417. + 418. How Fear Works - The Ultimate Guide To Dealing With Fear

What is Fear?

• A self-control mechanism
• Core survival mechanism – keeps you alive
• Helps you to maintain whatever you identify with
  • Important to understand survival
• Most of our survival is social, cultural and highly conceptual – not that of our body
• Identity is different, so is fear different
• Survival at its most basic
  • Gets you to avoid the stuff that will kill you
  • Not just physically – also psychologically (stuff that kills your self-image)
  • Distorts, how you do your stuff
  • What if there’s something that’s true about reality, but which threatens your identity? Are you ever going to find that thing that’s true?
  • You can’t have an accurate perception of reality if you’re afraid and so long as you’re attached to any kind of identity
• What you are is defined by your fears and what you fear is what you identify as
  • Goes both ways
  • An identity comes with a certain set of fears (mother fears differently)
• Whatever you fear you’re going to be battling with that demon
• You made yourself, your identity, up – admit it
  • You fear losing all your attachments – detach!
  • Attachment creates Fear
• You fear a loss of self: fear is protecting you from losing yourself
  • Epitome of that is death
  • Death is what all fear ultimately boils down to
• Most of your Fear is subtle and on a daily basis
• Hard to work with because it is irrational, relentless and directly attached to your survival
• Doesn’t care about logic, ideals and beliefs
• Brute survival trumps everything else because beliefs, ideals and logic are survival at work
• Fear is a much stronger survival force than logic
• Survival: Fear is the base of the pyramid, the foundation on top of which everything else sits
  • At the top you have logic, ideals etc.
  • Don’t be surprised when your logic doesn’t touch fear

Key misconception about Fear:

“Fear is natural” – Fear is not natural, because it is not an objective fact