On fear

Ataraxia – Freedom from fear

A person in fear, especially if it’s mortifying,is often considered to be under threat. The person is induced but never cajoled,into it by perceived danger or threat.

Fear is primal. Overload of sympathetic system. It is a driver, but without direction. It leads us astray. Fear is all pervasive. It owns you, whatever their provenance. It births many other states – Repulsion, avoidance, fruitless contemplations, worry, dread, shame, hesitation etc.

Some call irrational fear as phobia but everything is rational if you intellectualise it. Your perception defines what is rational or irrational.

It doesn’t take exceptional humility to admit that we are often confused about what we feel. You can stay afraid without knowing of what. ( Generalised anxiety disorder). There is only you – the prime object of every fearful contemplation.

Contemplating fear is perilous, even for the enlightened. The obtuse cyclical nature pattern amplifies with attention.

Even response must have a stimuli – reason. Every reason makes things happen. Sometimes lack of reason is the reason of fear.

Giving reason to what you feel is often backwards – a retrospective exercise. “I am scared of rejection because i was rejected by a hottie once”

Feeling dominate consciousness. We feel because at the moment – the past antecedents become us. No conclusions made from past evidences will be true when the self remains dynamic.

Intellectualising fear with Neurobiological interpretations and correlations (Like the amygdala projections) is like trying to gauge sum of parts that make a car by labelling the components like steering wheels.

Acknowledging hyperactivity of amygdala adds nothing to the experiential understanding of all pervasive fear.

A simple exercise can be to substitute amygdala with “Fairies’ or Descartes spirits. The system is unexplained by examining just the parts.

I can intellectualise fear into : psychological,historical,scientific, emotive explain actions.

A property is said to be essential for the application of concept, if without the property the concert doesn’t arise.

The property here is the self – Consciousness. The character of experiences are in question here. It depends on context and environmental clues, of which we are already aware. Don’t make a monument of them.

Solution to the ailment ?

Stop treating fear as an enemy. Fear is you.

1. Apply the principles of CBT ( cognitive behavioural therapy) – reframe it

I am scared to i feel pumped up.

Change your relationship with fear. Treating it as a sign of weakness is wrong. It is your guide.

Unlike the immediacy of the previous motivator, this one is all about anticipation. When you’re hopeful, you’re anticipating something good happening; when you’re fearful, you’re anticipating the opposite.

“This dimension is at times more powerful than pleasure/pain, as is evidenced in everyday behavior,” Fogg notes. “For example, in some situations, people will accept pain (a flu shot) in order to overcome fear (anticipation of getting the flu)

BJ fogg

2. Disengagement – Disengage from it. Note it.

Note the fear, note its bodily experience but don’t intellectualise it.

3. Treat it as a compass

Fear is the bridge between ego and death

OSHO