The Fear Experiment

Fear is not what you think it is. You are not your fear. Fear is not the real you.
Fear is a useful signal on the path to freedom. We do anything to avoid it, but if we look at it closer we will be surprised what is really going on, and what you can learn from fear.

THE FEAR EXPERIMENT

Try this experiment. Say "I fear...(and add what you fear)" And stand back and be aware of what thoughts start racing around your head. Are you comfortable? Do you start obsessing? Do you feel stronger or weaker? Just observe.

Now let’s get curious about what is going on.

For two examples, let’s say you said:
“I fear that I don’t have enough money to retire.”
“I fear that my boss doesn’t think I am competent.”

Now try saying…

I love the fear that I don’t have enough money to retire.
I love the fear that my boss doesn’t think I am competent.

Why would you say this kind of statement? Because often it is more true. It is the fear that we nurture, not the thing we fear. We keep fear alive. We obsess about it. We love the fear, by feeding it. Some people think that their fears keep them in line, but far more often fears do the opposite for people. They keep them frozen, and playing to their weaknesses not their strengths. A frozen person often goes into denial and does not make good choices, or reacts in an extreme way that also does not create their best choices.

In the first example, about retirement money, people may either do nothing, or try to hang on to money, and make no investments or risks with it, or do small, simple but foolish or unlikely things like buying lottery tickets, because the idea of money and projecting into the future scares them and freezes them. Ultimately, they are not really doing the best thing for their future comfort with money. The fear is managing them, they are not managing the fear.

In the second example, about competence, people think that if their boss does not think they are competent, then they are not. Is this true? First, they often don’t know what their boss thinks? Second, they can never, ever, truly control what their boss thinks, or what anyone thinks. Yet, we obsess about what others want or think, and take actions that may not assist what we want. People can work extra hard, and often they are still not pleasing their boss (I’ve seen it many times in my role as a Human Resources Manager), or they may be pleasing them, but they believe they are not. They are playing to their weaknesses not their strengths. They never stopped to consider that their competence, and how they think about it is, is ultimately determined by them alone. This reveals that fears are often a self-esteem issue. There is nothing wrong with the person themselves. Playing to their strengths can put them in a better position, maybe with their boss, but more realistically in their next career move, one better suited to their strengths, where they don’t worry about their competence at all.

Instead of taking them apart and getting close to our fears, we feed our fears and let them grow without understanding them, until we feel a victim to them. How do you turn the hunted, into the hunter? How do you put fear on the run? It is not easy because of much ingrained programming and patterns are difficult to let go of, but it is possible, and 80% of that possibility is accomplished with awareness. When you have awareness, you can see your fear as a useful signal to a path to freedom. Some may call it facing fears, but it is also becoming curious about it and realizing that fear is a human condition and you are not alone. It is also really a part of our programming making us suffer needlessly, and all of us can turn that around. Love your fear for what it is telling you, not by feeding it. In other words, take the information, not the fear. And, instead love yourself and you may find that your fear will diminish or transform.