12x12: February #3: "What Fear is and How Fear Works"

This is the third of a Saturday-long Conference I attended with Adam Young and a guest speaker. This was held on February 4, 2025. The Conference was entitled: "On Fear and Failure: From "My life is an Endless Struggle" -- to -- My Life is a Compelling Story." In this lecture, Rob talks about fear and our relationship with it.

This time we will think about a shrub. And the possibility of a lion hiding behind the shrub. Is there a lion that will jump out at me?

Or not.

Threat assessment is GOOD. It keeps us alive. We are supposed to be wondering if there is a lion in the shrub! Our system is always scanning the unknown for the threat of danger. 

We have no problem with this threat assessment software. We come by it honestly. It has kept us alive as a species!

Now, let's shift from the Savannah to just a regular kitchen. It has a hot stove! It has sharp knives! Why aren't we afraid?

If someone were to come in and grab a knife and started waving it around, we would have our threat assessment turn up a notch. But otherwise, we have integrated this threat assessment system for a kitchen so well, we can walk in and out with no problem.

No Fear = stupid! Fear is very important!

We are going to face the unknown in our futures. We will honestly and endlessly find us in moments when the fears kick in. And we will say, "What's wrong with me?" But we want this to be there! 

We are pack animals. We survive by being a part of the herd. We need to belong to the tribe. This is why relational rupture affects our bodies the way it does. The next thing your amygdalia is always scanning for is exclusion. The first is fire coming over the mountain. And the second one is always social exclusion. If you have fears about, "Maybe they won't like me if I do X," please remember that is normal. That fear is reasonable. And, there is a way to integrate that fear. Okay, "maybe that will happen. Noted. It could go that way." That one alpaca that got separated, died. Belongingness goes to the core of who we are as human beings.

At a deep level, belonging is crucial to survival. That is both true and false in our lives. Sometimes something new comes along, and this new thing is often disruptive. New creation is disruptive. You have a current creation: the job and life you currently have. And then all of a sudden, something new comes along, and it becomes clear you are going to be moving in that direction instead. It generally has a disruptive element in it as you move into a new territory. And it may set off those primal impulses to keep you safe! You may be laying there in the middle of the night thinking, "Wow! I'd love to try that" coupled with, "Oh my gosh! I can't do that. What if I fail?"

Let's normalize all of that.

Also, don't try to defend, explain, justify something unless someone is genuinely interested. How are you going to explain that? You barely understand it yourself. You are not required to make others understand.

If you have a habit of beating yourself up over your fears please remember our goal: we are not trying to overcome fears, we are trying to integrate them. We are not trying to eliminate them. We don't want to eliminate them.

So, when your fear arises, let's do the following. Try saying ...

• "Thank you."
• "Fear is my friend." 
• "Well done."
• "Good job alerting me."
• "Excellent."
• "Maybe."
• "Noted."
•  "I know." (Say it with a smile as it tells you everything that can go wrong.)
  
• Use satire. "Thank you for conjuring up all the ways I can embarrass myself at this party."

This was especially true if you grew up in a culture that was trying to inoculate you from realty. The moment you had despair, abyss, or fear ... it gave you lists of verses and saying to protect you from possibilities. That is so true. This was very true of my childhood in the church. Fear was not welcome. Fear meant something was wrong. Oh how I needed to know fear was part of my existence and designed to keep me safe. Oh how I plan to teach my children this.

Your kid may actually make the decisions you were most afraid that would make. I know, but I'll have what I need, and it'll be okay. When we do that, fear loses its power over us. 

Remember, with RISK, there are always two sides: 

1. Risky TO do it.

2. Risky NOT to do it. 

Everything is fundamentally risky.

Fear is a wonderful servant. It is a terrible master. 

We want to move fear from being a master to being a servant. We want to say, "Oh, there's the fear. What data and information is it bringing me? Ahhhh, interesting."