What is the opposite of Fear?
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Another interesting thing to me was that I thought about this for a solid day & even researched into it a bit. I went through a few words & in the end decided that they ALL traced back to the same thing: Confidence.
DD had the EXACT same answer, but didn't think about it at ALL. She was 100% sure of her answer & hasn't wavered a bit in any of our discussions since.
My husband was the only other person to use the same word - I texted him during our workday so that he wasn't overhearing convos between DD & me. It took him about 30 mins to ruminate & respond.
Fascinating. We all ended up at the same definition via different thought processes & life experiences.
DD had the EXACT same answer, but didn't think about it at ALL. She was 100% sure of her answer & hasn't wavered a bit in any of our discussions since.
My husband was the only other person to use the same word - I texted him during our workday so that he wasn't overhearing convos between DD & me. It took him about 30 mins to ruminate & respond.
Fascinating. We all ended up at the same definition via different thought processes & life experiences.
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This is the response I pm'd to FS:
"In one word - Understanding
It's so odd, at first I thought - hmm, bravery? Courage? Then I was just looking up Madame Curie (on an unrelated thing) and I saw this quote:
"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less".
And I thought yes, that is the opposite of fear".
When thinking about this though, I think it's more complicated than that. There are different types of fear, not all fear is bad and I think it depends on what you fear.
Example, if you have negative feelings against a group (fear of), understanding may be the opposite. If you fear interviews, or large social gatherings, confidence might be the opposite.
If you have been abused and the sound of a can opening strikes fear, repeating that sound might stop that fear (control).
Maybe it all can be put down to confidence, confidence that you can handle whatever it may be, or faith as tomsteve said.
Really interesting thread FS!
"In one word - Understanding
It's so odd, at first I thought - hmm, bravery? Courage? Then I was just looking up Madame Curie (on an unrelated thing) and I saw this quote:
"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less".
And I thought yes, that is the opposite of fear".
When thinking about this though, I think it's more complicated than that. There are different types of fear, not all fear is bad and I think it depends on what you fear.
Example, if you have negative feelings against a group (fear of), understanding may be the opposite. If you fear interviews, or large social gatherings, confidence might be the opposite.
If you have been abused and the sound of a can opening strikes fear, repeating that sound might stop that fear (control).
Maybe it all can be put down to confidence, confidence that you can handle whatever it may be, or faith as tomsteve said.
Really interesting thread FS!
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Originally Posted by FireSprite 
Another interesting thing to me was that I thought about this for a solid day & even researched into it a bit. I went through a few words & in the end decided that they ALL traced back to the same thing: Confidence.
do the 3(faith,confidence, and trust) go hand in hand? or are the same?
i could be complicating this now.
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Yep - I went through a similar range of words -
Bravery/courage - which made me think of Brene Brown & vulnerability. Curiosity-love-etc.
I settled on Confidence because I felt like every other word required an element of this in order to really work - having the confidence to fail or succeed, to go forward without letting judgment from others holding me back, etc. If I'm IN the arena, I need to be confident in my Bravery as a Warrior - confident that I can handle whatever happens. Confident that it won't affect my self-definition.
Since then I've examined it & realized that this sits on the spectrum of Self-Trust for me personally. I discarded Trust pretty early on because I think of it as residing outside of myself - trusting IN others, etc. I skipped the step of separating how it relates to Self.
Self-love, self-respect & self-care are all important but I think it's the self-trust/confidence that is a superhero internally where Fear is concerned.
Not at all - it IS that personal I think.
I have issues/triggers around the word Faith that I still battle (damn that Catholic guilt) so I don't categorize it alongside trust. For some people they are almost the same thing, so yes, I could totally see your point!
That's also why there is no "right" answer - in examining my fears, I've learned so much about myself.
Bravery/courage - which made me think of Brene Brown & vulnerability. Curiosity-love-etc.
I settled on Confidence because I felt like every other word required an element of this in order to really work - having the confidence to fail or succeed, to go forward without letting judgment from others holding me back, etc. If I'm IN the arena, I need to be confident in my Bravery as a Warrior - confident that I can handle whatever happens. Confident that it won't affect my self-definition.
Since then I've examined it & realized that this sits on the spectrum of Self-Trust for me personally. I discarded Trust pretty early on because I think of it as residing outside of myself - trusting IN others, etc. I skipped the step of separating how it relates to Self.
Self-love, self-respect & self-care are all important but I think it's the self-trust/confidence that is a superhero internally where Fear is concerned.
Originally Posted by tomsteve
faith-complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
do the 3(faith,confidence, and trust) go hand in hand? or are the same?
i could be complicating this now.
do the 3(faith,confidence, and trust) go hand in hand? or are the same?
i could be complicating this now.
I have issues/triggers around the word Faith that I still battle (damn that Catholic guilt) so I don't categorize it alongside trust. For some people they are almost the same thing, so yes, I could totally see your point!
That's also why there is no "right" answer - in examining my fears, I've learned so much about myself.
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Originally Posted by HardLessons
BTW there is nothing wrong with normal fear its a natural reaction which helps to protect us.
The problem is that in today's world, we run from "paper tigers" and perceived dangers the same way - and that's NOT healthy.
I shouldn't react to a phone call from my mother in the same way I do a tiger in the woods, but our long history of passive aggressive abuse & neglect means that I do.
That's fear-programming that I can & should change for my own benefit. I cannot change history, but when I'm triggered in present day I can mantra that "there is no tiger" & start walking to engage the hip flexors which signals the brain that I AM in fact running from the tiger. This stops the flood of adrenalin my body produced to help me run to safety which reduces my anxiety & allows me to talk myself out of my panic to see the situation for what it really is - something happening around me now, not something happening TO my inner child.
Seriously guys, if you have ANY interest - I highly recommend "Heal" on netflix. I've read/followed the work of almost everyone in the documentary so it wasn't new to me, although I still learned new stuff. I watched it on a referral from someone else without reading anything about it so I had no idea what to expect. It put all of the info in a concise, easy to follow "story".
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Originally Posted by FireSprite
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.
Can you think of an example of how this plays out for you?
In my own life, I can give you a few examples, not sure of this is the type of thing you’re talking about or not.
Since childhood, I used to have this reoccurring nightmare about being attacked. As I got older, sometimes the dream would change, like I was being chased or ganged up on, and I’d call 911, and no one would come. Things like that. I figured it was probably related to a sense of powerlessness from my childhood (in which I experienced both physical and emotional abuse), and eventually I got into martial arts. That did help, in that they did teach you how to feel your fear, and gave you things you can actually do if faced with those kinds of situations. Also things like testing. I’d be sick about it for days before hand, *hated* being the center of attention, and the actual testing (like I feel about public speaking..eeek). But you’d go up there terrified, do what you needed to do, and then you feel so much better afterwards, especially when you saw how you could have fear and still perform. I don’t do martial arts anymore due to injuries, and a few other reasons, but you know those dreams never came back.
I think the personal safety was huge for me. I also like these articles from Mark MacYoung, this self defense guy who gives you practical knowledge on what to do if various situations, like if you find yourself in an active shooter situation or something.
Which is why cops train over & over for these types of things, because yeah, when it actually happens, you’re probably going to be terrified and running on adrenaline, and hopefully your training will take over and you’ll still perform well.. Maybe if that ever happens, things won’t play out in your favor, maybe they will, but at least if you have some sort of plan about what you’d do, it helps you not to worry so much about it.
So I think if there is something that scares you, brings out fears, if you try to figure out how you’d navigate the situation in real life, and then practice your plan if possible, it helps a little. I think the problem can be like if you panic in real life and don’t know what to do, or you have a fear about some thing that seems like there’s no solution, and you start spinning on anxiety and powerlessness?
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Yes - let me think on it a bit so that I don't rush into a half-arsed answer.
I think most of my fears (now) relate to worthiness & value as an individual vs. something more tangible. I sometimes have a hard time going back to pull up examples of stuff I've successfully changed because once I re-write the program, I sort of "dump" the memories associated with the old because I personally can't keep both contrasting thoughts/emotional reactions active at the same time.
I've talked before about that stupid final scene in Labyrinth where the Princess sees the Goblin King & his attempts to manipulate her clearly & the second she does, she declares, "You have no power over me".... the scene shatters because it can't survive this Truth, this conquering of her fear. Then it's just gone & she's back in her cozy bedroom with all of her creature comforts and a newfound confidence.
That's how it often is for me - once I really break free, everything shatters & I stop looking back over my shoulder.
One of the things I learned from this documentary was that when we experience trauma as children we record our memories in fragments - they don't fully form as they are written into our memory. That's why we trigger off of things like smells, sounds, etc - these things trigger our half-formed sense-memories & make it hard to trace to the source.
I've realized over this last year that a lot of what I'm dealing with now is healing wounds/fears from early childhood ages 0-6 - much of which predates language & communication. So when I trigger on something sensory it confuses me on the surface & I have to dig deep to find it's root to even understand why I'm upset.
I write tapping scripts for myself to conquer fears & setbacks in life (EFT) & used it with DD to help her overcome test-stress way back in the 3rd grade. That's an easy method for me - and what made me think, what should those scripts actually say to make the most impact for me in my personal experience?
I think most of my fears (now) relate to worthiness & value as an individual vs. something more tangible. I sometimes have a hard time going back to pull up examples of stuff I've successfully changed because once I re-write the program, I sort of "dump" the memories associated with the old because I personally can't keep both contrasting thoughts/emotional reactions active at the same time.
I've talked before about that stupid final scene in Labyrinth where the Princess sees the Goblin King & his attempts to manipulate her clearly & the second she does, she declares, "You have no power over me".... the scene shatters because it can't survive this Truth, this conquering of her fear. Then it's just gone & she's back in her cozy bedroom with all of her creature comforts and a newfound confidence.
That's how it often is for me - once I really break free, everything shatters & I stop looking back over my shoulder.
One of the things I learned from this documentary was that when we experience trauma as children we record our memories in fragments - they don't fully form as they are written into our memory. That's why we trigger off of things like smells, sounds, etc - these things trigger our half-formed sense-memories & make it hard to trace to the source.
I've realized over this last year that a lot of what I'm dealing with now is healing wounds/fears from early childhood ages 0-6 - much of which predates language & communication. So when I trigger on something sensory it confuses me on the surface & I have to dig deep to find it's root to even understand why I'm upset.
I write tapping scripts for myself to conquer fears & setbacks in life (EFT) & used it with DD to help her overcome test-stress way back in the 3rd grade. That's an easy method for me - and what made me think, what should those scripts actually say to make the most impact for me in my personal experience?
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Originally Posted by FallenAngelina
The way I see it, the opposite of fear is love.
PS Gorgeous avatar, FireSprite!
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I think my answer is "faith"
Because when I think about most things I fear--I am scared because I don't feel in control of the situation. I don't know what's going to happen, and I don't feel that I have an impact on the outcome. Or I feel I won't know how to handle a situation.
And I think the answer to a lot of that is just 'faith.' Faith in myself--that I will be able to handle what life throws at me. Faith in God or whatever higher power. Faith in other human beings (that pilot is well trained surely doesn't want the plane to crash either).
Because when I think about most things I fear--I am scared because I don't feel in control of the situation. I don't know what's going to happen, and I don't feel that I have an impact on the outcome. Or I feel I won't know how to handle a situation.
And I think the answer to a lot of that is just 'faith.' Faith in myself--that I will be able to handle what life throws at me. Faith in God or whatever higher power. Faith in other human beings (that pilot is well trained surely doesn't want the plane to crash either).
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Originally Posted by FireSprite
I've talked before about that stupid final scene in Labyrinth where the Princess sees the Goblin King & his attempts to manipulate her clearly & the second she does, she declares, "You have no power over me".... the scene shatters because it can't survive this Truth, this conquering of her fear. Then it's just gone & she's back in her cozy bedroom with all of her creature comforts and a newfound confidence.
Funny I was thinking last night, it has probably been that long since I last slept with a kubotan under my pillow; I used to do that all the time. And like you, I also have a few things still, where I can’t quite figure out what’s going to be the thing to finally “shatter the scene” and have no power anymore. To be able to finally figure out what that is...that would be a relief for sure.
I did start watching Heal- great it so far. I love alternative medicine too, at this point I’ve been sticking with mostly that for almost 15 years now, and only use the conventional type stuff for emergencies. I plan on finishing it tonight. Thanks for recommending it!
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For me the opposite of fear is trust. The trust is not in the situation, its outcome, other people etc. The trust is simply the thought that no matter what is coming I have faith in myself to handle it. Maybe its acceptance, maybe it's asking for help, maybe its changing my situation, maybe its starting over but I trust myself to figure out what I need to do and to take that first step. It took me a very very long time to trust myself (decades (pl))
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It probably is that simple Bim - I'm a master at complicating things, eh?
I think *I* don't hear general statements like that as Fact just yet. IDK why, maybe it's just too general & harder to accept just like when someone "apologizes or everything" without really understanding what they are apologizing for. My Self seems to hear that I "love and accept" myself as "blah, blah, blah" - yeah, sure, I get it but.....
It's like pmd22 said - finding that "right" combination of words to "shatter the scene" somehow matters. IDK why, but it does, at least for me in this situation.
The tapping they illustrate in the movie really helped me understand a real-time way of simplifying it while personalizing it. The example in the movie struck home for me in the way that the subject was dealing with long-standing dysfunction with her mother - not exactly my situation, but close enough for me to see the commonalities & not the differences.
Ok - back to my Fear-Talk, lol. I've gone back over times I felt most Fearful & one commonality seems to be that Fight or Flight don't seem to apply to much outside of my FOO - instead I experience Freeze as a response more often, which shows up as very passive behavior. I withdraw, go into observation mode, drop friendships - whatever it takes to separate myself from the situation & hide until enough time goes by. More aggressive behavior shows up in my late teens, after my father's death, when my mom switched from bullying me to victim-mode with me. Instead of pushing me around in obvious bully-like behavior (creating fear), she leaned on me to defend her & make hard choices & then later, blame me for the consequences.
I was afraid of moving from my small-town to a completely new, unknown state at age 15 but that was general fear. Sitting in that admin office of my new high school, alone, I observed everything around me & decided I was so far out of my element that I was going to have to start all over again. It is no lie when I say I came from a world of literally never meeting anyone that wasn't just like me - white & Catholic. But here? Every culture, every color, more religions than I even understood existed right here - I've never felt so insignificant or ignorant. I didn't get a single reference or understand any of the slang & it didn't help that they couldn't figure out how to place me & I ended up in classes across all grade levels so I wasn't even just among all Juniors like myself. I decided I was going to have to reinvent myself & either sink or swim. Here, at least, no one was judging me as the child of a drug-addict who had just been released from federal prison.
I conquered the Fear by making room for it & moving forward anyway. By not letting it hold me back but also not ignoring it. It's exactly like I once read:
"You don't need to let go of all your fear before you are ready to experience love. You can pick up your fears in your arms and carry them into the love with you. For once you step into love, fear shows itself up for the illusion it's always been, and love is all that remains." -Eric Pearl "The Reconnection"
I think for the most part, I carry the fear with me until it naturally dissolves - at least with external stuff like that. I don't have physical or sexual abuse in my history & my emotional abuses carry more intangible, subconscious fears that were built in layers over my entire childhood from birth. I also inherited a certain amount of it from my mom - she lives in Fear almost 100% of the time & always has.
The only time I can recall something more physical that's relatable here is when a group of older girls ganged up on me in college. I had no clue the guy I was seeing casually was also dating one of their friends. While I had nothing invested in this guy, she was planning on leaving her husband for him, so for her friends, this was a Very Big Deal. The friends harassed me while the "best of" CD for a popular band ran in the background at the party we were at & then she showed up at his place late that night & broke in while we slept. I ended up locked in the bedroom while he sat guard outside to keep her away from me until my ride could get there (we didn't have cell phones then, lol). Those songs triggered me into panic for a while - they are still popular in the cover-band circuit & I hear them often but it took me a bit to connect it to this incident. Over time, my friends & I have parodied & danced to these songs enough that now I can roll my eyes, laugh & move on. I've asked every musician I know to just stop playing them already, lol. Meantime, they lol when they strum the opening chords & see me head to the restrooms - everyone knows I'll be taking my break while *that* song plays.
I feel closer to resolution with this just by way of talking it out/examining it so thoroughly & honestly. Another awful interaction with my mom this weekend has provided a lot of validation that I didn't expect or go looking for. It was sort of one of those "shattering" moments once I was able to disengage & take a step back. Going forward I probably need to take some new risks & expose myself in new ways creatively to combat the "less-than" programming that keeps running the show. Once I prove to Me that I can trust myself in these ways, the new programming will overwrite my Fear Programming & just take over.
I think *I* don't hear general statements like that as Fact just yet. IDK why, maybe it's just too general & harder to accept just like when someone "apologizes or everything" without really understanding what they are apologizing for. My Self seems to hear that I "love and accept" myself as "blah, blah, blah" - yeah, sure, I get it but.....
It's like pmd22 said - finding that "right" combination of words to "shatter the scene" somehow matters. IDK why, but it does, at least for me in this situation.
The tapping they illustrate in the movie really helped me understand a real-time way of simplifying it while personalizing it. The example in the movie struck home for me in the way that the subject was dealing with long-standing dysfunction with her mother - not exactly my situation, but close enough for me to see the commonalities & not the differences.
Ok - back to my Fear-Talk, lol. I've gone back over times I felt most Fearful & one commonality seems to be that Fight or Flight don't seem to apply to much outside of my FOO - instead I experience Freeze as a response more often, which shows up as very passive behavior. I withdraw, go into observation mode, drop friendships - whatever it takes to separate myself from the situation & hide until enough time goes by. More aggressive behavior shows up in my late teens, after my father's death, when my mom switched from bullying me to victim-mode with me. Instead of pushing me around in obvious bully-like behavior (creating fear), she leaned on me to defend her & make hard choices & then later, blame me for the consequences.
I was afraid of moving from my small-town to a completely new, unknown state at age 15 but that was general fear. Sitting in that admin office of my new high school, alone, I observed everything around me & decided I was so far out of my element that I was going to have to start all over again. It is no lie when I say I came from a world of literally never meeting anyone that wasn't just like me - white & Catholic. But here? Every culture, every color, more religions than I even understood existed right here - I've never felt so insignificant or ignorant. I didn't get a single reference or understand any of the slang & it didn't help that they couldn't figure out how to place me & I ended up in classes across all grade levels so I wasn't even just among all Juniors like myself. I decided I was going to have to reinvent myself & either sink or swim. Here, at least, no one was judging me as the child of a drug-addict who had just been released from federal prison.
I conquered the Fear by making room for it & moving forward anyway. By not letting it hold me back but also not ignoring it. It's exactly like I once read:
"You don't need to let go of all your fear before you are ready to experience love. You can pick up your fears in your arms and carry them into the love with you. For once you step into love, fear shows itself up for the illusion it's always been, and love is all that remains." -Eric Pearl "The Reconnection"
I think for the most part, I carry the fear with me until it naturally dissolves - at least with external stuff like that. I don't have physical or sexual abuse in my history & my emotional abuses carry more intangible, subconscious fears that were built in layers over my entire childhood from birth. I also inherited a certain amount of it from my mom - she lives in Fear almost 100% of the time & always has.
The only time I can recall something more physical that's relatable here is when a group of older girls ganged up on me in college. I had no clue the guy I was seeing casually was also dating one of their friends. While I had nothing invested in this guy, she was planning on leaving her husband for him, so for her friends, this was a Very Big Deal. The friends harassed me while the "best of" CD for a popular band ran in the background at the party we were at & then she showed up at his place late that night & broke in while we slept. I ended up locked in the bedroom while he sat guard outside to keep her away from me until my ride could get there (we didn't have cell phones then, lol). Those songs triggered me into panic for a while - they are still popular in the cover-band circuit & I hear them often but it took me a bit to connect it to this incident. Over time, my friends & I have parodied & danced to these songs enough that now I can roll my eyes, laugh & move on. I've asked every musician I know to just stop playing them already, lol. Meantime, they lol when they strum the opening chords & see me head to the restrooms - everyone knows I'll be taking my break while *that* song plays.
I feel closer to resolution with this just by way of talking it out/examining it so thoroughly & honestly. Another awful interaction with my mom this weekend has provided a lot of validation that I didn't expect or go looking for. It was sort of one of those "shattering" moments once I was able to disengage & take a step back. Going forward I probably need to take some new risks & expose myself in new ways creatively to combat the "less-than" programming that keeps running the show. Once I prove to Me that I can trust myself in these ways, the new programming will overwrite my Fear Programming & just take over.
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In counseling I have had many discussions about fear. I went through panic attacks and the fear during those times was literally crippling. What I believe is that under fear is layers and layers of experiences. Until you go through those like a catalogue in your brain and heal from them and address them, the fear remains. Until you are able to be rational minded and ask yourself, even though I fear X, what is the worst that could happen. What would I do in that situation.
So for myself, there is no opposite of fear. There is only layers of other kinds of experiences that do not cause fear.
I don't know that any of that will make sense, but that is how I've worked it out in my own brain, and it seems to be working.
So for myself, there is no opposite of fear. There is only layers of other kinds of experiences that do not cause fear.
I don't know that any of that will make sense, but that is how I've worked it out in my own brain, and it seems to be working.
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Originally Posted by hopeful4
In counseling I have had many discussions about fear. I went through panic attacks and the fear during those times was literally crippling. What I believe is that under fear is layers and layers of experiences. Until you go through those like a catalogue in your brain and heal from them and address them, the fear remains. Until you are able to be rational minded and ask yourself, even though I fear X, what is the worst that could happen. What would I do in that situation.
So for myself, there is no opposite of fear. There is only layers of other kinds of experiences that do not cause fear.
I don't know that any of that will make sense, but that is how I've worked it out in my own brain, and it seems to be working.
So for myself, there is no opposite of fear. There is only layers of other kinds of experiences that do not cause fear.
I don't know that any of that will make sense, but that is how I've worked it out in my own brain, and it seems to be working.
I appreciate every single one of you who participated in this exercise - I've gotten amazing responses here & via pm. It's all so interesting to me - not just the responses but the stories & reasons behind them.
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