Fear vs Fearless ( Archived) (75)

A number of psychologists contend, and I tend to agree that people are moved more by fear then by opportunity. Instead of grasping moments of opportunity we let fear manage our response and run away, freeze or act out in some way that further complicates that opportunity.

The belief as I understand it is based on the fact that we are born alone. Then comes that moment in youth when self awareness happens and the realization that we are alone and nothing can ever alter that. Face it, we're alone and there is no togetherness that will ever change that fact.

Some psychologists believe that this one single fear, is what follows us through life creating all manner of problem behaviors when one hasn't discharged or released the emotion of alone, lonely, sad. This fear manifests in relationships in a number of ways, such as feeling that someone won't support you, or has hurt you and may again, or that they are selfish, jerks, etc. This is the fear of being alone, projecting on others.

They don't suggest that partnering is bad but that partnering without dealing with that basic fear results in the inability to see opportunity for love and joy and take action fearlessly to manifest it. Essentially that fear blinds one to experiences and keeps us in a holding pattern of repetitious fear based relationship failures.

What do you think?

Who wants to play with my junk? OK, playing with my junk isn't part of the theory but the question stands cos I'm like that.

Double Posting? CS must consider this an important question.

Indeed, we never really recover from the trauma of the great separation we suffer when leaving the womb.

G'day Gra.

I suspect there are grades of fear and fearlessness in each of us; no two people alike; but me thinks awareness of this fact is at least the beginning to resolving that basic primal fear and emotion. So, the possibility to recover exists even if one has built a plethora of layered walls in respect of that fear.

At least that the idea.

"Maturity implies not so much avoiding being abandoned, but in abandoning ourselves with few illusions...If we succeed in bearing the anxiety of solitude, new horizons will open to us and we will learn finally to exist independently of others."

Carotenuto

These guys (psychologists) would disagree with you I think. I do as well, since lack of confidence is an offshoot of fear. It could be that one who lacks confidence has experienced failure in attempts to manifest togetherness because they haven't dealt with the primal fear of alone, lonely, sad.

'Rejection' is fear of being alone. While it can mutate into other feelings as you suggest, like pride, confidence and many others like anger, suspicion depression, it is still that basic primal fear of realizing that you're alone that drives the mutation of emotions we experience.

So, emotions and feelings like confidence, apathy, anger, pride and really all emotions are compounded extensions of that mishandled primal fear. A parent for instance could instill confidence in a child by allaying that fear in childhood, essentially making the child's fear of aloneness less traumatic or less emotional.

You're alone it's true, but there are others her who care about you. That kind of reassurance mitigates the fear of alone. Not everyone gets that from a parent so the incidence of alone and lonely create a lack of confidence and then those compounded emotional distresses through life. At least that's the way I understand it.

When a person has been taught, as many have, and probably most people have, to squelch and internalize emotion, there is then no discharge of trauma/emotion and no resolution to feeling alone.

They say that this is how walls are built. Walls that 'we think' are protection against aloneness, rejection etc. are really the compounded results of mishandled primal fear. It stops us from being more fearless and grasping opportunities when they come along or ruins relationships that get established because the root fear will manifest in one way or another at some point as for example... jealousy, abandonment, insecurity, rejection, feeling unloved, unworthy, not confident, etc etc. Those are all mutations of the emotional realization that we are 'alone'.


Nice to see you again K.!

That phrase seems a bit perfunctory. As if it's duty to bear. I guess it has some merit that I'm not seeing, or maybe the words "independent of others' is what's throwing me off? Independence is a further realization of being alone?

I think the word independence is often a poorly chosen word in a world that thrives on interdependance. What am I missing here Gra?

PS:


I think this, (the words in blue) completes the sequence of awareness, the reality of it all K.? Wouldn't you say? And if you can love that, you're on your way, at least in part.

We really are living alone as well, even if we have a partner, the chance of feeling alone still exists and still pervades our responses for good or bad.