The "F" Word - You Will Never Admit..

Your Mom experiences this. Your Boss, experiences this. Your Kids, will learn to experience this.  The challenge is, giving each of those people a benefit of the doubt when FEAR, takes hold and impels them to react in ways, you never imagined possible.

When your Mom, calls you in the middle of the night- scared because she’s in an empty house and she heard a frightening noise. 

When your Kids, scream for you when the darkness overtakes their imaginations of the space in their unlit room at night.

When your Boss, becomes extremely edgy about spending money in a politically-charged economy, when a person initiates a conversation about a wage increase.

We react in fear, when we’ve found that something we’ve judged and identified as against our desire, is an expected result or outcome. So, let's focus on the two words "judgement" and "identify" and I'll show you how they play a crucial part in building fear.

When’s the last time, you look at something and said, “Yep, that’s not for me.”  Now, I’m certain most of us heard the phrase, “Never judge a book by it’s cover” at some point in our youth or adolescence – and here you are.. a grown adult, casually passing judgement.  Look, everyone does it.  No matter how much programming our parents attempt to do, we learn as early as infancy – how to identify people, as a friend or a foe.

The core result here is, that if we’re learning perceptions in such an early stage – we’re attempting to apply our early-onset education in using judgement by the time adolescence hits.  (Ever wonder why Teenagers, are so hard to live with at times?)  They’re using the lessons learned earlier, in applying judgement in their teenage years of adolescent development. What they learned early on, they're applying.

Yep, you just learned something new about Teenagers.  You’re welcome. 

Now, let us think of how we identify or ‘perceive’ anything in our lives.  In the 1980’s, most of us looked at something and made the judgment of either “I’ll try it” or “Yeah, no thanks.”  (The Netflix series, “Stranger Things” really does an exceptional job of depicting what life was like in the 80’s, where most of us Gen-X’ers learned to enjoy the experience of effort.)  In either decision scenario, we make a decision based upon one of two things: 1) The experience and result of our effort into the situation or 2) The opinions of others, or considerable failures of others have given us a capacity to decline the experience.

Curiously, as a society – we’ve learned over the last 30 years, to literally experience less and apply more social judgment.  Look at the picture below, and ask yourself – 'Would I jump down to Earth, just like this guy did?'

If you said, “Never” then you’re basing this upon the potential of failure along with the perceptions of what others have given you to consider. When people say, “That’s crazy” it’s programming you, one statement at a time, to essentially define this as a ‘crazy act.’  

If you said, “Yep, I’d would do it” then you're based in the capacity that you saw that you are capable of making the leap, in addition to hearing the certainties from people you are around that it’s more 'fun' than 'fearful.'

As you can see, how we use Fear is additionally defined in not only what environment we find ourselves in- but the types of people and unsubstantiated rhetoric we allow ourselves to adopt as absolute truth.

You build fears; Every. Single. Day.

So, the next time you find yourself instantly saying, “I don’t like that” consider that right then, in that very moment.. you are creating a new fear.  The next time you hear your kids say, “I hate that” think for a second, that without a check and balance from you as a parent.. you’re allowing them to create a fear, based purely upon perception of dissimilarity.

Fear has it’s benefits in our daily lives, as it allows those of us to know that there are limits to what we ought to do and what we are basically capable of. However, in just reading this – you’ve learned a new way of looking at something, within yourself. 

You can only teach something you know.  Make a commitment to master which fears you create, by balancing the ways in how you and yours, utilize sounds judgment and make concerted efforts to identify things, beyond the face value.

Here’s to a world, where we can find strength within ourselves in the present- in being a conduit of capability for those who seek our help in the future.

JR