FEAR AND THE THOUGHT PROCESS
RIDDING YOURSELF OF "FAUX" FEAR
THE QUESTION
Hi Keith, I had shared with you that I am a regular user of your website. I was curious to know after such an extensive research & writing what are the changes you have made to your thought process ?
Do you still do things out of fear ? [Virtually never.]
Is it still an effort to live a powerful life ? [No, as the "resistance" is gone.]
Do you have still have days where you are completely dictated by your primitive brain?
[Not totally dictated, but influenced biologically which impairs the operation of the higher brain. But with acceptance and perspective, it is no big deal...]
Thanks & Best Regards,
A USEFUL PROCESS!
The biological process of fear is built into us, thankfully, as it has saved our lives. Evolution has built it up, as it served to help us survive and to prolong our lives long enough to pass on our genes and to assure that our children live long enough to pass on theirs.
The "primitive brain" consists of 1) the lowest brain, the reptilian brain, which does a marvelous job at mechanical protection and 2) the mid brain, the mammalian brain, which is the emotional brain, which has evolved to have us survive better through cooperation and "love". Of course, we have a higher brain, but the lower brains can "hijack" the higher brains, with a super strong set of chemical motivators that make us so uncomfortable that we feel we have to do something to alleviate them. (Realizing you don't "have to" is a part of developing wisdom.)
If a tiger confronts us, the impulse to flee (and maybe fight?) is one that is strong and should be followed.
That's clear.
HOWEVER...
However, if we blindly follow our impulses, often believing they are imperatives, we will be in a real mess, full of reactivity and with little control over our lives. Indeed, we must understand that chemical signals are just chemical signals, which we can then consider before deciding how to react.
In order to do this, we need to understand the causal chain for behaviors:
1. The primitive brain matches whatever comes up, with a dump of data that it thinks is relevant.
2. If it is something it "believes" (often stupidly) is a threat, then it signals big time with very uncomfortable feelings.
3. But, if we understand, we can choose to insert an intervening thought that is smarter - and then we can "disappear" the fear or at least interrupt it - letting it pass into the oblivion of time, with no trace...
ONE MUST LEARN TO SPOT AND DIFFERENTIATE!
Then one must "differentiate" between causes (or cues) for fear - and understand more deeply in order not to get caught up in the bullbleep portion of all of this.
There are inappropriate signals, derived from patterns repeated without thinking (which the primitive brain most often does).
Truly, except for a very few times and one absolutely pre-determined time (death), we are actually well off or at least have no true tragedy or problem - we merely go through some ups and downs in mood, but we fully survive and are intact and still quite blessed.
YES, ALWAYS FOR A REASON, BUT A GOOD ONE?
And then, big time, we spend our lives being concerned about being liked, approved
of, as if our very survival is threatened - judging by the the amount of time and effort we spend on it plus the extreme severity of some of our emotions - which indicate the level of threat that the primitive brain is assigning it, erroneously of course.
Once we realize that these may just involve something we prefer, instead of actually need, then we can let go of the constant scanning for these faux threats - and when we give up the scanning, we free up effort and also get rid of the "holding" and tension involved in constantly being 'on guard' - and then our stress goes down, which then allows our fear mechanism to be less sensitive. When we understand this, we can pull ourselves out of the downward spiral and begin to live in an upward spiral. In spirals, one thing triggers the next thing, which then triggers the next, in a continuous circle that is going up or going down - but which we can control, by first interrupting and then engaging our brain. And please note that the earlier in any causal chain that we interrupt, the better.
AND THEN... CONFUSION AND AMBIGUITY
And then, we throw a bunch of "negative feeling" emotions into the general soup of fear - which they mostly stem from.
For instance we "feel" guilt, but that is because we misconstrue what guilt is. Sure it can feel unpleasant, but while the feeling is a legitimate biological response, the cue (cause) for the feeling is not. Other than just an idea of it is better to do "good" than "bad" and that we merely have to choose, we have invented guilt as a punishing motivation to get us to do the right thing. Useful perhaps on a child, guilt and shame are not valid. See Shame And Guilt - Two Outdated Overused Emotions And The Thought Process.
Shame and guilt help to "keep us in line" so that we don't lose approval - and we don't want to lose approval because it lowers our survivability. That's the logic, but the premises (the base concepts) are in error. We can survive just fine if something we do does not meet the approval of others.
This also means we do not have to fear "not 'looking good'" when we walk through life. People even try to make a good impression even when walking through a group of absolute strangers who can have absolutely no effect on their lives. Indeed, we have managed to have confused thinking, caught up in a pool of vagueness and ambiguity.
THE ROLE OF A SENSE OF SELF-EFFICACY
One cannot be happy without a sense of competence in producing results in life. The more one develops that competence, the less one worries about life, as he has a sense of control over life - not complete control, but enough.
If one is to be happy, one would best give up waiting for others to judge as to whether we are good enough or trying to assess for ourselves whether we are good enough and instead go about building our power to produce that which we want. I call this "life productivity" - which is discussed in more depth in "Life Productivity" - Producing The Maximum Life In Your Life.
If we don't feel we can handle what is coming up in life, of course we feel fearful - and fearfulness is the opposite of happiness. If we do feel competent, then it is possible to achieve a relative "fearlessness" (with regard to faux fears), as is put forth in The Skill Of Fearlessness, What It Is And Why It Is Doable.
It is helpful, I think, to refocus ourselves so that we actually see our competencies - which would of course have us feel more competent. I recommend that virtually every person go through the process of putting together The Positives Portfolio - For Viewing Often.
REDUCING FEAR BY USING PHYSICAL STRATEGIES
If we "desensitize" ourselves from the hypervigilance and hypersensitivity that we have developed through extreme activity levels, tensions, stress, and psychological worry, then we can live a smoother life.
ATTAINING WISDOM ENOUGH TO SEE REALITY
As you've gathered by now, we tend to not see things clearly, to make up things that are not reality, to believe things that are not true, etc. and etc. How can one be happy if one does not learn wisdom and then apply it to life?
If you develop wisdom, you will experience less and less and less of faux fear because you will see right through it, understand it, and then insert what is correct - and also engage your thinking in the moment. That practice of engaging your thinking in the moment will increase your net usable intelligence very significantly. (Using The Higher Brain As It Should Be Used - The "Secret" To A Greater Life and Using Effective Thinking - the two together are incredibly powerful - tragically, few people fully develop both.)
And if you use wisdom and/or effective thinking techniques together with effective problem solving techniques the number of problems, mistakes, and unfavorable experiences plummets.
THE INITIAL REPLY OF SHORTER ANSWERS
The short answers, for now, are:
I NO LONGER DO THINGS OUT OF FEAR (EXCEPT FOR TIGERS)
No, I no longer do things out of fear, but more from choice, knowing that there will be consequences. Of course, some consequences can be uncomfortable and that is true for all of us - but we need not add to them to make them anything other than what they are - so they end up being deminimus, small, no big deal. And I know that they soon will pass - and I do not inflate them, which means I see what could happen as being so minor as to have virtually no significance - so I add no chemical cocktail that creates the "painful" chemicals that cause us discomfort.
NO, IT IS NOT AN EFFORT TO LIVE A POWERFUL LIFE
No, it is not an effort to live a powerful life. It is ironically less of an effort. There is no struggle with one's "self", no hysterical fearful thoughts, virtually no resistances - the data that is coughed up by the primitive brain that is associated with the incident and brought up to provide solutions is seen as just that: often inaccurate data, that must be screened but not considered as valid (mostly).
ARE THERE TIME WHEN THE PRIMITIVE BRAIN TAKES OVER?
Ah, yes, and the final question is a most incisive one.
It is actually true that when one is in a lower physical state of being, one's mental operation is not at the level of clarity or deep thinking, so the quality of the experience and the level of power are lower.
However, it is seen with some understanding that is programed in by me over time - that this is a normal functioning of the human being - such a being does not operate as a superman, but only a human with understanding and wisdom.
So, such days where there is a lower functioning for some reason just become "rest" and "rejuvenation" days, where the "master" (the higher brain) does not expect as much from the servants (the body and brain) - but the "master", though always preferring higher functioning, just accepts what is occurring as "no big deal" and certainly no threat, certainly not faulting himself for being human - he simply rides the roller coaster where it goes.
And, because he does not "add" any significance of meaning (in a negative way), there is no "bad experience" - what is experienced is "all is well", though not as it would be preferred, but with no pain around being in the lesser state for whatever recovery time is needed and appropriate and fitting in the reality of life. Life is experienced as happiness with a natural occurrence of sensations that are merely chemically caused but have no meaning. (Whew! I'll have to clarify that one. For now this is just quickly off the top of my head.)
(Of course, the articles that are relevant would come up by searching for fear and fearless and for "threat" or "danger".) Daniel Kahneman writes of the process of thinking in his great book Thinking, Fast And Slow - but you can find an article on the sight that summarizes it.
One of the things we set up, largely as children, is the fear of being inadequate, making a fool of ourselves, etc., but those are fake (faux) fears since they lack the significance and reality of being eaten by a tiger. The L.S. Barksdale materials deal with that type of fear, where the fear is "disappeared" by having the understanding of "no fault' and "no blame" - both of those are essential learning, in my opinion, if one is to have a good life. (I have most of his materials linked for free from the site, as I bought all of the copyrights from his estate)). (One thing that needs to be realized is this: I Am Whole And Complete - I Need Not Get Better - This Is Why.)
That's it for now. And those are great questions, to be pondered and answered in a more understandable way. And to be thoroughly answered by yourself and addressed and installed into your life.
