Fear is normal.
Fear is a natural mechanism to protect us from harm.
Most people believe that fear is a negative concept that we must avoid or even stop at all costs.
But thanks to fear,
The human is still alive.
Our species has the unique ability to use fear in our advantage.
We must not stop fear,
But learn how to control and understand it.
In this podcast we try to understand it,
Learn to live with it and try to find ways how to control it.
Initially we have some basic fears that are all needed and which we need to learn while growing up.
The most important fear is the fear of fire.
In our childhood we learned that fire and heat can cause damage and pain.
Most of us did learn it by experience.
At the same time we did learn to fear it,
But also how to use it in our advantage.
Fire did become a need for many things to make our life more comfortable.
Most people fear by a certain experience which made a lasting impact on them.
We all know that fear is causing a clear physical reaction.
For the reason of later use I will sum some of the most important physical reactions that the majority of the people have.
The first one is always your breathing rate increases,
You start to breathe faster and sometimes even deeper.
This sudden change causes an effect and a different level of oxygen in your blood.
Number two,
Your heart rate raises fast.
Our heart responds by faster pumping the blood through the body and empowers the muscle for a reaction to come.
Number three,
The vessels become dilated and the blood flows faster.
Number four,
Many muscles increase in tension.
This causes the reaction of,
Hey,
Do I fight,
Flight or freeze?
And number five,
Finally the skin shows signs such as goosebumps,
Sweating and some people even get a complete dryness of their skin.
These are the well known general reactions.
There are more,
But they are minor and these are familiar to you.
Everybody knows about it.
So try to repeat each of these physical signs of fear a few times in your head until you know and you memorize them.
Know them by head.
The reason will be very clear later on.
Then we also have the brain response on a very specific way.
Let me sum up the most familiar brain reactions and please try to memorize these as well.
The brain,
Number one,
The brain starts to work very fast,
Calculating all the options of events and then what can happen to you?
In most cases,
Your brain is going on and on and on and on in a circle,
But in fact it is called a frozen brain because your brain is working separately from your body.
The number two,
The brain falls in a lockdown and response reaction.
This is the fight brain.
It will respond for responding.
Number three,
The brain created a panic and run reaction and the body is set to action to run and escape.
This is the flight brain.
Most people have this brain.
They're not there and fight.
They are there to flight.
And believe me,
That saves our human race.
It's not bravery that saves the human race.
It is this simple flight reaction.
Number four,
The brain is set in a give up and die mode.
This person is ready to become a victim and accept fate already.
The body becomes weak,
Often pale and sweaty,
Sometimes even smelly.
And this is a give up and die brain.
It's not nice to have one like that,
But this reality,
They exist.
Our brain and body can have a different reaction.
This sounds strange as we expect the brain to coordinate all process in a logical order,
But it does not.
Our brain and body can react different to fear due to the fact that the different parts of the brain are involved with the reaction to fear.
More interesting is the fact that our basic temperament is involved in the reaction to fear at all time.
Fear is also different for each gender.
Females are faster in recognizing fear and act on it than males do.
Most males do hide fear in a conscious,
But also in an unconscious way.
In such a way that we even do not realize that they have it.
So they are not aware that they have and live in fear.
This brings us to another important inducer of fear.
Fear is dependent on the local cultural environment,
Of the place where you grow up as a child and again,
Impurity.
During these phases of life,
The fear of the environment has a direct influence on most people.
One good example of cultural fear is the fear for the unknown.
Most people learn to fear a god,
An unknown and unseen power of authority which is watching you all the time and judging your daily doings.
To balance that fear,
We have been told that the same unknown power also brings us a lot of goods in our life.
That all the positive things in life,
That's thanks to God.
In cases of gods,
We have taught to create a balance in our fear for the unknown and the good side of the unknown power.
But it is in fact that due to this fear for the unknown,
We also develop other fears who are less positive and not very easy to keep under control.
Just let me give some examples to show you the same thoughts of the fear of the unknown creates other fears of which we are not able to balance them with a good side.
These fears are like the fear of disease.
We know the disease are around and can harm people.
Our fear is that a specific disease will hit us and makes us suffer.
And in fact,
We only fear the suffering.
The fear of violence,
Such as war,
Terrorist,
Crime or a battle of attacks.
We fear this often because we are not sure how to defend ourselves and feel that we are not prepared to deal with it.
Or another fear,
The fear of death,
As we do not know what will come after we die.
Let me look at a little closer to what is being taught to us about the fear of the unknown.
First of all,
We have to fear what we cannot see,
Touch or understand.
We must fear something that is not in reach of our senses and with no time limit.
This fear is balanced with what is within our senses,
What we observe,
What we touch,
See,
Feel,
Hear and smell.
In other words,
We bring observation and living in the moment into a balance with the timeless unknown.
This brings that,
The acceptation of here and now is the best way to combat fear in general.
We have to learn to accept our limitations,
To understand and observe that we are limited in the knowledge and that we have as human beings are mortal and we have to suffer in life.
The fear of suffering makes us suffer even more.
From our environment we learn to avoid that what makes us suffer,
Often without experiencing this event.
We fear something that could make us suffer,
But have never experienced it physically or mentally.
The second hand idea of experience,
With other words the fear of the unknown,
Becomes our reality,
A fake reality as you understand now.
But this fake reality creates a perception of what is a fearing person is considered the truth.
Their truth is an illusion and this illusion makes them suffer.
Then we get back to the fear of fire.
This fear of fire comes by experience in most cases.
The child must touch to know the reality of pain.
Pain makes the child understand that the observation is dangerous for their physics and will hurt them also mentally as the experience of pain is in most cases not nice.
But most people have a fear of spiders,
Diseases,
Open spaces,
Contact with other people and so many many other things.
In most cases the person with the fear has some imaginative thoughts about this events and made it their reality in their brain.
For instance the fear the spider as it can hurt them by biting or otherwise.
A disease can make them suffer physically from the most horrible pains and enable them to be ever normal again.
Or what do you think of the open space is exposing and dangerous for attack or something that can contact with them and destroy them.
But also it is possible that you can get in contact with other people and that can lead to misunderstanding,
A quarrel or even a fight.
These are all misunderstandings but they are also thoughts that became reality to the people who fear them.
All these events are events in the future.
They are not living in the moment.
They live in a future possible event that still never happened.
Here we can conclude that fear is mainly based on the thought that what will happen in the future after the connection,
Contact or whatever was established.
So everything is based on that imagine.
And there is no positive experience to balance this.
In other words fear can grow if there is no opposing emotion to balance the negative effect of it in your brain.
To combat fear we should analyze the fear itself first and find a positive counterbalance for it on an individual level.
But this is not as easy as it sounds.
When fear is deeply ingrained in a person's mind it even alters the working of the brain.
Fear really is changing the brain structure.
To combat deep and long term fear we should find an activity that is able to counterbalance the original fear effect.
And this is very important and we use martial arts for it,
Music and dance.
And they all come into effect.
All these three stimulate different parts of the brain which are all strong and able to develop the brain's direct resilience and resistance.
We all did hear and that living through the experience is important to counteract that fear.
Through the use of all our senses and our body and the stimulation thereof we create the awareness of the moment.
Living in the here and now.
Be there where you are.
A focus on the fear and living through it again and again from a mild touch to a direct confrontation.
What makes this method so useful for combating fear?
The first important part is control of breathing.
Special methods have been developed by the use of breathing to control your mind and emotions.
Relive situations and make a body prepared for combat.
Be aware that combat is not the same as warfare or even an actual fight.
There is no need for any physical fight in our case.
Our battleground is the fear inside us.
We fight a battle with ourselves.
Our breathing comes the control of muscles and tensions.
Each muscle learns to contract and relax like you are in a fight for life.
You are actually living in a created dangerous situation.
It plays in your head like the fear does and will take on the fear as an enemy.
When using music during practice I advise not to wear a headphone,
But get the music from the surrounding source.
It influences your mood in a much better way.
By the use of different kinds of music and movement you are able to guide the mood and at the same time create a positive counterbalance for the fear.
For instance when you are fearing spiders you copy the movements and fighting techniques of the spider physically.
So you really start doing it.
You learn to bite,
Walk and use the legs to become the spider.
The music can assist you to get a stronger imagination of the event.
Counteracting starts with finding the negative sides of what you fear.
What does it do?
Which effect does it have on your body and your brain?
Record it and write it down.
Ask assistance as sometimes it is not easy to find the right words,
The right emotions to describe what you feel and experience.
By writing it down you make it a first step in experiencing it again and at the same time you start to create the opportunity to find a counterbalance.
The second step is to visualize the fear.
Make it into a movie,
A picture or movement.
Give it a body.
When you have the writing and visualization together it is possible to create a positive counterbalance and start exercising it.
Fear is physical and needs a physical balancing to start with it.
Most people are not able to fight their fear alone.
That's very normal.
Otherwise they would not have developed it and surely not in a severe form.
Fighting fear alone is near to impossible.
You need reliable assistance.
But the fact is that fighting fear is always possible.
Maybe you cannot live in complete fearlessness but at least your life can be positive and good when you are able and willing to combat the fear as something that needs a positive counterbalance in your body and mind and not as just an enemy.
Always keep in mind that you are not the fear but the fear is in you.
It is just a tiny part of your being.
Like a little stone on the hill.
But a little stone can bother you a lot.
But it is in your shoe when you are walking.
Make it your task to bring back the stone to the hill and let it be part of the total in nature but not in your shoe.
Fight it gently and with the right arms.
Balance it with the positive power but never let fear take over and rule you and punish your life.
Be a soldier of love and live and combatant of the negative forces.
Beat it with a positive mind and a very strong body.
And that's what you can do.
And if you use the martial arts,
The music and the dance you'll really be a soldier of arts.
Question and answer.
Question 1.
Does meditation help to combat fear?
Answer 1.
Meditation is a controlled move of the mind.
Fear is uncontrolled.
To use meditation to fight fear is very complicated and often even not advised.
Why not?
During a meditation your mind should be at ease and open.
The goal is to let your thoughts go and sometimes focus on a specific topic.
Fear is like a pop-up on your computer.
It pops up every time when you do not want it and it disturbs the whole process.
It is possible to put the fear away during a concentration time as you may hide it for the time being.
But during a meditation your mind will also break down personal and mental defenses which gives the pop-up a chance to pop-up and come.
Concentration exercises which are often wrongly associated with meditation can be used to combat the stages of fear.
But it is more or less a controller than something to solve it.
Question 2.
I'm a pacifist person and feel that all these comparations with combat,
Fighting and soldiers is negative in my vision.
Can you reframe it to something positive?
Answer 2.
Maybe we can reframe the words for you in another way to show you a more positive image of the words.
Combat is always needed in the survival of mankind.
Our life is fighting at all the time that we give and get inside your body,
In your blood.
There is a constant war against disease and intruders going on inside these vessels of yours.
A constant battle of white blood cells who fight with the force of destruction to keep you healthy.
That's nature.
Forces of power are positive and negative and it is the way you use them that makes the difference.
In many philosophies we talk about the intention of the force that is used that makes the outcome having a positive or a negative energy.
The intention is the difference and makes an action,
Pacific or activist.
All my words have a positive intention and are used to give people power and strength.
Question 3.
I have a phobia of spiders and am not able to find any cure for it right now.
We also did try to have experience by meeting the spiders but this set me back for months.
What is your suggestion here?
Answer 3.
First of all I need to clear up something.
Fear and phobia are really not the same.
A phobia is an extreme long term and lasting form of fear.
In my lecture I already mentioned ingrained fear is difficult to combat and hardly ever can be thought alone.
Let that be clear first.
Second is the fact that the person who treated you started in the wrong way of the treatment.
Confrontation with the source of the fear is the last step of a treatment and not a first.
You should be prepared physically and mentally first.
Physically is something that hardly ever is being used in the Western medicine as exercise is still not considered a part of a treatment,
Especially not a mental treatment.
Hardly ever I hear a psychiatrist or a psychologist treating his customers in physical defence or even normal exercises.
But exercises and physical defence are needed as every very important part of your human defence system is a fighting system.
We are still animals in many ways.
Our fear are learned and can be managed by learning to fight in general.
Be more mentally and physically able to defend ourselves and defend what we love.
This is the first and major need of every human being and animal to defend what is dear and near.
By using the physical improvement methods,
First you become aware of the strength of the opponent.
When you are aware of your strength and that of your opponent,
That is your fear,
You are able to calculate physically and mentally your chances of survival.
This gives you the positive balance and chance to come out as a winner.
Only after you are able to understand and comprehend that part you are ready for the confrontation.
You do not need to kill them or even touch them to know that you can become out as a winner.
That will help you to smooth the problem and make you live more bearable and interesting.
Question 4.
Hello,
I am a fearless person and I can do anything what I want and like.
I have never felt any fear whatsoever.
Is that normal?
Answer 4.
Fear is needed emotion for your survival.
We need fear in our lives otherwise we are not able to distinct what is good and bad for us.
A fire is dangerous as it can burn you.
People without fear do touch and burn themselves and will do so again and again and they did not learn to fear the fire.
Fear is a needed response in every part of our life and we should try to control the levels but not the fact they exist.
Question 5.
Hi,
I have ADHD and due to this I can be very fearless.
What is the reason of this?
Answer 5.
People with ADHD are often overactive and their brain keeps on moving fast through the thoughts and the action.
Because of the need for action it looks like you have to know fear but in fact there is a mechanism that puts the fear aside and makes the need for action more important.
This is a chemical reaction in your body and mind that suppresses the fear response.
At the moment of loneliness the fear can come over you like a boomerang and hits you at the most unexpected powers and at the most unexpected moments.
Most ADHD patients have normal levels of fear but are hyperactive.
The most important part for you is to control the hyperactivity side of you and then you will discover that you have a normal functioning fear level.
Thank you for listening.
If you have any question please do not hesitate to contact me and you can leave here a message on this side.
You are always welcome to listen to my other podcast.
My name is Arnaud van der Aafere and I'm from the Netherlands.
Happy to see you again.
