No doubt in your life you have experienced fear.
It may range from a mild discomfort to a stressful physical reaction.
When we give in to our fears, we find ourselves back doing things we know how to do and are comfortable, but we don't grow.
When we breakthrough our fears, and take action despite our fears a new possibility for living emerges.
So what exactly is fear? And is there strategy to breakthrough our fears?
There are only 2 kinds of fears.
The fear of the loss of that which you infatuate with and the fear of the gain of that which you resent.
The truth is, your addiction to a one sided fantasy of pleasure without pain, gain without loss, benefit without drawback is what drives your corresponding nightmare or fear.
If you infatuate with making money you may fear the loss of it
If you infatuate with looking successful you may fear failure
If you infatuate with being seen as nice you may fear being seen as mean.
There are no fears of the unknown, your fear has content from the past that you are projecting forward into the future.
Your fear is an assumption that in the future, through your senses you will experience more pain than pleasure, more drawback that benefit, more loss than gain in relation to your highest values.
Your fear is the balance to your fantasy.
Your fear is feedback that you have a wish or goal or desire of the future that contains more benefit than drawback, more pleasure than pain more gain than loss.
Both your fear and your fantasy are lies and distortion of reality.
The truth is there are no one-sided outcomes or events in life.
Have you ever dreamed of owing that new house? And when you finally get it you realise it had drawbacks? The high repayments mean you don’t have as much disposable income, it requires repairs and maintenance? You get used to it and desire a new one but now you’re stuck?
Or you get married.
Who would agree that every aspect of being married is all pleasureful and no pains? No one right?
Or you have kids, Need I say more?
That is why your fantasies remain elusive, because they are not real.
The corresponding nightmares are there to bring you back into balance.
That is why the buddha said
“Seeking that which is unobtainable and trying to avoid that which is unavoidable is the source of all suffering”
Your various judgements determine your path in life while you chase fantasises and attract nightmares until you bring them to balance.
So what exactly is a fantasy?
You set yourself up for fantasises when you try to pursue an outcome that is impossible, improbable or unstrategised.
Impossibles are outcomes that defy universal laws. Wanting to fly is an example of this, but the most common, impossible outcomes that drive our fantasy is trying to get a one sided event. Seeking a pleasure without a pain, an up without a down a support without a challenge.
If you give your children everything they want and they never have to work for anything and have no accountabilities then they stay immature, they never grow and they are juvenile and dependent.
You need challenge in order to grow. You need challenge to fulfill your destiny.
That is why the more down and out you have been, the more inward and upward you are destined to rise.
The second common form of fantasy are improbales. Improbable outcomes are goals or objectives that don’t align with your values.
Everyone has a unique set of values. Your values dictate what you allow into your consciousness and what you take action on.
Expecting to live outside your values or expecting someone to live inside your values is futile.
If you have a goal that doesn’t align with your values, you can either change your goal to match your values or change your values to match your goals to maximise the probability of achievement.
Your goals require you to endure pleasure and pain, support and challenge,
Unstrategised outcomes are also a fantasy. If you don’t know the path you will take then you set yourself up to not fulfill the outcome.
Your fear is pushing you to work out a strategy to achieve that which you are striving for. Your fear is not a weakness or a fault or something to just be pushed through.
It is feedback that you have an impossible, improbable or unstrategised fantasy that you are projecting into the future.
Your fears, frustrations, disappointments are all feedback that you have set an impossible, improbable or unstrategised goal. Your fears are a feedback mechanism from your intuition trying to get you to become conscious of the downside that you are ignoring and set real goals, with real timeframes that are strategized and aligned with your values to maximise the chance of fulfilment.
When you see more upside or more downside to an event you react. Your reactions are driven by biological autonomics and occur quicker than you are even conscious of them.
When you see both sides simultaneously you have objectivity and can act
Objectivity means a state of even mindedness.
Your fears are trying to get you to see the downside that you are attempting to avoid, and create a strategic plan to overcome it, mitigate risks and set real goals in real timeframes.
Your fears may arise in any of the seven areas of life
You may have a fear that you are not smart enough, educated enough or degreed enough
You may fear that you will lose money or won’t have enough money or be seen as poor
You may fear that you will be criticised or rejected socially
You may fear that you will fail, or not achieve an outcome
You may fear that you break the morals or ethics of a spiritual or moral authority and be a so called bad or immoral person.
You may fear that you are not attractive enough, or too young or too old, or not fit or healthy enough.
You may fear that you will be rejected from or defy the values of a family member
So what can you do to dissolve your fears?
Well as I said before, you have no fear of the unknown. You have content from the past that you are projecting into the future.
When you have a fear arise, ask yourself, what exactly am I scared of?
Get clear on exactly what is the content of your fear
Your fear is based on a moment from the past, that you are projecting forward into the future.
The second step is to identify the moments that you are fearing will occur again.
Where were you, when were you, who did you do it to and who perceived you.
Now go to that moment. Get present and ask yourself, what were the benefits that I got from that.
Keep asking yourself that until you have brought balance to the situation.
You will know when you have brought balance to the moment when you have no fear of it occurring again.
Once you have dissolved the past, look forward into the future.
Ask yourself is this outcome I am looking for possible? Is it a one-sided fantasy that you wrongly imagine will be all good and no bad, all up and no down? Does it break universal laws?
Is it probable? Is it aligned with your values? Will you endure pleasure and pain in equal measure in pursuit of it?
Lastly is it strategized? Have you considered all the downsides? Have you planned and envisioned every step? Have you asked what problems will I face and how can I solve them in advance?
If your desired outcome is aligned with your values, you can accept the pleasures along with the pains of reaching it and you have a strategy to mitigate risks your fear will dissolve.