Fear Examined

In life there are 2 core emotions: Love and fear. Fear is the base emotion for all forms of anger, anxiety, etc. Today we discuss how to diagnose and overcome them.

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hello,

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with Glenn Ambrose.

I'm here with Ben.

Hey buddy.

What's happening?

Uh,

Not much.

No much?

Oh,

Just doing a podcast?

Just doing the podcast.

So today we are going to talk about fear and overcoming it.

Not fear and sitting in it,

Because that would suck.

Right.

Yeah.

So,

So we're gonna,

First I want to get a good view,

Like an overview of what I'm talking about.

So basically there's two core emotions,

Love and fear,

And everything comes out of those.

So,

So everything,

All the emotions that we feel that are negative come from fear,

And all the emotions that we feel that are positive come from love.

So it's all a different version of it.

So a lot of times,

When we're making a decision,

We need to figure out if we're coming from love or coming from fear.

So is,

So hate is just fear?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes it is.

It's a,

It comes from fear.

You know,

There's,

There's a reason that somebody would say they hate another person or a situation,

Would be because of some sort of fear that they have,

Fear that it's going to damage their world,

Something in their world.

It could,

It could,

It could be a fear that it's going to affect your sense of security.

It could be a fear that it's gonna affect your relationship with somebody that you have,

Your personal safety.

There's always a fear associated with it.

You know,

That,

That would make,

It could be that it's,

That it's affecting your ego.

Somebody takes a shot at your ego,

All of a sudden you hate them for it,

You know.

So,

So yeah,

That's,

That's a version of fear.

There's some sort of fear underneath it all.

And that's,

You know,

That's what we need to get clarity on.

If we want to live a life,

A productive life,

Heading in the right direction towards happiness and peace and finding our true self and walking in the direction of,

Of what's going to make you happy,

Which is basically being your true self.

If you want to walk in that direction,

You need to make your decisions out of love.

If you make them out of fear,

You're just going to be putting up walls and blocking yourself from things that you could,

Could achieve or things that could make you happy.

You know,

So to get clarity on that,

You know,

You have to really be,

Be able to be honest with yourself and look at that stuff.

So if I'm,

If I'm looking at,

Like one that's kind of obvious is changing a job.

You know,

Lots of people stay in their jobs because of fear and,

You know,

They'll make up a lot of different reasons.

Well,

You know,

I've got a steady paycheck.

Well,

That's fear based,

You know,

I mean,

You could have a steady paycheck,

Lots of places,

You know,

If you want one.

You know,

I've been here a long time.

That's fear of change.

You know,

The economy is not good.

That's fear.

You know,

It's,

It's all fear based.

I mean,

The fact is,

Is,

Is,

Is people changing jobs and starting businesses at all different times of our economy.

It's,

But those are the people who aren't living in fear.

You know,

You know,

There's.

That doesn't mean that you always go run and change your job every time you don't like something,

You know,

Obviously.

I mean,

You have to,

You have to make some decent decisions and weigh out the options.

And if you want to make a move,

Then you make a move intelligently.

You know,

You don't just run and quit a job because you don't want to live in fear.

That's irresponsible.

So the fear that you're speaking of sounds pretty deep.

It sounds because usually when I use the word fear,

It's like.

I'm afraid of snakes.

Yeah,

Deathly afraid of snakes.

Horrible.

That's not the same thing as like,

That's how I feel like fear is most usually interpreted.

Like,

I'm afraid of heights.

I'm afraid of snakes.

I'm afraid of flying like.

Yeah,

Those are the ones that people will admit to.

Right.

You know,

And they don't try to cover up.

You know,

I mean,

If if you were.

It's it's generally not that big of a part of their lives.

They can control those fears.

You know,

Like,

I mean,

If you're afraid of snakes and you lived in a jungle.

You would be in a whole new area.

Now,

You would probably be rationalizing and manipulating situations because of that fear daily.

No,

I'm not going to go out hunting because I hurt my leg.

You know,

You know,

All kinds of things that and it would start affecting your life because it's part of your life.

But being afraid of snakes in our society here,

Whatever,

You know,

You don't need to deal with it.

Right.

So the things that we need to deal with on a regular basis are the fears that affect our lives on a daily basis.

Right.

Yeah.

So we're talking about like deep emotional fears or even ones that aren't that big of a deal.

But we let them affect us.

Right.

Right.

And it's yeah,

They don't need to nest.

Sometimes they're big fears and sometimes they're little ones.

But it's,

You know,

A lot.

I've said this before,

A lot of living in a healthy way is living in awareness,

Just living consciously.

So if you're if you're conscious of that,

If you know,

If you're living unconsciously and you're not aware of the fears and they're controlling your decisions,

Then,

You know,

That's a problem.

Now,

If you bring them up into your awareness and you go,

Oh,

I was going to make that decision based in fear.

Oh,

OK.

Well,

I'm not going to do that.

You know,

A lot of times we'll make the we'll make the correct decision when we're aware of this,

Especially when it comes to the little fears.

The big fears are more difficult.

You know,

Fear of insecurity.

Like I said,

Like quitting a job or moving to another job,

That can be a big undertaking.

But I mean,

The fact is,

Is if you don't like your job,

If you were to start working on leaving your job,

Say,

You know,

I mean,

Honestly,

You could it could be a month,

It could be two months.

But if you're still there after a year,

Two years,

There's really no reason for you to be there.

You know,

I mean,

If you don't like your job and you want to change it.

After a two year period,

You're just there because of fear.

You know,

You could have set things in motion.

There are things that you can do to ensure that you're not just leaping from one job into unemployment,

You know,

Generally over over a period of time if you're living consciously.

You know,

But if you're living unconsciously,

Then,

You know,

We wake up 20 years later in the same job that we hated and we're like,

Oh,

I had to.

You didn't have to.

You know,

You were you felt you had to.

But it was just the fear underneath,

You know,

And a lot of those decisions.

So the opposite of that decision living in fear is living making your decisions out of love.

And that's so,

You know,

It really helps if you have both sides of the coin so you can compare the two and see the see the dramatic difference.

So if you're sitting there,

You know,

We discussed a little bit what fear looks like.

Making a decision out of love would look like,

You know,

I'm not happy at this job.

I love myself too much to sit in a situation eight,

10,

12 hours a day.

That makes me unhappy.

So I'm going to do what it takes to find another option and get out of this.

You know,

So that's making a decision out of love,

Self love.

You know,

So that's that's the kind of the difference in that scenario.

I love myself too much to stay doing something eight,

10 hours a day that I that I don't enjoy or I'm never going to find anything.

You know,

The economy is too bad.

So that's fear and that's love.

So you can a lot of times if you if you're if you live in the awareness and you,

You know,

Can identify the thing that you are afraid of.

A lot of times you can get a better results by instead of attacking that problem out of fear,

Which is usually avoidance of something or burying something.

Yeah,

If you come out that with out of love,

You're saying then that's that's the way to deal with that,

Because you can come at it either way.

Like if there's a problem and it's something that is dealing with fear,

You may get this.

It might be like in a relationship,

Like you might have a reason of fear for why you're not getting rid of someone in your life.

Right.

But,

You know,

Because you're afraid of that,

Though,

You can also what you're saying is you can look at it as like from self love from self love.

I need to do this right.

And it's the same.

It's the way to overcome that fear and to get that person right.

Or,

You know,

That's the one.

Right.

It's the way to transcend that fear and it's that we kind of stumbled on a very important point right there,

Too,

Is generally a lot of times once if we're in a situation like a relationship or a job and we have that fear of getting out of it,

We'll sit in it until we're so frustrated that we explode.

You know,

And that's that's usually when we handle things poorly.

You know,

I mean,

When you explode on your boss and then get fired or you explode on this,

This your spouse or your girlfriend or boyfriend,

That's not usually the best way to handle things,

Obviously.

So,

But it's because it's coming out of frustration.

If it comes out of self love,

If you deal with your life out of self love instead of waiting until you get frustrated,

Then you're going to handle the situation a lot better.

It's there's a big difference.

You know,

Telling your boss to go screw themselves,

As opposed to sitting there going,

You know what,

Thank you for this opportunity.

I really appreciate it.

I'm moving on to this new job.

Or,

You know,

Or the relationship,

You know what,

I had known that at 19.

It's it's it is lit.

That's why if you that's why I'm talking about fear and love,

Because if you apply this to all your different decisions,

It can affect your life dramatically in a lot of different ways.

You know,

So why learn 300 tools for 300 different situations?

Let's learn one core one and apply it to 300 different situations.

You know,

So in in your relationship,

If you need to end the relationship because you're not getting what you need out of that relationship,

It's not fulfilling you.

Then what a better way to end that.

You know what?

This isn't this isn't what I need.

I'm not I'm not getting what I need out of this relationship.

We need to end this relationship.

That's not a self love.

It has nothing to do with the other person.

It's not saying the other person is bad.

It's not saying that they're not good enough.

It's just saying that this isn't working for me.

You know,

And it depersonalizes it.

It's it's not about the other person.

When we come at it out of frustration and it's like you're not good enough.

You're not this.

You're not that.

I can't do this anymore.

Well,

Then we make it all about them.

And it's not about them.

You know,

It's about us.

It's and you know,

They deserve to have somebody that's going to love them for who they are.

And so do we.

So so to live your life out of out of self love,

You end up with a lot less victims that way.

So what's an easy way to because most people that aren't aware of their own fear,

Like you said earlier,

Like snakes and fires and heights are the things that,

You know,

It's safe to go.

Yeah,

We're afraid of this.

And I'll tell everybody I'm afraid of spiders because that's,

You know,

But the spiders and snakes.

No,

I was just I was an example.

I'm not afraid of spiders and say it depends if it's a big spider.

I'm not going anywhere near it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like,

Like,

I'm not afraid of like a daddy long legs or.

Oh,

OK.

Good.

I was going to judge you.

Well,

Then you should listen to the last two episodes of the podcast.

That's why I said not judging part one and two.

I don't remember what I was saying.

Oh,

How do you what is a quick,

Not a quick I don't know that like quick is the right word,

But what is a sure fire,

I guess,

Way to identify those fears because it seems like a lot of people don't,

You know,

Because you're not acting.

You're acting out of fear unconsciously.

Right.

So how do you identify what's an easy way to to get introspective?

Well,

You know,

Honestly,

There's there's a lot of different ways.

It's really not as hard as it sounds.

It's really not.

A lot of it is just a matter of slowing down and thinking about it,

You know,

Asking yourself the question,

Is this out of fear?

Is this out of love?

But,

You know,

In a in a very conscious way,

You know,

If you just sit there and you go,

Oh,

Is this out of the job situation just keeps coming up as a good example.

You know,

Should I leave this job?

And you say,

Well,

No.

Is that out of fear?

I don't know.

You know,

That's how our mind works.

A lot of times you really got to slow down and take a look at it.

So a lot of times just sitting down,

Being honest with yourself is enough.

But the other aspect is talk it over.

Talk it over with somebody.

You got to get that outside perspective and be careful who you talk it over with.

I always say this,

You know,

Like if you're sitting there,

If you're sitting there and you're the primary breadwinner for the family and you go to your wife and say,

Honey,

Should I quit my job?

She might go,

Hell no,

Because she's got something to lose.

She's got her own fear of financial security wrapped around that.

So that's,

You know,

That's what you need to be careful of.

You need to talk about it with a neutral party.

Right.

However,

I do think I don't think you're encouraging people who are the breadwinner,

The sole breadwinner in their family to quit their job without discussing it with their spouse.

No,

No.

I mean,

Once you know,

Once that what you're doing,

Because I'll endorse that.

Right.

Absolutely not.

No,

No.

We,

You know,

I do consider myself a realist.

I don't think even though I don't think we need to live out of fear,

I also don't think we should be running around quitting our jobs.

And you know what?

Like I don't always learn my lessons the easiest way.

So I've done it.

I've gotten so frustrated where I didn't.

I was trying to get out of a job,

Trying,

Trying,

Trying.

And I just couldn't do it.

And to this day,

I don't completely know why.

But finally,

I couldn't.

I was like,

I can't take this anymore.

And if I have another work anniversary here,

I'm going to lose it.

So I'm like,

I need to take some sort of action.

Even if it's wrong,

I need to rock the boat.

And I rocked the boat and I left my job and I jumped into another job that was absolutely horrendous.

I literally could not bring myself to perform the job duties.

So it was just so much against who I am.

So I ended up having to quit that job a couple of weeks later.

And then I found myself unemployed.

And that was a problem.

That was a big problem.

And I would not recommend that to anybody.

I did that one time when I came back from college.

I got a job back at the place that I worked in high school.

And I was miserable for about six months.

And instead of saying anything,

One day I just exploded.

And I left and I told the other person I was working to tell the boss that I was never coming back.

And I just completely blew up that bridge.

Yeah.

And went and applied for a bunch of other jobs and ended up being unemployed for like six or seven months.

Right.

And that's reality.

That's the type of stuff that we do need to keep in mind when we're making these decisions.

You know,

So it's not about that.

It's about coming to the decision.

First,

You need to be able to come to the conclusion in a healthy way.

Should you leave this job or should you not?

It's not about actually leaving the job.

It's about coming to the conclusion whether you should or whether you shouldn't.

Which way you should go with your decision.

That's all.

That's where the fear controls us.

It's not even being able to make a healthy decision for our lives.

So with the job,

If you sit there and you discuss it with somebody and you're sitting there and you're going,

You know what?

I think that I should stay here because I need to support my family and I've got kids and I'm the primary breadwinner and all this stuff.

That's all fear,

Fear,

Fear,

Fear,

Fear.

That's no reason to stay at a job.

It's a reason to not go quit a job frivolously,

But it's not a reason to stay at a job forever.

So if you come to the conclusion,

We'll say,

Oh,

I'm going to support my kids.

You know what?

All you're doing is you're teaching your kids by your example how to suffer.

Kids don't always listen to what we say,

But they sure as heck listen to what we do or pay attention to what we do.

So when they're older and they're sitting in a job that they hate and we're going,

Oh,

My God,

You have your whole life ahead of you.

Why don't you just move on to a different job that you enjoy instead of sitting in a job that you hate for the rest of your life?

Well,

If we want them to do that,

We need to model that type of behavior.

So we have to do it for ourselves.

If you want your children to love themselves and treat themselves with love and respect,

Then you need to model that for them by doing it for yourself.

You know,

That's a heck of a better example that you can give.

And you can show them how to transition from a job they hate to a job that they that they might love,

You know,

By doing it in a healthy way.

Once you make that that healthy decision for yourself.

Yes,

I do need to leave this job.

OK,

Then,

You know,

Like I said in the beginning,

It might take you three months.

It could take you a year.

It could take you two years to find the right avenue to get out of that job.

But stop walking in that direction.

You know,

Keep moving towards happiness.

Don't let that fear just leave you stuck.

I think that it can work.

Maybe not with a good boss,

But it can work the opposite way.

Also,

Of being afraid to let an employee go.

Just I'm speaking mainly out of personal experience here.

But like the there is that that fear of like cutting,

Cutting ties with someone.

And,

You know,

Like that was that that was difficult.

And I probably left someone recent recently as of like a couple hours before recording this podcast,

Left someone going way too long because I was afraid to to deal with the in in terms of,

You know,

Not not facing the fear,

The fear of confrontation,

The fear of upsetting the other person.

Like,

Yeah,

Why is that?

That's such a I guess it's more of a relationship thing when it comes from that angle.

Having a fear of letting somebody down and stuff like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's what we do is even though it's an unhealthy situation.

That's because we always make everything about other people.

And,

You know,

That it's a trick.

Our ego plays.

It plays with our fears and it puts things.

This is living unconsciously.

So what it does is it puts it on the other person.

And it's like,

Oh,

I don't want to hurt them.

And it has nothing to do with not wanting to hurt them.

It has to do with fear of getting into a confrontation.

But we put it on the other person.

You know,

The fact is whatever decision we're making is always about us.

It's not about the other person.

You know,

If you need to let somebody go from a business venture or even from a friendship,

It's always about us.

This is not what's best for me.

This needs to end because I'm not it's not healthy for me.

And when we keep it on enhancing our life,

The only thing that we have control over,

Then that the fear about hurting somebody else subsides dramatically.

And it actually it actually hurts.

There's less pain when we do it that way.

I mean,

Everything that we do and say,

There's an energy to it.

And if I'm doing things,

I do this all the time and I say it all the time.

It still to this day astounds me.

The things that I can say to people.

It's not that nobody ever gets offended by something that I say.

I know that some people get offended by stuff that I say.

I constantly get offended.

You're full of it.

I'm offended now.

But most times.

Good day,

Sir.

Most.

That was pretty good.

Good day,

Sir.

That was a little overboard.

Anyway,

But most times I can say things to people without them getting offended.

Most times I can because it's not I'm not saying it's not about them.

You know,

If I if I'm taking care of myself out of self love,

It's about me.

If it's affecting my life,

It's about me.

And if I do,

If I am working with somebody else about something that's going on in their life,

Then I say it out of love,

Not out of judgment.

You know,

And when you say it's you can say the same exact things out of judgment.

And out of non judgment and get two completely different reactions out of people.

Now,

I think that I'm going to maybe blow this into a completely different conversation quickly.

And maybe something that you'll want to do just a whole podcast on.

I'm not sure how important it is,

But something that you have constantly said over the last two years to me.

And I heard it as recently as last week.

People that are so far we've talked about all being afraid of negative things or things that we perceive as negative things.

Oh,

I know where you're going.

Please explain to me the concept of fear of success.

Yes,

Because I don't I don't get it.

I it's funny you brought it up because I just read a or I actually just watched a video,

This little video,

A couple of minutes of Marianne Williamson reading over her,

Her famous quote and explaining it.

And basically her famous quote says,

You know,

Our greatest fear is not of failure.

It's about how wonderful we are.

And that that a lot of times will we walk around and we're always minimizing ourselves to fit in with everybody and everything we don't want to offend.

We don't want to look like we think we're,

You know,

Too good for anyone.

I mean,

God forbid that,

You know,

People might think that we're we're full of ourselves,

You know.

So we're constantly shrinking down to to not upset the apple cart,

You know.

And that's such a part of our society that we're not allowing ourselves to blossom.

I mean,

Most people feel like most people in this country and around the world believe in some sort of creator,

Some sort of higher power or God that that created us.

So if.

If there was if there's something that's creating us,

That's all powerful.

It's not out there creating crap.

You know,

You know,

I mean,

It's creating some pretty wonderful beings down here,

You know,

And there's not one person that's wonderful and one person that sucks.

We've all got wonderful,

You know,

Possibilities within us.

And some people,

It's it's very large on a public scale.

And some people,

It's very small and a more private scale.

But we all have wonderful things within us.

And that's our greatest fear is opening up to that and go of how wonderful we might actually be.

So we end up squandering and going just trying to fit in and holding ourselves down.

And we walk around going,

Who am I to be?

Who am I to be wonderful?

Who am I to be larger than life?

Well,

Who are you not to be?

You know,

We've all been given gifts that we can use.

And if we're not using them,

Then shame on us.

You know,

Shame on us for not using them.

We've got a gift and we all know people who have gifts and we point the finger at them and go,

Oh,

My God,

You should be using it.

You should be using it.

And it's such a gift.

And if you don't,

Then shame on you and all that crap.

Well,

Everybody in society is walking around doing that.

Not everybody,

But a lot of people are,

You know,

A lot of us are walking around.

I mean,

I find it I I catch myself with it.

You know,

If I'm going to sit down and do a podcast or a workshop,

There's moments where I go,

Oh,

Can I do this?

But I'm trying to live consciously.

And of course I can do it.

All I have to do is be myself.

You know,

So I'm not putting on a big show.

I'm just being me.

And that's where I found the comfort level to be able to do the things that I do,

Because it's just opening up to more of myself.

That's a fascinating topic.

It is.

Because it seems crazy to me.

But I don't know why,

But it still does.

And well,

Have you ever looked at us at a situation where you were like,

You know what?

If this like if I land this,

You know,

Like you're you guys produce.

Yeah.

So let's say you get this huge opportunity to produce something.

And I mean,

This if you landed this,

It could blow your business worldwide or nationwide or something like that.

Have you ever looked at our first our first thoughts would be this is too big for us.

We are not able to do this.

And that's it.

And that's your fear of success.

That's your fear of being.

Well,

I mean,

You know,

We realize that the biggest producers in the world,

The people who have produced the most wonderful thing out there is just a person.

They're just a person that knows how to produce.

You're a person that knows how to produce.

So well,

You know what I mean?

It's just it's just a person.

That's all.

I mean,

If one can do it,

Then another can do it.

It's really not superhuman to be able to do something like that.

You know,

But that initial,

Oh,

My God,

Comes up and it comes up in all of us.

It's,

You know,

It's very common.

So it's not a big deal that it comes up.

It's just is it going to control you and the people you see succeed are the ones who don't let it control them.

It still comes up.

They go,

Oh,

My God,

Am I good enough?

This is big.

What if oh,

My.

And then they,

You know,

Simmer it down,

Get control and they move forward.

The ones who don't succeed are the ones who don't do that.

I think this is a big conversation that we should probably extend into a full podcast at some point.

Yeah.

In the future.

Would maybe some more examples because I need more help with it.

And if nothing else,

You're at least just talking to me on this.

So.

Fear versus love.

Very simple to go back to the original point of the episode.

Right.

Fear versus love.

Yeah,

You know,

It's it's about slowing down and looking at why you're making the decisions,

You know,

And it's always and to get a little more specific,

Make that out of self-confidence.

Make that out of self-love,

You know,

Because we'll we'll be ourselves and be like,

Oh,

It's I'm staying in this job because of love for my family.

No,

That's fear that there's no other way to support them,

Which which there is other ways to support them.

So it's out of self-love.

You know,

Get specific,

Make your decisions out of self-love,

Talk it over with people.

I mean,

And talk it over with with people that are going to give you the honest truth that don't have the same fear around the same subject as you do and talk to multiple people and or and or go get a life coach.

You know,

That's what they're there for.

That's what I use mine for.

That's what I do with other people.

That's a that's a great point.

And speaking of that,

Speak if you do want to go get a life coach,

We're about out of time.

Where can people reach you?

They can reach me at my website,

Life dash enhancement dash services dot com or my Facebook page,

Glen Ambrose or my life enhancement services Facebook page.

You're not going to say the names of your own thing.

No,

Never have been.

Never will be.

Probably.

Maybe I'll get used to it.

Maybe I'll just change the name.

There we go.

See,

I'm going to have to look at this.

I'll have to see.

Make the decision out of self love.

I don't think I think in one of the like last two episodes,

You said Glen Ambrose wrong.

Glen Ambrose wrong.

There it is.

No,

Try to try to try to get you.

Thanks.

Thank God I got that.

I'm not I'm never going to use my middle name with us.

That throw me way off.

If you want to know Glenn's middle name,

Download next Sunday's episode of life lessons and laughter.

All right.

Thanks.

Have a good week.

This podcast is presented by New Shore Productions,

Executive producers,

Glen Ambrose,

Benjamin Barber and David DeAngelis.

Reviews

The universe must have brought this talk to me at the moment I needed to understand my fears. Thank you!

clarifying and by helpful

An amazing reminder to check my motives! Thank you for another inspirational podcast to start my day 🙏

Love this podcasts’s focus and also love your other talks. Thank you for keeping on deciding to be yourself. You make a difference. 🌸

This concept of playing yourself little not to upset others resonated 100% for me
Sooo loving oneself is shinning !! GREAT !
Beautiful ! Thank you.
🙏🏼

Down to earth! Yes

Just what I needed today.

I love your podcasts Glenn. Thanks for sharing ❤

This taught me how to not fear how wonderful I am

These talks are spot on. I will return 💜💜💜 to this again and again. Mahalo

Wonderful podcast! Right to the point. Inspiring, empowering and fun! Thank you Glenn & Ben!

And YES... I listened to it again! Loved it again!! And yes there should be a separate podcast regarding "Fear Of Success".

Great! Finally I understand something.

Wise talk thank you

Fun conversation about love and fear, I agree with much of what Glen said. Daily meditation is one of the tools I use to increase my awareness so I can recognize those deeply entrenched fears and live with more love.

amusing insightful Good Day Sir !

I just listened to this a second time today, you guys are awesome 😊 and Ben I concur with the next podcast idea, I think it's a broad subject that you can(basically) angle how you'd like. Can't wait to hear from you again! Positive vibes from Sweden ✨