I fear I have been planning (and doing some work on! It’s not all just daydreaming … :) ) a post on emotions for some time now. Well, I recently read an article in my engineering magazine, Engineers Australia (my version is from the civil engineering college), quite a few months ago now, and it gave me a spur to get this done, at least, on the topic of fear.To set the scene a little, I wrote some time ago about the notion that anger is not an emotion: that view works well for me, as it gives me a spur to get behind the anger, and see what is going on, which gives me (not necessarily ANYONE else, mind you [1]) the best tools for managing my anger. (This is something I decided to do when I was about ten: at that age, I resolved to ensure my anger didn’t control me, that I “used” my anger constructively – but that “used” is in the sense of “power with”, rather than “power over”. Suppressing something never gets anywhere …Buddhism was particularly good at teaching me that. [1]) Since then, I have been experimenting with the notion of viewing fear on the grounds that it also is not an emotion.Well, that didn’t work so well – and, after reading the article I mentioned, I know that that is because fear is not an emotion :)The article was titled “Physical safety achieved through emotional safety”, by Margot Cairnes (see
here for more about this author, who I hold in high regard), and was about the importance of fear as an instinctive reaction. In my words, in effect what happens when one is strongly afraid is that the brain short-circuits the thinking part, and resorts to using just the
"reptilian" residual,
brain-stem of the brain
(my descriptions may not be quite right, so I suggest you look up the links for more exact facts if you want them: I'm just explaining this as a prelude to my main post concepts). What this leads to is a nerve signal to the brain not having to go through a whole host of messy, time-consuming, energy-consuming thinking, it just hits the brain stem and is re-routed into whatever has to be done. So ... your hand touches a flame and flinches out of harm's way before you can think about it. (There's a section on the neurobiology of fear at Wikipedia - click
here.)
In other words, fear switches in a biologically useful survival reaction - apart from preparing the body for a "fight or flight" response (which should actually be fight, flight or network-and-nurture [3]).
So, perhaps one could actually consider fear to be a sub-emotion, one of the foundations upon which emotions are built.
Those emotions can be expressed in a whole range of ways, some destructive (including an angry expression, such as losing one's temper and having an uncontrollable rage or temper tantrum), and some constructive (including an angry expression). As an example of the latter, if I find myself becoming angry at an injustice in the world, generally an abuse of human rights, I will do SOMETHING about it [4].
So what does all this mean?
It means that I need to acknowledge that fear, as with anger, has a good expression, and a bad expression.
I want the good expression of fear to continue - I want my hand to flinch out of the way before I have to waste time thinking about being burnt.
What I don't want to continue is the automatic expression of the now inappropriate expression of fear, possibly from the early mammalian parts of my brain, where I freeze and, in effect, "play dead". That's damn useful if I am a small mammal being threatened by a meat eater on a plain somewhere, but if I am, say, a human being bullied or threatened as a result of office politics (or, worse, being threatened by a criminal, or yet worse again, being threatened by someone who wants to continue a form of discrimination (think about the threats made to activists during the apartheid regime), then that reaction is not very useful.
What I want is to be able to function effectively while I am experiencing the effects of fear.
So, for instance, if I were inclined to use affirmations to deal with such things, I might consider using something along the lines of "I allow my good fear, whilst staying in my forebrain to function at my best despite any bad fear". Hmmm ... glad I don't write affirmations for a living :)The second part of that is meant to focus on the more recently evolved, "superior" parts of the brain - i.e., let's use
ALL the skills I have, not just the simplest, quickest, most instinctive parts.
So, if I am being threatened by a criminal, let's think carefully about how to defuse the situation and get out of it intact, rather than just fall in a screaming heap on the ground, which might aggravate them into, say, taking whatever they wanted and then giving me a kick or three for good measure for forcing them to actually do some work to get their money.
If I am being threatened by people who want me to stop doing something, then I need to think carefully and weight up the various threats, my vulnerabilities, my principles and ethics, the help I can get (including for advice on how to deal with the threats), etc, etc, etc.
Now, in terms of functioning while afraid, I recently read a book written by an ex-SAS trooper on the topic of self defence:
"Self Defence in 30 Seconds", by
Robert Redenbach (Pub. Courtney Ballantyne, Bond University, Qld., Australia, 2007, Dist. Macmillan, ISBN 9 780980 382204 0 4). In this book, his comments about fear are (in part):
- there are rubbish attitudes towards fear such as the acronym "False Evidence Appearing Real", whereas fear is something that has survival value;
- fear is natural, reliable, mobilises, constrains, inhibits, filters, distorts, is contagious, is proof and is an opportunity (you will have to get the book to get the explanations which go against this);
- learn your personal response to fear (not everyone reacts the same way) by experiencing situations where you are physically and psychologically stretched (the physical component is because this book is focused on physical self defence; being psychically stretched could be used in lieu of that for the sort of context I am discussing)
- gain as much knowledge and familiarity as you can with the techniques you are going to be working with;
- develop health and fitness (which, again, for this context could be "develop psychic strength and wellbeing"); and
- work beyond yourself (i.e. for others - which has been a massive motivator for me personally in many situations).
This little book is an interesting one, and I will return to it when I post more in the future about psychic attack. Interestingly enough, the book begins with an
epigraph [5] by Ralph Waldo Emerson:
"Do the thing as you will have the power"
That is very similar to a saying I would consider for much of the gist of this post:
"Feel the fear and do it anyway." - which does
NOT necessarily apply to situations such as physical threats, etc, but may do so to other situations.
In any case, what you need to do after something has stretched you or made you afraid, is analyse it - review it, see what your responses were, what signals you could see in yourself that you were afraid, etc, etc, etc.
Now let's consider a few examples which might show a few other aspects of this topic. Each of these originally started as a different post, but I have decided to combine them all together into one post.
As an initial example, there is my recent post of
"fear of difference".
If you're
afraid of difference, well, perhaps you were the victim of a
pogrom in a pas
t life, and what has carried through is the notion that, if you are different, bad things will happen to you - and being seen with, or associated with, anyone who is different may lead to bad things coming to you. [6] Or ... you could have had someone like a priest tell you that being different in certain ways (e.g., being gay or lesbian, not to mention bisexual, trans or intersex [the priest would probably have just used the word "homosexual" - which is one reason I NEVER trust people who use that word rather than the LGBTIQ acronym/words) you will not go to Heaven. In other words, difference will deny you your immortality, and hence you may want to keep it as far away from you as possible.
This is actually probably one of the few cases where the saying "False Evidence Appearing Real" would apply. The values and assumptions underlying this fear are complete, utter and absolute rubbish.
Still, it does raise a useful example for some self analysis: is there anywhere your behaviour is because you are reacting out of fear? If so, how are you going to overcome your problem?
Before moving on to the next example, I wish to make it abundantly clear that the problem of discrimination against any form of difference also has a whole raft of other causes that need to be addressed, including lack of awareness of difference [7].
Next, let's consider fear of problems.
When I was a kid at school, I hated being set problems to solve in maths - it was work! Didn't those pesky teachers know the Universe had decreed that kids should be allowed to play and do whatever they want and be given everything on a plate?
Evidently not :)
I still can't say I love problems - well, some I do. I enjoy working and puzzling out a solution to some engineering problems ("challenges"), and working out how to do things like boat design details better. I even enjoy things like practising so I can improve my psychic skills, and exercising to improve my health (which I must get back into, now that my sister has gone home after her treatment). But problems of the type where I have to learn something about myself, or develop a skill, are often still difficult. They may still be "not fun".
In fact, I would MUCH rather that I experienced a problem because of karma than because of learning. If it is karmic - GREAT! It will probably have a finite limit and then be over. But if I am experiencing something because I have to learn, grow and change, that will keep at me - just like those pesky teachers, all those years (decades!) ago, until I learn/grow/change as the case may be.
The point is: problems (I'm not going to give them the PC term "challenges", I'm going to call a spade a shovel, gosh darnit!) are part and parcel of life, whether you're incarnate or discarnate - after all, growing doesn't stop just because you're dead, for goodness sake! (Mind you, it does tend to happen in a MUCH more pleasant environment if you're discarnate and have passed over to the astral ...)
But there are people in the physical world who are either uncomfortable with, or downright afraid of, problems.
It is best not to suppress emotions: far better in the long term to get the facing them and resolving issues done early, before they build into things that are more set in one's character, and have to be attached with a pick and shovel, rather than a spoon, so to speak.
Of course, to view doing so as a benefit, one has to:
(a) believe or know that they won't go away, and unlike our views of such things when we are small children, and think we can trick our parents into forgetting about something, neither our parents nor the Universe will actually do so, nor, more importantly, will our own Higher Self or Soul; and
(b) have a long term view that short term pain is worth the long term gain (a bit like having a painful massage to get rid of a problem like
shin splints, although that may need other treatments).
This raises the point that some fear, particularly fear relating to social standing or short term things like missing out on a party or an opportunity, are really a function of perspective. Change your perspective, and the fear may ease, or even go away entirely.
Finally, let's consider
fear and parenting.
Now, parenting is something I have touched upon before - see my previous posts
here, and
here. (The topic also crops up
here.)
In the context of fear, what I want to cover is the fear of being thought or accused of being a bad parent. I have seen this in a few people - actually, particularly men, who have to worry about whether or not they are going to be accused of being an abuser if they cuddle their own chidlren.
That is not a joke: I have met such men, I have read letters from the partners of such men: this worry is real. (It is also more than sad that most child abuse could have been stopped early if adults had believed the child - and that comment comes from the experience of a wide range of people who have been close to me over the last few decades.)
Such fear of not living "up" to society's views, standards and expectations is both a form of social control, and a major restriction on the parenting.
It is scary to see, as what this sort of fear leads to is
exactly what was feared in the first place: bad parenting. If your first reaction is NOT "what is best for my child?", but rather "what would I be expected to do?", you are at risk of making decisions on the basis of others' approval/disapproval, rather than the best interests of your child.
This is one of the problems of unresolved fear generally: making decisions to sate the fear, rather than what is best.
Such an attitude can also, ironically, lead to not getting help, as one may be afraid of being thought incompetent. That latter aspect is one I have seen with a few engineers, actually ...
Well, I think that is just about enough for now. I'll just mention that fear of of the new can be an restriction on people learning new psychic skills, and here is a
link to a story about someone who stood up to some injustice and abuse. May I be so brave - if, perhaps, a little more fortunate.
I found some links which may or may not be of interest or value to others is assessing this notion of mine. I haven’t looked at them, but here they are:
On this, a young person fairly close to me recently apparently expressed the view that they held on to their rage because they then feels “powerful”.
Huh?
The one thing I NEVER feel when angry is “powerful”. I don’t even particularly feel “in control” of anything – in fact, anger suggests to me that things (i.e. the situation – people + circumstances) have reached a desperate situation of last resort.
It is interesting to hear that this young person feels that, as the energy concerned bleeds out of the person in many ways – especially psychic versions of “passive aggressive” behaviour (such as taking down psychic structures I have built up for protection, on the basis that this young (not even 21!) person subconsciously doesn’t want anything to change, or be different to their childhood – and I am a threat, as I bring change. The person concerned is completely unaware of what they are doing – and is not particularly open to psychic notions, so there is absolutely no point in talking to the person (guessing whether they are male or female yet? Good! Keep guessing!) concerned about this. This is something which I have to just sigh, and endure until either life teaches the young person this lesson (and there are other lessons to be learnt first, lessons of greater importance) or they move (apparently going overseas in the near future). If one is being affected by this sort of behaviour, one can always leave the situation if one cannot cope with it, of course :)
This is a good example of the down side of something I have advocated in the past, continue to advocate, and HAVE to (ethically) continue to advocate: that there are two options for dealing with emotions that are adversely impacting on others. (1) change the emotion; or(2) genuinely and effectively hold the emotion in so it doesn’t impact on others, whether directly (i.e. through your words or behaviour) or “indirectly” (i.e. through psychic attack – which is when [to simplify a whole lot] energy leaves your aura in response to thoughts/emotions). The reality is, option (1) is a lot easier and more reliable than option (2), but people are so afraid of change, afraid of success when trying to change, afraid of failure when trying to change, or just even addicted to holding on to emotional traits as definers of their uniqueness, that they THINK option (2) is easier …
SIGH – oh well, that’s life on the third rock from Sol. At the present – it will change :)
This example is also an example of something that is a little more widespread: using negative energy as a defence. It’s easy to do – for instance, just get into a habit of denial, and the negative energy (deceit) starts to build structures in your aura (reflecting, in part, the extent to which you are deceitful in physical life) and you start being “hard to read”, friends start getting wary for reasons they don’t understand, and so on. As another example, if you – as in this case – like to use anger or rage as a form of defence (maybe you think offence is the best form of offence?) or a way of interacting with people/situations/life, that energy starts to accumulate in your aura and can be intimidating – or at least unpleasant – to others. Start getting addicted to something – say, pain, or fear, or failure (sometimes done out of a misunderstanding of the details of karma, or because of a misplaced belief that self-punishment by feeling guilt can somehow offset one’s past misdeeds), or alcohol, and that energy (including the energy of addiction) will also start to accumulate in your aura and build negative structures (such as negative shields), and will start to lock you into that behaviour, lock you into your pain/fear/etc, making growth harder - and making it almost impossible for others to reach you – particularly psychically.
Of course, to indulge in building up these negative structures and energies willingly and consciously is to indulge in activities that some would classify as “evil”. I would consider each case “on its merits”, but there certainly are some such (none I personally know in the physical) who I would consider “evil”.
There is another aspect to this as well: responses to psychic attack.
Most debates I’ve seen about this take the place of: do I “passively” (I’ll explain why I think that is a misnomer shortly) deflect the energy away from both myself and my attacker, or do I return the energy to my foe (which is what the attacker effectively is)?
Now, keeping in mind that most psychic attack is between people who know each other (e.g., one family member who is resentful/jealous of another, or one friend being jealous of another, or a partner getting possessive [often out of insecurity arising from poor communication, maybe about needs], and the situation of “evil stranger seeking to dominate and possess innocent’s soul” is extremely rare (although it does happen – if you take out the word innocent!), and hence the situation is one where you may well feel a sense of duty/obligation/honour towards the other person, not to mention love, the preceding has the complication of another variation: do you, or don’t you, act to neutralise/remove the attacker’s negative shields – and other negative energies, links, etc (I was taught at ASPECTS to use the general term “unit”: I don't know if they still use that term, I went my separate way a couple of decades ago now) – that the attacker is either using, or are using the attacker, to create, maintain or increase the attack?
My short answer is that it depends on the circumstances: (1) is serious harm being done? If not, then no, leave them alone. If serious harm is being done, then consider: would you do nothing if serious harm was being done in the physical world? Wouldn’t you, if nothing else, call the police? What about using the psychic/spiritual equivalent of that – call your guides/patron deities/Higher Self? (2) is the attacker themselves a victim, and is it for the Highest Spiritual Good for them to have the control they are under removed? Well, if you know what is for the Highest Spiritual Good ... wow! You can, however, and should, use your mind to make your best judgement call about the situation – just remember it is YOU doing that, not me: if you aren’t prepared to take responsibility for doing so, then don’t.
Note 2
Interestingly, I recently was re-reading some of my Lobsang Rampa books, and on page 6 of "Twilight" found the following comments:
My personal belief, which I have never put in print before, is that Gautama, the Prince, was to utterly sheltered from the hard facts of life, and then when he suddenly became confronted with suffering, pain and death, then it "turned his brain", it gave him a severe psychic shock, it upset his sense of values, it destroyed something essential to his being. So, the Prince Gautama left the Palace, left all the comforts he had known, and became utterly disillussioned. My personal belief is that he became "negative".If one studies the Teachings of Gautama (let us say "Buddha" which is more normal to Western people) one will appreciate that Buddha was negative, everything was "no-ness", "all life is suffering". Well, we know that isn't true, don't we?
Interesting. Have a look at the last paragraph of my post here.
Note 3I have read that the reason this response was described as "fight or flight" was because the lab rats being used to explore this reaction were all male. When the tests were done using female rats (which, by the way, is an appalling concept - I mean the whole animal testing thing, not just the gender of the animals used), they found the response were different.
I couldn't find a good reference for that, but try here and here for an idea of what this is about.
Note 4
Usually this is writing a letter to a politician - which I don’t view cynically.
I have trained myself to view this as a snowflake contributing to a glacier: imperceptible on its own, but my action my inspire other snowflakes to add to the weight of the glacier, and the glacier DOES exist, and is moving.
After all, human rights are discussed and considered now, and attempts – albeit arguably flawed attempts – are being made to improve human rights all the time.
Compare that with the situation a few centuries ago, where the concept that a human being could be owned by another (whether through slavery or marriage) was almost universal: now, the acceptable of owning another through slavery is far less widespread (although possessiveness in relationships is still a widespread problem – see polyamory for my ideas of what could possibly cure, or contribute to a cure of, this problem).
Note 5
I just found that word this last week :)
Note 6
On a more subtle level, perhaps you could have been someone who committed the pogrom, and now you either (a) still have the same bigotry, prejudice and hatred, or (b) fear your karma coming back to you, and are trying to prevent that by being as "un-different" as possible.
Note 7
See here.
Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr
This post's photo is yet to be posted.
Tags: activism, animal testing, attitudes, brain, Buddhism, challenge, control, emotions, evolution, family, fear, growth, Lobsang Rampa, parenting, problems, socialisation, society
First published: Sunday 27th November, 2010, after months hanging round as a few partially completed drafts :)
Last edited: Sunday 27th November, 2010
