I am totally on board with an open conversation, I just didn't want to influence others with my opinions - I have a LOT to say.
Anyone who pm'd me can absolutely share here as well - whatever anyone is comfortable with.
The movie isn't ABOUT Fear, but after watching it for the 2nd time I couldn't help but notice how every person interviewed regardless of their background, pointed to Fear as the #1 thing that holds us back & helps create an environment to allow dysfunction & disease to thrive internally. If/when we can conquer Fear we will flourish as a result.
So, I say, if I know my subconscious is running the Old Program Called Fear, I have to write new programming to replace it in order to change. But what IS the antidote to Fear? I can write a new script, but what should it SAY to really annihilate MY Fear?
Treating it like a virus, I'd need to understand it in order to combat it.... so first I examined what fear means to me & how it shows up in my world.
Then I started online for the psychology/science-y stuff behind it, as well as the spiritual links. I found that color wheel of emotions pdm22 talked about
:
Originally Posted by pdm22
Well there’s a similar wheel for emotions. We have 8 primary ones:
Joy= Sadness (opposite)
Acceptance = Disgust (opposite)
Fear= Anger (opposite)
Surprise= Anticipation
Each one can be further broken down=
Annoyance- anger- rage = apprehension- fear- terror (opposite)
And it made me go hmmmmmmm........ because I had the opposite reaction she did - it made NO sense to me because my Fear almost always presents AS Anger. For me, they are components of the
same emotion - not oppositional. (but your example actually helped me understand better how other life experiences would create this link - thank you!)
Obviously, like anything else, our life experience drives our perception of this word so I started reaching out IRL to ask my friends & I have been finding the results fascinating.
Some people had to really think because, like me, they had to understand their Fear better first. Others had immediate responses, but then sent me a 2nd or 3rd & 4th thought as it marinated in their thought process a bit. When I pushed them to settle on 1 single answer, every one of them settled on what had been their first thought/gut reaction. (that was part of why I was trying not to influence responses) One friend REFUSED to settle on one word, insisting that the opposite of Fear for her is "any woman who's been through really, really, really bad sh*t & came out the other side stronger" - she has a long history of abusive relationships she's just started to recover from over the last few years.
With all of the philosophical debate around "Fear vs. Love" (the idea that
all things trace back to being driven by one or the other, always) I expected a lot of people to pick Love in this exercise. In reality it has been one of the
least reported answers that people gave.
Originally Posted by DriGuy
I had a graduate professor that said during a discussion of emotions one time the opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference. I pondered that for years, and I've come to believe he was right. Maybe it's the same for fear.
It is sort of the same thing. I recently did an experiment in quantum energy - I guess, idk what to call it officially.
I filled 3 identical jars with identical, measured amounts of rice & water & sealed them. The only difference was the word associated with the jar - I called them love & hate & let the 3rd jar go unnamed as a control without expectation or emotion attached to it. I wondered if love & hate would actually differ because *I* believe they are irrevocably tied together, they both come from heart energy & I feel like hate can't exist without love - I hate as a result of broken love.
The results were astonishing. So I added 10 new jars (9 new words) & started again. Even more astonishing. (remember, these are MY jars being affected by MY energy & MY feelings associated with these chosen words)
The Fear Jar stood out to me because it didn't rot or darken or degenerate the way some others did (hate, heartbreak, lust) but in this jar specifically, the rice absorbed almost all of the water without much other change at all. It just masqueraded as though it was the same.....nothing to see here.... consumed everything around it in a subtle way that at first look might make you think nothing had really changed...Mimicry.... in reality the entire jar was just as affected as others but without obvious signs that made me see it as negative. (like darkening - every jar ended up a different shade of clear/yellow/brown/black - except Heartbreak, it
disintegrated into multilayers of blue, black & grey).
As an example of contrast here - the Trust Jar is still the most clear, unchanged of ALL 13 jars. The original contents seem to have almost completely retained their integrity - even my Love Jar is cloudier & more altered than Trust.
But Fear got bloated & big & filled all of the space around it, hiding in plain sight.
The last thing I researched that really hit for me was the Buddha's lessons on Fear as it is told in the story of his battle against Mara on the eve of his enlightenment. How fear presents in so many ways & keeps morphing until it gets a foothold that allows it to wedge itself more & more into our worlds. How instead of running from or trying to ignore our fears, we should "invite them in for tea" & serve them as an honored guest there to teach us lessons. How looking it in the eye & giving it space to exist removes the mystique it uses to fuel it's chameleon-like ways.
Glennon Doyle talked about the exact same thing in Love Warrior when she has her breakdown/breakthrough staying on her yoga mat & facing all her fears for the first time instead of running. In the end she wonders at all the running she's done from her fears:
Oh my God - what if the transporting is keeping me from transformation? What if my anger, my fear, my loneliness were never mistakes, but invitations? What if in skipping the pain, I was missing my lessons? Perhaps pain was not a hot potato after all, but a travelling professor. Maybe instead of slamming the door on pain, I need to throw open the door wide and say, Come in. Sit down with me. And don't leave until you've taught me what I need to know.
Thank you guys SO MUCH for participating in this with me!
