Fear can cripple us. We see fear as something that's part of ourselves and who we are, but I believe the correct way to view this is to see many fears as based on fear of other people: what do other people think of us, or what will other people do to us. Imagine a world without fear of other people? How much more would we be able to just be ourselves. Sometimes our fears are groundless and come from our mindsets, from the things we learnt growing up. These are often a part of our very being as we adopted these fears into the groundwork of the identities we were building at the time. Fear seems like reality. Sometimes there may be real reasons to fear, for example in cases of religious persecution or bullying in a workplace. When we change the way we view fear, real change can happen.
What does a lifetime of fear do to us?
I attended a sermon in church where a pastor spoke about what fear looks like, as our experiences in life often teach us various fears and various behaviours. He donned a big red cloak to show our own internal fears can change the way we behave with other people: fear can make us look outwardly different from what we really are inside as fear impacts the way we carry ourselves and how we present ourselves to the world. Then he grabbed flippers, to show fear can cripple us in our walk through life, and a snorkel to show that what we say is impacted by our fear. People may not be able to hear what we want to say, as we do not speak clearly through our fear, and we may be misunderstood. Goggles were next to show that fear is a mask we wear so others do not see us for who we really are. Fear also changes our outlook on the world as the way we see things is often clouded by our fear glasses. He thumped a hard hat onto his head to show fear can have an effect on our mindsets. Our thought patterns control much of who we are, and directly impact our beliefs and internal feelings. Fear may change who we are and the way we act around other people. Fear may change the course of our life and the purpose we were meant to have. This all becomes the behaviours that we wear, that become second nature to us so that eventually we are not even noticing that we are carrying all this extra baggage around with us, it has become a part of who we are. At this point I could not see the pastor behind all the layers he had clothed himself in, all the trappings of fear he carried. People can't see the real person hidden in all the layers of fear and outward behaviour. And then he said we make a decision to change, for example to follow God and God then changes our hearts and we become new people. But to other people we still look the same and act the same! We have spent a lifetime donning our behaviours and these cannot just be thrown off in an instant. So we may say to everyone else that we are now new people and have a new life, but old habits still have a hold of us. Behaviours that slowly became an integral part of our being take a long time to unlearn. In our new found change of heart we also need to change our mindsets, our thinking. Thinking will become our emotions which become our behaviours and habits which are part of us. Catching our thinking when we slip back into our old patterns and making changes to move towards our new way of thinking takes a lot of time and effort. It is hard work! We make a decision to change, but feelings are resistant to quick change. It takes time to relearn behaviour but it can be done.
Limbic lag
The process called limbic lag explains the concept of our feelings being resistant to change. The decision making part of our brain is the part where we think and remember. Separate from this is the limbic system, a part of the brain that controls our emotions and our fear response, but this part has no memory. Something that happened 3 days ago or 3 years ago may elicit the same instinctual emotional reaction from our limbic system. By instinctual I mean a programmed response learnt over time. Something that happened years ago during childhood may trigger a fear response, even though we know (thinking) that the fear is groundless. The limbic system takes a long to time be reprogrammed and the process may take months to make our new desired behaviours a natural part of us. When you decide to change your mindsets, eventually persistence will pay off and the limbic system will be reprogrammed. Changing your thinking will change your feelings and cause a change in behaviour. (I found a great article about limbic lag on a website for the NACR: http://www.nacronline.com/addictions/relapse-and-the-brain)
In conclusion
Have you noticed that some people look radiant even though they may not be outwardly beautiful? And some people seem like people to be avoided, but if we really looked we would see that they didn't look any different to me or you? This is the effect fear can have on the way we portray ourselves. Be who you are. Be proud of who you are. Groundless fear will recede. As for me, I am still in the process of reprogramming a lot of my own behaviours. I know it can be done. I have seen a lot of changes in myself already and I still have a lot of work still to do. I do know that the benefits of changing mindsets are enormous.
Links to other related blog articles:
What does a lifetime of fear do to us?
I attended a sermon in church where a pastor spoke about what fear looks like, as our experiences in life often teach us various fears and various behaviours. He donned a big red cloak to show our own internal fears can change the way we behave with other people: fear can make us look outwardly different from what we really are inside as fear impacts the way we carry ourselves and how we present ourselves to the world. Then he grabbed flippers, to show fear can cripple us in our walk through life, and a snorkel to show that what we say is impacted by our fear. People may not be able to hear what we want to say, as we do not speak clearly through our fear, and we may be misunderstood. Goggles were next to show that fear is a mask we wear so others do not see us for who we really are. Fear also changes our outlook on the world as the way we see things is often clouded by our fear glasses. He thumped a hard hat onto his head to show fear can have an effect on our mindsets. Our thought patterns control much of who we are, and directly impact our beliefs and internal feelings. Fear may change who we are and the way we act around other people. Fear may change the course of our life and the purpose we were meant to have. This all becomes the behaviours that we wear, that become second nature to us so that eventually we are not even noticing that we are carrying all this extra baggage around with us, it has become a part of who we are. At this point I could not see the pastor behind all the layers he had clothed himself in, all the trappings of fear he carried. People can't see the real person hidden in all the layers of fear and outward behaviour. And then he said we make a decision to change, for example to follow God and God then changes our hearts and we become new people. But to other people we still look the same and act the same! We have spent a lifetime donning our behaviours and these cannot just be thrown off in an instant. So we may say to everyone else that we are now new people and have a new life, but old habits still have a hold of us. Behaviours that slowly became an integral part of our being take a long time to unlearn. In our new found change of heart we also need to change our mindsets, our thinking. Thinking will become our emotions which become our behaviours and habits which are part of us. Catching our thinking when we slip back into our old patterns and making changes to move towards our new way of thinking takes a lot of time and effort. It is hard work! We make a decision to change, but feelings are resistant to quick change. It takes time to relearn behaviour but it can be done.
Limbic lag
The process called limbic lag explains the concept of our feelings being resistant to change. The decision making part of our brain is the part where we think and remember. Separate from this is the limbic system, a part of the brain that controls our emotions and our fear response, but this part has no memory. Something that happened 3 days ago or 3 years ago may elicit the same instinctual emotional reaction from our limbic system. By instinctual I mean a programmed response learnt over time. Something that happened years ago during childhood may trigger a fear response, even though we know (thinking) that the fear is groundless. The limbic system takes a long to time be reprogrammed and the process may take months to make our new desired behaviours a natural part of us. When you decide to change your mindsets, eventually persistence will pay off and the limbic system will be reprogrammed. Changing your thinking will change your feelings and cause a change in behaviour. (I found a great article about limbic lag on a website for the NACR: http://www.nacronline.com/addictions/relapse-and-the-brain)
In conclusion
Have you noticed that some people look radiant even though they may not be outwardly beautiful? And some people seem like people to be avoided, but if we really looked we would see that they didn't look any different to me or you? This is the effect fear can have on the way we portray ourselves. Be who you are. Be proud of who you are. Groundless fear will recede. As for me, I am still in the process of reprogramming a lot of my own behaviours. I know it can be done. I have seen a lot of changes in myself already and I still have a lot of work still to do. I do know that the benefits of changing mindsets are enormous.
Links to other related blog articles:
- An article about fear of other people due to discrimination mindsets and generational fear: Learning from the fear that's motivation for discrimination
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