Fear and Fearlessness
Café-Salon Philosophique #8
February 21, 1998
The evening's Topic: "The Emotion of Fear and the Value of Fearlessness."
The evening began with Samuel introducing new participants to Café-Salon Philosophique and by reading the "courtesy guidelines" for the participants. He next introduced Marta, a regular participant to facilitate for the evening's discussion.
We began the evening by first defining fear. One believed that fear is "unawareness of the future." Another stated that "it can be a biological or instinctual response to perceived threats." Others expressed that fear can be based on doubts, the "what ifs" and can manifest as lack of confidence that keeps us static or paralyzed from doing anything.
We are then unable to make decisions for taking the responsibility to move forward and change in life. We tend to "side step" or even fall into the trap of "backsliding" in our lives because of fear. We are unaware of possible conscious choices for making positive changes in our lives related to learning conditioned behavioral responses through various "societal norms" (govt., schools, churches, etc). So we live in fear.
The next question posed was, is fear a rational or irrational emotion? Samuel then shared with the group how people repress emotions because of false guilt, because of not knowing ourselves. He stated that when we realize the following two facts, about fear, we can eliminate fear or guilt.
Fact #1: Immediate emotions are beyond the person's direct control and should not be associated with guilt.
Fact #2: Emotions never have to be acted upon. Thus, a person never needs to fear irrational emotions. The difference between rational and irrational emotion of fear is that, objective fear is a valuable protective mechanism; whereas, irrational fear is destructive and keeps us from taking needed action, and decreases our productivity. These paralyzing effects of irrational fear can be overcome by conscious effort, by calmly reviewing the situation, and finding a reasonable resolution to the situation.
So then some questions asked were, What are we afraid of? In situations of fear, is the danger we perceive real or imagined? What is the cause of our fear and what kind of action/reaction do we have to these fears? The group then shared some personal stories about how they dealt with fearful situations.
Many shared how instinctually the "warrior" appears from within to instantly protect the self and others. Vineeta shared a wilderness experience where a boy slipped into a rushing river and how even though she was scared and knew she might be jeopardizing her own life, she instinctly went into the raging river to rescue the boy.
Samuel shared how when walking on the streets of New York one night, from the subway to his apartment, he noticed he was followed by suspicious characters. He realized the posture of his walk was fearful, and when he immediately changed his posture, they stopped following him.
We then discussed how one must not let fear govern one's life. One must learn to "open the doors" to new opportunities. Jim described how we need to deal with our own "stupidities" and learn to recognize what's not working, and how we can be rid of unwanted, undesirable events.
The next question was what motivates us towards change? Answers were "catastrophes, uncomfortability, and specific personal events." One stated that she listens to her "inner voice" and goes by her intuition. Things that prevent change were defined as apathy, "getting in our own way," creating unnecessary blocks and obstacles, lack of awareness, denial (seeing where we can go but not admitting that we can see it), escaping by "sleepwalking" through life, "I'm busy," lack of attention and realization with failure to act.
Samuel then asked us to name ten great American fears. Answers were death, nuclear weapons, past, present and future, rejection, pain, being hurt, financial disaster, and uncertainty. Fear results from the inability to imagine anything past where we are at the present moment.
Society lives so "comfortably" in fear that they don't even recognize their own conformance to controlled, structured environments. And because this is a learned behavior, we as individuals continue to "control our behavior" to appear "socially acceptable."
Next, we looked at how fear manifests physically. One stops breathing. There is contraction, tension and sometimes-even paralysis of movement. One can begin to sweat or become "flush." Marta shared a story of how tension can affect an entire organization. She described how just one individual of an organization created tension for over a year and how the people continued to work uncomfortably "out of fear" of losing their jobs.
Marta chose to see the situation for what it was and took action towards changing the situation. The person who had created the whole atmosphere of tension was dismissed, and in turn the atmosphere changed completely. The tension then disappeared. That was one way for relieving tension.
One of the greatest ways for relieving tension is through humor and laughter. People laugh to release tension. Laughter massages all the cells deep within the body and causes one to breathe easier, thus, improving and promoting circulation throughout the whole body. The sad thing is that the world has forgotten how to laugh. Did you know that a child entering kindergarten laughs at least 300 times a day and that an adult laughs on average 17 times or less? Think about it.
In summary, group members stayed with the evening's topic of discussion and conversation was well balanced, interesting and flowing.
There was NO TENSION at this meeting! It was a very enjoyable evening of conversation.
The next meeting for Café-Salon Philosophique will be Sat., March 7, 1998 at 7:00 p.m. The topic of will be: "To what extent is the sense we have of control over our own lives an illusion?" Do come and invite your friends. See you then!
Reported by Alessandra
