the answer for fear is much more coherently graspable. To me there are two kinds of fears. Inner and outer fears, just as there is inner and outer game.
Outer Inner
Death Rejection
Being Alone Helplessness
Losing something of value Being vulnerable
Making Friends Disapproval
To list a few. To me, I don’t fear the outer fears that much. So what everyone dies, I like alone time, I’ll find something else of value, and I’m a likeable guy, respectively. But for the inner fears, those are the things I fear. It brought me to wonder why? Although some outer and inner fears coincide hand-in-hand, my biggest fear was my inner fear.
A while back, I had to undergo a somewhat major surgery on my jaw that had a risk of paralyzing the right side of my face. Just before the surgery, my mother was by my side holding my hand and she noticed my unnerving calm. She asked me….”Why aren’t you afraid?” To my astonishment….I didn’t know why. Looking back and reflecting, it was because: I COULD HANDLE IT. I could handle the pain, I could handle the risks, and I could handle the nausea. I was worrying more about the hospital food than the surgery itself. Not to say that I was completely fearless. I was anxious not at what would happen, but what I was venturing into was unknown territory for me. I was looking forward to being put out; I’ve never done it before. I was anxious about how long I’d be bed ridden, etc. I was anxious (anxiousness is a cousin of fear) of the things I could not control. Anxious of the things that are an inevitability because they were unknown to me. I never doubted for one second that I couldn’t handle what was, and what could possibly come as effects of the surgery.
What’s the difference between major surgery and opening a girl at Starbucks? Me not knowing whether I had the conscious ability to HANDLE the rejection, helplessness, vulnerability, and disapproval I would feel if I did get blown out. I can easily handle outer fears. But not the inner fears because they reflected my sense of self and ability to handle this world. Generalizing inner fears encompasses more than just the Venusian arts in general. Fear of rejection will transpire to every day activities as well. The big WHY is that….you can’t handle it. How fearful would we really be if we knew we could handle whatever would happen to us in a given situation?
That being said, it would mean that you could control everything-inner our outer fears- inside yourself without changing anything in the outside world. You don’t have to try to control anything out of your control because it’s all inside you. If you know you have the ability to handle whatever comes your way, then your fear is even more diminished! Everytime you feel fear, consciously remind yourself that it’s because you are not feeling good enough about your ability to HANDLE the fear. Not because of anything else
You can’t make it go away
It’s a common sense of feeling in this community everyone shares. A form of first minute resistance. Everyone gets it, I know. Those who don’t…well we’re just differing on semantics. Paralysis analysis not only makes you think too much-and in the end doubting yourself- it sets you up for failure
Years ago, I had turned into a greenbelt in my TKD/MMA classes. I felt exhilarated. I wasn’t a yellow belt anymore. I moved up on the pecking order. But with it I had new responsibilities. I had to lead the warm up classes for the lesser belts before I joined my new classes that I was promoted to. You guessed it. I felt fear. Most of the people that I was in charge of were older than me! I anticipated leading the class with a sense of eerie dread. As I stood in front of my pupils I felt a wave of fear. I barely started with the daily rituals of bowing to the creed and flags and my heart was already pounding. I got through it and as I continued leading the classes, my fear dissipated. In fact, I looked forward to leading the class again. Looked forward to helping out the people who were older than me. It gave me a sense of self; a sense that…I knew enough of something to help people with more life experience than I.
The only way to get rid of fear is to just do it. Contradictory I know, but what happens after you open up those first two or three warm-up sets? Fear only goes away in particular situations. The fear comes back because you’re in a new territory and it is a new situation. Doing it has to come before the fear goes away. What happens when you just go out and do it? A boost of self confidence! confidence in yourself that you can HANDLE situations. What happens if you let the fear get the better of you? Well I’ll tell you. You get an overwhelming feel of helplessness, a blow to your confidence, and you subconsciously analyze that YOU CAN”T HANDLE IT. That makes the fear worse, and more prevalent, a feeling of non-worthiness. You find yourself with more “What if….” Fears.
It’s How You Hold It
Everyone in the world feels fear. We feel fear when we do anything we’re not familiar with in life. However, people ARE doing it despite of the fear. Therefore fear is NOT the problem. It’s not the fear that counts, it’s how you hold it. It’s how you reframe your fear (a wonderful reframe of fear has already been written about by Dmitri) Some hold fear in the frame of helplessness, non-worthiness, and paralysis. While others (try your best to include yourself in this category regardless) hold the fear as an inner energy, and need for action.
Comfort Zones
One time, shopping for shoes at the local mall, I happen to notice something. As I browse over shoes pushing 200-300 dollars, I found it uncomfortable to buy one of those shoes. This situation is everywhere. You’ll open a 6 but not an 8, you don’t like being alone in public places without a friend, you don’t talk to the popular kids in fear of rejection. These are comfort zones. Everyone has these zones. We make decisions that are confined within our zone. This is why you need to push. At least take a little risk a day that pushes the envelope. It does not even have to be an approach. It should expand your comfort zone as each time you step out of your zone the more it expands to accommodate.
Take The Wheel
My very first girlfriend ever (pre-community times) cheated on me(aw group hug:P). On reflection, I was not angry. She had given me IMs pleading me to shout at her…get angry….to react, but nothing. I took responsibility for the situation. I felt no anger or animosity towards her at all. “It takes two to tango” I thought. I was as much at fault for not escalating, and not providing her with my side of the relationship. The truth is: You’re really in control. You unconsciously choose to stay in a failing relationship, your lousy job, your dolt of a boss, and whatever it may be for you. YOU are the cause of your own unhappiness that surrounds your life. You CHOOSE-subconsciously, or unconsciously- to feel the things you feel. If you create all your misgivings in life, it stands to reason that in the silver lining of that cloud: You create your own joy.
Positivity isn’t ignorance.
You should ALWAYS think positively. What’s more realistic about being negative? When you’re mustering up the courage to approach, why fill your head with negativity? It isn’t more realistic than thinking positively at all! It’s the negative thoughts that take away your power and makes the fear more immanent.
Mistakes are a Good Thing
Why do we have the need to never fail a set? It is in the feeling of perfectionism that we forget that we LEARN through mistakes. The need for perfection and control will coincide and keep you in fear when making an attempt in a new challenge. There is no wrong choice. Each choice you make will have mistakes from which you can learn from. Path A or B is neither right nor wrong as they both have things you can learn from. You get to experience life in a new way, you grow. The key to not fear mistakes is…? Well you guessed it. The knowledge that you have the ability to HANDLE anything that comes in your way regardless of the choices you take. After you make a decision, you are invested in it and you hold on to it for dear life. No. Throw away what you thought the situation would look like, accept the responsibilities for your action, and correct the decision if it really was detrimental. You should accept situations with positive frames. Go with the flow so to speak. See deaths as a natural process, a part of life, and a good time to grow as a person rather than an unjust universe, and a horrible blow to your own good.
Fear can be very controling, or very liberating. The choice is yours
Fear is something that is….ironically feared in this community and reality in general. We consciously fear being afraid of approaching, escalating, endings, failure, success. We fear living; we fear dying.
I want to take a look at fear. I am creating this post not just for public viewing, but for my own benefits as well. Taking a view on my view of fear that is so prevalent in today’s world is profoundly satisfying.
Why?
Why do we fear? It’s like the proverbial question: What color is red? However, the answer for fear is much more coherently graspable. To me there are two kinds of fears. Inner and outer fears, just as there is inner and outer game.
Outer Inner
Death Rejection
Being Alone Helplessness
Losing something of value Being vulnerable
Making Friends Disapproval
To list a few. To me, I don’t fear the outer fears that much. So what everyone dies, I like alone time, I’ll find something else of value, and I’m a likeable guy, respectively. But for the inner fears, those are the things I fear. It brought me to wonder why? Although some outer and inner fears coincide hand-in-hand, my biggest fear was my inner fear.
A while back, I had to undergo a somewhat major surgery on my jaw that had a risk of paralyzing the right side of my face. Just before the surgery, my mother was by my side holding my hand and she noticed my unnerving calm. She asked me….”Why aren’t you afraid?” To my astonishment….I didn’t know why. Looking back and reflecting, it was because: I COULD HANDLE IT. I could handle the pain, I could handle the risks, and I could handle the nausea. I was worrying more about the hospital food than the surgery itself. Not to say that I was completely fearless. I was anxious not at what would happen, but what I was venturing into was unknown territory for me. I was looking forward to being put out; I’ve never done it before. I was anxious about how long I’d be bed ridden, etc. I was anxious (anxiousness is a cousin of fear) of the things I could not control. Anxious of the things that are an inevitability because they were unknown to me. I never doubted for one second that I couldn’t handle what was, and what could possibly come as effects of the surgery.
What’s the difference between major surgery and opening a girl at Starbucks? Me not knowing whether I had the conscious ability to HANDLE the rejection, helplessness, vulnerability, and disapproval I would feel if I did get blown out. I can easily handle outer fears. But not the inner fears because they reflected my sense of self and ability to handle this world. Generalizing inner fears encompasses more than just the Venusian arts in general. Fear of rejection will transpire to every day activities as well. The big WHY is that….you can’t handle it. How fearful would we really be if we knew we could handle whatever would happen to us in a given situation?
That being said, it would mean that you could control everything-inner our outer fears- inside yourself without changing anything in the outside world. You don’t have to try to control anything out of your control because it’s all inside you. If you know you have the ability to handle whatever comes your way, then your fear is even more diminished! Everytime you feel fear, consciously remind yourself that it’s because you are not feeling good enough about your ability to HANDLE the fear. Not because of anything else
You can’t make it go away
It’s a common sense of feeling in this community everyone shares. A form of first minute resistance. Everyone gets it, I know. Those who don’t…well we’re just differing on semantics. Paralysis analysis not only makes you think too much-and in the end doubting yourself- it sets you up for failure
Years ago, I had turned into a greenbelt in my TKD/MMA classes. I felt exhilarated. I wasn’t a yellow belt anymore. I moved up on the pecking order. But with it I had new responsibilities. I had to lead the warm up classes for the lesser belts before I joined my new classes that I was promoted to. You guessed it. I felt fear. Most of the people that I was in charge of were older than me! I anticipated leading the class with a sense of eerie dread. As I stood in front of my pupils I felt a wave of fear. I barely started with the daily rituals of bowing to the creed and flags and my heart was already pounding. I got through it and as I continued leading the classes, my fear dissipated. In fact, I looked forward to leading the class again. Looked forward to helping out the people who were older than me. It gave me a sense of self; a sense that…I knew enough of something to help people with more life experience than I.
The only way to get rid of fear is to just do it. Contradictory I know, but what happens after you open up those first two or three warm-up sets? Fear only goes away in particular situations. The fear comes back because you’re in a new territory and it is a new situation. Doing it has to come before the fear goes away. What happens when you just go out and do it? A boost of self confidence! confidence in yourself that you can HANDLE situations. What happens if you let the fear get the better of you? Well I’ll tell you. You get an overwhelming feel of helplessness, a blow to your confidence, and you subconsciously analyze that YOU CAN”T HANDLE IT. That makes the fear worse, and more prevalent, a feeling of non-worthiness. You find yourself with more “What if….” Fears.
It’s How You Hold It
Everyone in the world feels fear. We feel fear when we do anything we’re not familiar with in life. However, people ARE doing it despite of the fear. Therefore fear is NOT the problem. It’s not the fear that counts, it’s how you hold it. It’s how you reframe your fear (a wonderful reframe of fear has already been written about by Dmitri) Some hold fear in the frame of helplessness, non-worthiness, and paralysis. While others (try your best to include yourself in this category regardless) hold the fear as an inner energy, and need for action.
Comfort Zones
One time, shopping for shoes at the local mall, I happen to notice something. As I browse over shoes pushing 200-300 dollars, I found it uncomfortable to buy one of those shoes. This situation is everywhere. You’ll open a 6 but not an 8, you don’t like being alone in public places without a friend, you don’t talk to the popular kids in fear of rejection. These are comfort zones. Everyone has these zones. We make decisions that are confined within our zone. This is why you need to push. At least take a little risk a day that pushes the envelope. It does not even have to be an approach. It should expand your comfort zone as each time you step out of your zone the more it expands to accommodate.
Take The Wheel
My very first girlfriend ever (pre-community times) cheated on me(aw group hug:P). On reflection, I was not angry. She had given me IMs pleading me to shout at her…get angry….to react, but nothing. I took responsibility for the situation. I felt no anger or animosity towards her at all. “It takes two to tango” I thought. I was as much at fault for not escalating, and not providing her with my side of the relationship. The truth is: You’re really in control. You unconsciously choose to stay in a failing relationship, your lousy job, your dolt of a boss, and whatever it may be for you. YOU are the cause of your own unhappiness that surrounds your life. You CHOOSE-subconsciously, or unconsciously- to feel the things you feel. If you create all your misgivings in life, it stands to reason that in the silver lining of that cloud: You create your own joy.
Positivity isn’t ignorance.
You should ALWAYS think positively. What’s more realistic about being negative? When you’re mustering up the courage to approach, why fill your head with negativity? It isn’t more realistic than thinking positively at all! It’s the negative thoughts that take away your power and makes the fear more immanent.
Mistakes are a Good Thing
Why do we have the need to never fail a set? It is in the feeling of perfectionism that we forget that we LEARN through mistakes. The need for perfection and control will coincide and keep you in fear when making an attempt in a new challenge. There is no wrong choice. Each choice you make will have mistakes from which you can learn from. Path A or B is neither right nor wrong as they both have things you can learn from. You get to experience life in a new way, you grow. The key to not fear mistakes is…? Well you guessed it. The knowledge that you have the ability to HANDLE anything that comes in your way regardless of the choices you take. After you make a decision, you are invested in it and you hold on to it for dear life. No. Throw away what you thought the situation would look like, accept the responsibilities for your action, and correct the decision if it really was detrimental. You should accept situations with positive frames. Go with the flow so to speak. See deaths as a natural process, a part of life, and a good time to grow as a person rather than an unjust universe, and a horrible blow to your own good.
Fear can be very controling, or very liberating. The choice is yours