[Neurons] 2024 Neurons #21 FEAR AND FEAR-OF-FEAR

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2024 Neurons #21

May 13, 2024

Emotional Intelligence Series #20

 

 

FEAR AND FEAR-OF-FEAR

 

Once you learn the Neuro-Semantic approach to Emotional Mastery, you know
that all emotions are just emotions and are important.  As a result, it
leads us to accept our emotions and use them to deepen our understanding of
ourselves.  You also learn to distinguish the level of emotions, that
emotions occur at multiple levels and how you approach meta-level emotions
differently from primary level emotions.

 

Let's take fear as an example.  Primary fear is a healthy and informative
emotion, if there is a true danger or threat, then it facilitates your
survival and safety as it warns you to slow down, look, listen, and think.
This is fear1.  It is in reference to the outside world where there may be
something that could be dangerous- a wild animal, traffic, a storm, icy
conditions, a car-jacker, etc. 

 

If fear1 is at the primary level, then fear2 is at the first meta-level.
Fear2 is not about the outside world, it is about your inside world.  Using
your self-reflexivity, you are now bringing your fear to your experience of
fear.  This is fear of fear.  What are you fearing in fear2?  All kinds of
things!  You could be fear the experience of fear, the feelings of fear, the
idea of fear, the memory of fear, the imagination of fear, the identity of
fear, etc.  Yet whatever it is, it operates in a very different way from
primary fear (fear1).

 

Fear1 tells you that there is, or could be, danger and infuses you with the
energy to stop, look, and listen.  With the energy generated by fear1 you
can exercise it by backing off, fleeing, or fighting.  Fear2 also produces
energy and sends energy into your mind-body system, but now it is assuming
you are the danger, so you are attacking yourself in some way.  At the
meta-level, the fear has nowhere to go except against your mind, your
emotions, and your body.  No wonder then that fear2 is destructive in that
it harms the person and sets up a vicious cycle so that the more you fear,
the more you have to fear.

 

Fear-of-fear (fear2), as an attack on yourself (your thoughts, ideas,
concepts, beliefs, memories, etc.) generates a second-level of sensations.
We call these by such names as discomfort, tension, stress, unpleasantness,
etc.  The symptoms that results then show up in the body as you may feel
dizzy, having sweating hands, feel, arm pits, etc., experience heart
palpitations, choking feelings in the throat, etc.  While these may be
uncomfortable, they are not dangerous.  Yet by fearing discomfort and
falsely thinking, "I'm having a heart attack," "I will faint and die," "My
lungs are going to explode," you turn even more of your psychological energy
against yourself. 

 

In this way, we humans can multiple our troubles and create all sorts of new
ways to fill our minds and bodies with fear.  We could, for example, fear
the discomfort of sleeplessness as we fear of not sleeping and therefore
create a good dose of insomnia.  We can torture ourselves, "I've got to go
to sleep."  "I'll not have enough energy for tomorrow."  Then we command
ourselves, "Sleep.  Try harder to go to sleep."  But this is a false fear
and, paradoxically, the more we would accept non-sleep and not concern
ourselves about it, the more likely we are to fall asleep.

 

Because the great majority of our fears are about potential dangers rather
than actual dangers, the fear-response is inappropriate as it invites us to
create a second-level problem-fear2.  We fail to distinguish if the object
of our fear is actual or potential.  Could an airplane crash?  Yes, but it
is not very likely.  Could a car crash?  Yes.  And in fact you have 7 times
more of a chance of dying in a car crash than a plane crash.  Could you die
of the lack of oxygen in a closet or a small space?  Yes, but it is not very
likely. 

 

Fear, as an emotion and as a state is drive by fear-thinking.  The problem
with that is that if you are looking for dangers-your mind will find them!
What you are actually doing is weaponizing your fear-emotion against
yourself.

 

Once you begin to fear-your-fear, your fear2 will then qualify any (and all)
of your experiences with a tinge of fear.  Do that you you will become
increasingly fearful.  From the emotion, fear will become a mood, and then
an attitude.  You will become more and more negative, pessimistic, and
paranoid.  And it will seem real to you.  You will live more and more in an
unfriendly universe which is out to get you.

 

 

Neuro-Semantics News

.       The NSTT leadership team is meeting in Kaula Lumpur this week,
several of us are already here and we are preparing for the Trainers'
Training that begins this coming Saturday until June 1.  Friday evening is
an open welcome to everyone in Neuro-Semantics.  And so, the adventure
begins.


 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, ISNS

738 Beaver Lodge

Grand Jct., CO. 81505 USA

meta at acsol.net

 

 



 

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