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fear : page 2 quotes articles books.......
Openness doesn't come from resisting our fears but from coming to know them well. Pema Chodron - one of her books: When Things Fall Apart : Heart Advice for Difficult Times
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The biggest barrier that most people have to overcome is fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of making decisions. Fear of change. Fear of failure.
And, of course, the big one - fear of success! It is this fear (and all of its cousins, like worry, anxiety, and self-doubt) that paralyzes you and keeps you from succeeding. ...
The good news is that you have control over your beliefs. You can change your belief system, which will help you conquer your fear...
Do you ever make any of the following statements?
I'm too old.
I'm too young.
There's never enough time.
I don't deserve that.
I work better under pressure.
Successful people are always busy.
All great ideas have been shared.
You're so smart. If only you'd apply yourself.These negative belief barriers are powerful motivators that will actually cause you to repel success....
The problem isn't just your fear. No, your fear represents a powerful, self-limiting belief! Until your beliefs are identified and replaced with empowering beliefs, no amount of positive thinking will help you create and attain success.
**from book: Conquer Fear!: A Unique Blend of Psychology and Theology to Change
Your Beliefs -- And Thus Your Results - by Lisa Jimenez...~ ~ ~ ~
 .... Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe. -- Tao te Ching Fear is the biggest energy thief there is. A master seducer and gigantic source of negative energy, fear shamelessly robs of us of everything good and powerful, preys on our vulnerabilities. Many people become mesmerized for a lifetime, letting negative attitudes seize control. Enough! Though some fears are intuitively protective but we can't let the irrational ones bamboozle us. Fear never stands alone; it inflames every vampiric emotion from worry to shame. This book shows you how to break fear's trance and reacquire lost energy. |
As a psychiatrist, I know we all experience fear. Me. You.
Your mother. The President. No one escapes.
The wise ones admit it, and eyes open, confront and heal fear. The ones who're in trouble look the other way, and bit by bit, get eaten alive. The point is to stay conscious. When we know what we're dealing with, we decide who's in charge. /// Anti-Fear Tactics Tactic One. Know your fears well to avoid ambush First, to de-energize fear you must name it. Identify the whole gamut, miniscule or monstrous. "I'm not smart enough, pretty enough... I'll never find a soul mate so I might as well not try." Some of my biggest fears include ending up drooling and alone in a nursing home: or if I suddenly die at home I'd just lie there unmissed until my cleaning lady found me. Breaking the Trance: Don't drift into denial. Say to the fear, "Thank you for sharing." Then make a conscious move into your heart-a shift into positive energy. from article : Breaking the
Trance of Fear |
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On Fear by Douglas Eby
"What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance,
is understanding fear; that means watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it.
We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it." ....KrishnamurtiAs a legacy of our earlier human history, the limbic system of the brain prepares the body to hunt and attack, or to escape, in reacting to an alarm.
This flight or fight response increases adrenalin production, sweating, muscle tension, breathing rate, blood pressure and heart rate; causes dry mouth and "goose-bumps"; lowers gastrointestinal activity, affects pupil dilation, and other body functions.
The brain can generate this complex response to presumed danger we aren't really facing, such as anticipated "bad" reactions from an audience even before we're at the podium, or a "negative" response from that man or woman you're interested in.
And the cortex or brain can interpret the response as "fear" or simply as "excitement" depending on context, expectations, temperament etc. We may even seek out and pay for the experience: at the theme park, or the horror movie, or diving with sharks.
But, basically, your system is getting aroused in a similar way, whether it's from the roller-coaster, or from a dark figure approaching on a deserted street.
And stress disorders result, not from cycling of the flight or fight response on and off regularly -- which is natural -- but from an inadequate shutdown of the response.
Fear is perhaps the most basic emotion we have, often precluding the ability to experience others. And we've learned how to be very successful in hiding our fears from others and ourselves.
Psychologist Robert Maurer, PhD, has worked with many successful writers and other creative people, and thinks fear may be indispensable for creative expression.
"Fear is good," he said in an interview. "As children, fear is a natural part of our lives, but as adults we view fear as a disease. It's not a disease. Children say they are afraid or scared, but adults use the clinical terms anxiety or depression. A writer should not view fear as something bad, but as essentially doing something right."
He thinks accepting and working with fear is part of the creative process. "If you find the right relationship, does fear go away? No. You publish your first novel, does that make fear go away? No," he says. "So your skill at being able to nourish yourself and give yourself permission to make mistakes and learn from them is your single greatest attribute as an artist and as a human being."
One of the ways Dr. Maurer has described to deal with fear is, first of all to realize it is a natural part of being engaged in living, and to seek healthy comforting when feeling alarmed by fear.
Success, he points out, is being able to respond to larger and more complex fear-alarms without reacting with angry disappointment, believing stories like "I don't deserve success" or "It's the same old plot that dozens of other scripts have used" or engaging in some other self-defeating behavior like drug use to anesthetize feeling.
Julia Cameron in her book "The Right to Write" comments, "All artists are often terrified... the mythology we carry is that if we have fear around our creativity we're not supposed to be doing it, because fear means you are not a 'real' artist."
In the chapter on working with emotions in The Personal Journey Workbook by Mary Rocamora, there is a list of examples of fear:
"Anxiety (specific and free-floating); Tension; Jealousy; Apprehensiveness (anticipatory fear); Dread; Panic; Terror; Fright; Paranoia; Defensiveness; Feeling threatened; Shut down or disconnected (fear of feeling); Disassociation (distancing from feelings); Trying to control."
The workbook suggests picking "one that feels old and familiar" and looking more closely at it: "What color is it?; What temperature is it?; Where is it located in your body?; What are the circumstances under which this emotion comes up?; Where does this come from in your personal history?; How does this reactive, automatic habit distort what's really going on?"
The authors also note that "Unfortunately, many of us have underlying emotions that are too frightening, overwhelming or painful to feel directly."
One of the conceptions of fear as it relates to talent development is the "fear of success" -- perhaps first described by Matina Horner in 1969 (described by Janet Shibley Hyde in her book "Half the Human Experience -- the Psychology of Women").
Horner also referred to it as a motive to avoid success. One of the tests she devised was asking subjects to complete a story (women responded to the female version, men to the male version): "Anne (John) finds herself (himself) at the top of her (his) medical school class..."
Stories by men "usually indicated happiness and feelings of satisfaction over achievement." But female responses were "often bizarre: Anne starts proclaiming her surprise and joy. Her fellow classmates are so disgusted with her behavior that they jump on her in a body and beat her up. She is maimed for life."
One of the most potent ways to use fear to our advantage, and help overcome the hold fear has over us, is to "learn about it, come directly into contact with it" as Krishnamurti wrote.
Susan Jeffers, Ph.D., who titled her book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway has commented, "Whenever we take a chance and enter unfamiliar territory or put ourselves into the world in a new way, we experience fear. Very often this fear keeps us from moving ahead with our lives.
"The trick is to feel the fear and do it anyway. So many of us short-circuit our living by choosing the path that is most comfortable. Realize that fear will never go away as long as you continue to grow. The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out and do it."
American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron refers to a spiritual dimension of fear. A resident teacher at Gampo Abbey, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, she writes in her book The Places That Scare You: "To the extent that we stop struggling against uncertainty and ambiguity, to that extent we dissolve our fear.
"The synonym for total fearlessness is full enlightenment -- wholehearted, open-minded interaction with our world. ... Openness doesn't come from resisting our fears but from coming to know them well."
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Robert Maurer quotes from article: Writers can use fear to advantage
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A story about facing fear: Once there was a young warrior. Her teacher told her that she had to do battle with fear... The day arrived.
The student stood on one side and fear stood on the other... The warrior was feeling very small, and fear was looking big and wrathful... The young warrior roused herself, went towards fear and prostrated herself three times, asking, "May I go into battle with you?"....
Then the young warrior said, "How can I defeat you?"
Fear replied, "My weapons are that I talk fast, and get very close to your face. Then you get completely unnerved and you do whatever I say. If you don't do what I tell you, I have no power. You can listen to me, and you can have respect for me. You can even be convinced by me. But if you don't do what I say, I have no power."
In that way, the student warrior learned how to defeat fear.
from book: Pema Chodron. When Things Fall Apart : Heart Advice for Difficult Times
The Eighth Gateway - Face Your Fears:
from book Everyday Enlightenment.. by Dan Millman
Fear is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. Like pain, it can alert and advise you, but may also cloud or limit your life. Fear appears in many disguises, such as "I'm not really interested in doing that" or "Why bother?" or "I can't."
You face fear every day - fear of failure, of rejection, even the fear of being yourself. Your fears are not walls, but hurdles. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the conquering of it.
1. Fear is with us every day in little ways. Our souls may be immortal, but we are also physical beings who can suffer pain, injury, or death, suffer embarrassment, failure, shame, or rejection.
Thus primal fear gnaws at the foundation of nearly every endeavor.
2. Fear is not only your adversary; it is also your guide and advisor. It is natural and even appropriate - even a sign of sanity - to let fear guide you in physically dangerous situations where a lack of attention or care could mean injury or death.
3. Such moments of physical risk are rare. Your major battles with fear are not outside you; they lurk inside, in the cavern of the psyche, in the arena of psychological survival and dark imagings, where fear shape-shifts into subtle guises such as self doubt, insecurity, lack of confidence, shyness, inhibition, timidity - a reluctance to assert, express or even be yourself.
1. Expect, Allow and Accept That Fear Will Arise.
If you have panic disorder, expect that you'll have to deal with it.2. When Fear Comes, Stop, Wait, and Let it Be.
Our urge is to run from fear. Running only re-sensitizes you.
Stay with it and allow the feeling to be there.3. Focus on the Present. Use your senses to get grounded.
Touch; smell; notice the colors and sounds around you.<< from Jerilyn Ross Triumph over Fear
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* articles:**
Being bold - by Douglas Eby.
Courage and creativity - by Douglas Eby
Courage, as Rollo May makes clear, is not the absence of insecurity, fear, anxiety or despair,
but resides in the decision to move through these feelings as constructively or creatively as possible. ... In an article
about Sandra Ford Walston, Jill Lawrence wrote: "Walston says the two things in her life that required ultimate courage
were the giving up of her son for adoption and embarking on a writing career.Fear and creativity - by Douglas Eby. Fear can keep us from our creative work and joy.
Fear Itself by Robert Maurer, PhD
Taking risks - by Douglas Eby.
One of the major themes in material about increasing creativity is this one of risk-taking.
related: anxiety / fear / courage articles
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