The way to make all of life safe...

'Help me become more courageous, help me forge my sword to slay the dragons along my road'.

Want to be liked by everyone?

Lower others anxiety and pay attention.

How do you know if it's paranoia or instinct?

Where's the line between instinct and paranoia? Experience and questions on one side, fear and assumptions on the other.

Fear and fuss

It's befuddled me of how much fear is in the world over things that aren't really anything, which causes a lot of fuss over very little... has it always been this way and I just notice more now or has it got worse with the kind of world we're apart of?

The opposite of love and fear is the opposite of what you think

People think the opposite of love is hate... It's not because in order to hate there must be some part which cares enough to hate. Hate is the antidote to love but not the opposite. The opposite to love is apathy.

If you agree with that line of thinking, what's the opposite of fear? It's not excitement, the body processes both this emotions very similarly.

I think the opposite of fear is boredom.

Something I'm going to think about more.

Fuck fear

I'm pretty fed up with almost everyone in my life with their deep fear and high strung anxiety... and for what? Because you might slightly go backwards in comforts, affluence and status? I feel like I'm this outlier... I'm not afraid or alone, it's just really really strange... maybe my time will come but there's just so much unnecessary fear out there! 

"There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality."

Truth about your fears

Emotions like anxiety and fear have their roots in uncertainty, rarely in experience

The fear of loss

The Hierophant: A priest in ancient Greece who interprets sacred mysteries or esoteric principles.

The seeker, having created a solid foundation, is struck with a sudden fear. What if everything he’s worked for is taken away, stolen, lost, destroyed or vanishes?

In a panic he heads to find the Hierophant and receive his teachings.

He tells the Hierophant his fears and asks how he can be free of them.

“There are only two ways”, says the Hierophant:

“Either give up that, which you fear to lose, so it no longer holds any power over you”, or
“Consider what you will still have if your fear comes to pass.”

“After all,” the Hierophant continues, “if you did lose all you’d built, you would still keep the experience and knowledge that you’ve gained up to this point, wouldn’t you?”

Accidental Relationship Sabotage

Why do people rush into marriage? Why do they rush into living together or rush to having a family?
Why do people hold off getting married, or moving in together,  why do people resist even being in a relationship in the first place?

The answer to both why we speed up and why we slow down is the same.  Fear.

The reason you avoid being close to someone is to avoid being hurt.
The reason you rush into commitments is because you're locking things down before that person can get away.

The same thing is going on in both situations,  we are trying to have power and control over over a situation to avoid possible pain.  The problem is "he who fears he shall suffer,  already suffers what he fears".
The problem is,  the more you focus on the fear and what you don't want to happen,  the more you feed the beast. It's like quicksand, the more you do to prevent the pain you're trying to avoid,  the faster it makes you sink into it.

I don't blame people for how they behave... If there was a countdown to putting your hand on a hot plate, in that time,  wouldn't you do actions to try and avoid that outcome?

Swipe Dating and Why We Do It

"In the age of Tinder, Grindr, Happn, Bumble and many other dating apps that allow people to flip through potential dates like picking socks for the winter season, it seems not only romance has died, but also the respect needed to nurture healthy relationships. Is Tinder a symptom of our self-indulgent, self-absorbed, individualistic, lonely society or has it perpetuated a model in which every human interaction is need-based and transactional?"

— Mădălina Preda

Actually it comes down to fear...  We as creatures generally use fear as a guide to keep us alive. When we make it personal, it triggers all sorts of fears, men and women alike, so dating paradoxically is what brings the option of new life but we may 'die' in the process (according to the un-evolved part of our brain when triggered by fear). So as humans have done for thousands of years,  we try to make things safer... Our feelings guide our 'success' (even though flying on a plane is safer than a car and a kitchen is dirtier than a toilet), and in this context we have been able to remove fear and vulnerability through 'distance' which is achieved by 'safety in numbers'. Guys have used this approach for a while...  Have many girls being dated at the same time so it doesn't matter if one fails because there's others to fall back on and because you don't value one over the other, you don't care who comes or who goes.  Caring or not caring regulates emotions...  The more you care,  the more you fear losing,  the less you care... You guessed it,  the less you fear losing... It's also the fear of failure or wasting your time or feeling stupid...  If you invest in one person and it doesn't work out, it can evoke any number of the feelings above and some but having lots of people, it's just simple numbers,  some will come,  some will go but there will always be someone. Finally,  it makes us feel good,  even if the feeling is dripping with fraud, you feel loved or attractive, you feel wanted,  validated and accepted... We all want to matter and this is the fastest most convenient way to feel like it, and we all deserve to feel like we matter because we all do!

Fear is hiding in places you don't think to look

The same fear of relationship pain is paralleled to the 'fear' (masked by lack of desire/stubborness) of receiving 'help'. Both involve opening up and risking the chance of being let down once you let them in.

Got a big decision and don't know how to choose?

Never make choices out of fear, make them out of bravery and you'll make the right one.
S. Phelps

Scared of Failing?

"The fear of failure is emotional vanity"

So you failed... So what?... So what!

James Dyson had an idea inventing a bagless vacuum cleaner. He failed 5126 times.
5127 was not a failure, and that's the result we know.

No one really cares if you fail, fail to ultimately succeed!

How to protect yourself from mental attacks.

The hostility towards someone else stems from fear. Defending yourself won't work,  making them feel better may not and definitely won't in the long term. It's an individual security issue and they are trying to control the situation and make that fear go away.  Learn to be brave,  and learn to spot someone who isn't.  When you learn to do that, you will not take attacks as personal and prevent unconscious attacks on others.

I know what I don't want to feel like!

We may not know how we want to feel, but often we do know how we don't want to feel! Maybe that's why we don't chase love and happiness,  maybe that's why we are scared and have fear of failure or rejection, maybe it's easier to know what we don't want to feel so we act on what we know,  many would rather be unhappy than uncertain

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

Submitted by Simon Says on December 16, 2014 - 4:31am

That enemy is fear ... anything else is a rationalisation of fear; fear given a narrative ... and all narratives are dysfunctional if you cannot see through to the fear behind them all.