In a client conversation yesterday, we ended up talking about a leader who was very Goal driven and also for whom feedback was difficult. To hear to receive. One of the reasons why feedback is often hard, for many, is Fear. Although that is not the answer we will hear. It rhymed.
I wondered, we put such emphasis and importance on goal setting but don’t really talk about what might get in the way. And what if we approached Fear, with the same ‘thinking’ and rigour and did Fear setting also?
Fear has been used to control for eons. It has been turned into a motivator even. History and the stories are full of it. After all Fear is as old as love. But we don’t really see as many books, or poems written about it. Heck we are even taught to be afraid of God. Something I find incomprehensible. We have a Fear of fear .
Fear has become a Habit. And therefore mindless
Growing up, I have had a strange almost non-existent relationship with Fear. I have fed rats, played with earthworms in my hand, gone off into the dark, and also jumped from my 14 feet loft often. I have been lucky or stupid most times. Or I have had really powerful angels. I believe the later more. Only much later I have had to unpack “fear” and really understand what was beneath the seeming “No-fear” syndrome.
Fear often holds us and so many of our dreams and hopes hostage. It does warrant some seeing. We have all felt it at different times, for different things, for different durations and in different ways.
So, what is Fear?
Fear is a natural, powerful, and primitive human emotion. It involves a universal biochemical response as well as a high individual emotional response. Fear alerts us to the presence of danger or the threat of harm. Whether that danger is physical, psychological, real or imagined does NOT matter. Fear is a human experience.
Because fear has such a negative connotation, in a super hero worshiping culture fear is has no place and is suppressed or redressed. And that only pushes it into more insidious forms. Sometimes people instigate fear, in order to hide theirs. And sometimes, we get so used to this constant din of fear – we become afraid to be free of it. And often mask it with anger. That is Sad.
The question is can the mind observe fear? . We have many fears, fear of death, life, loneliness darkness, public speaking, being nobody, driving, difficult conversations, old age, animals, failure, wild, fear of not becoming a great success, not being a leader, a writer, fear of many different things. The list can go on and on.
If we look closely fear is a constant anxiety of Becoming or Not Becoming. Said, differently if we did not have to become anything there would be no fear.
As I reflect, when we are in the throes of Fear a few things happen..
Our thinking is warped. We imagine many things, mostly worst case scenarios. We operate from an either or mode. We become irrational. Exaggerate the potential negative consequences of taking action. Understate the potential positive results of taking action. Ignore the costs to inaction. We lie to ourself and others. Stop taking chances, dancing singing, creating, putting creativity out there, starting a new venture, stopping something and so on…
But for me the TWO biggest casualties of Fear are
Becoming Inauthentic – Becoming Stagnant.
We become “somebody else” out of fear of consequences.We lie, even and often to ourselves.
We become “Stuck” in the same belief, job, relationship, childhood experience, place.
When we become Inauthentic, we are going against our nature. When we become stagnant we go against the Nature, which only knows to move and move forward. And then entropy is fast forwarded. Simply put when we become stagnant we are on a fast forward path to the end.
This should be good enough a reason to face fears and move- me thinks
Having said that, we are always trying to “out-do” fear, treat it like an enemy. Perhaps that is the problem. Except our ways are flawed and not thought through. Dare devil rides and popularity of Fear factor show, Stephen King novels – should all be an indicator.
So how do we handle Fear. It’s a Two Step Process
Step 1 – Understand -Sort- Label it.
What we cannot understand we cannot deal with. In our imagination it becomes bigger than it is. Just like the scary shadow animals.That which is undistinguished will run us.
Susan Jeffers, in her book “Feel the fear and do it anyway” suggests, making a list of ALL the fears and classifying them into three “Levels” in the ascending order of their difficulty in dealing and paralysing effect. This is important because otherwise, without thinking we put ALL the fears in the same basket and get overwhelmed.
Level 1 – External Fear (things that happen outside)
fear of heights, Covid, bitter gourd, snake, storm, losing a job, losing someone, being alone, accident, theft etc.
Level 2 – Internal Fears (how will it make you feel on the inside)
Fear of feeling alone, ageing, ridicule, not mattering, shamed, loss of control, vulnerable etc
Level 3 – The Underlying Real Fear – “I can’t handle it”
In the end here is only One fear phew!– the mother of all fears. And so only one thing to worry about handling – everything else stops here. We just need a hack for this one.
Our mind saying – I can’t handle it. Because fear is in our Mind. We need our mind back in action.
Think about it, fear of Covid, when it started and now, has dropped considerably. The COVID Virus has not reduced (Level 1- external) neither has it impact of potential dangers(Level 2 Internal)- what has changed is now We know how to HANDLE it so the fear is less.
So in effect – we just need a way, a hack for Level 3 fears. Level 1 and 2 – if we can stop then from sliding to Level 3 – we should be good.
Step 2 – Do the Fear-Setting
Remember the same rigour and respect as Goal setting
What is Fear-Setting?
Something that Tim Ferris, in his TED talk came out with. A structured reflection exercise used to help you see decisions more clearly when fear is holding you back and distorting your thinking. It was inspired by the stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger, who famously said “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
I used this with my fear of Driving. When I was in my teens I had an incident which put me off driving. I would get palpitation even if the car went above 60kmph. And I have found all kind of excuses to not learn to drive. Last year when I had to run a session of Dealing with fear – I resailed to bring any amount of authenticity to the conversation, I would have to go through it myself. And so, I decided to use this process for my fear of driving.
Fear Setting has 4 Steps: (DPRC)
- Define: Make a list of your “Fears”, your worst case scenarios, your doubts, and your “what-if”s. Write it all down, and don’t hold back. What all might go wrong?
- Prevent:Make a list of ways you could reduce the likelihood of each of the worst-case scenarios from happening. What can I do to prevent each of them. What actions could you take to make those scenarios less likely to come to fruition
- Repair: Make a list ways you could repair the damage, if this situation were to come true. What actions could you take to repair the damage, or get yourself back on track?
- Consider: Make a list of the Potential Benefits of Taking Action and the Consequences and costs of Inaction
Growing up I have a huge fear of my Mom dying. I guess it was triggered by not having grown up with her. When we were staying together, It got so bad at one time, I used to wake my middle of the night to check on her. Once, she had to go out of town and I had to deal with her not being there for ten days. I was in a state of Panic and could not show. In my mind I figured, or imagined, since I was so close, if something happened to her, something would happen to me also. Strangely just voicing this “course of action” just in case made me feel better. I did not have to consider a world without her. This made me free of the constant fear. Since this scenario would happen only once and I had the next steps planned. So I need not worry everyday. I think I unconsciously applied the same principle to many things in life.
So not Avoiding but Accepting the fear freed me.
Perhaps fear sometimes is an excuse to continue living a mediocre life. What if the notion of fear keeps us from really knowing our immense light and then the knowledge that we are the only ones who have kept ourselves in the dark. What if all our greatest fears have already come true?
Last year and half I have come across the fear of death many times given my work with Grief, and losing a family member. It has perplexed me. I realised something. We don’t really fear death because after that we don’t really remember anything. We fear dying. And dying with regrets.
Perhaps we need to give Faith a chance.
When I was little, I had a quote pasted on my cupboard.
“When God leads you to the edge of the cliff, trust Him fully and let go, only 1 of 2 things will happen, either He’ll catch you when you fall, or He’ll teach you how to fly!”
I have often been comforted by that quote. We sell our soul to fear and become slaves. Get used to a shrunken life. Filled with regrets and then become bitter. In that bitterness we also start to make others and the world at large small. It’s not fair. It a lousy way to live. Everybody will die someday, it is a given. But that does not mean we live every day waiting for it. Maybe we would have less dis-ease and more joy, if we were not afraid as much.
I remember the movie Apocalypto and the scene where the father tells his son to not look in the eyes of the people from a different tribe who have just been attacked and have fear in them. It is a contagious disease he says. Perhaps that is true. And so we need to treat it just like we treat any other disease. With attention and care.
Nothing goes away till it is fully lived. Perhaps its time we Moved from Fear to Faith
Fear – Khalil Gibran
It is said that before entering the sea
a river trembles with fear.She looks back at the path she has traveled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.The river needs to take the risk
of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.
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