Ideas in this week’s blog were notes by author Michelle Poler in her novel hello, Fears. To learn more and work towards becoming who you want to be, purchase her book online or at any local bookstore. Check out her 100-day project on her YouTube channel!
Everyone has something that they are afraid of, but it can be portrayed in different ways. Maybe it is spiders, a fear of public speaking, that you won’t reach your goals. But there is something in common with all fears that we forget about; they hold us back from trying something we think would benefit us or propel us into a new sense of self.
Fear comes in seven core categories and each means something different, however, we do not have absolutely any reaction to one or more categories. Each category affects us in some way. We will talk about the different categories, what they mean, and hopefully provide you some comfort that everyone is affected by fear in some way.
1. Pain: This is the fear of physical pain whether it is the pain of cuts and bruises or the physical pain of things like spicy food. Some people have high pain thresholds so the idea of getting bruised cliff diving doesn’t scare them, but for others, pain avoidance is their highest avoidance priority.
2. Danger: The fear of something becoming life-threatening or dangerous. For some, it could be related to interacting with animals that have been known to kill humans or that we have not been able to ‘tame’. For others, it could be the idea of jumping from a bridge while having an elastic cord attached to them to stop them from hitting the ground. While there are some that may see walking or biking through a highly populated city as dangerous.
3. Embarrassment: This is the first fear on the list that is related to thoughts that we must fit in everywhere, get along with everyone, and stick to what is deemed ‘socially acceptable. This could be related to messing up a presentation or speech, dancing or singing as you do in your home when no one else is around, or wearing clothes you haven’t tried before. This fear limits individuality and creativity, by diminishing your authentic personality.
4. Rejection: Hearing ‘no’ or ‘you can’t do that is hard and can cause deep emotional pain for some. Rejection and criticism can go hand in hand, hearing that we aren’t good enough. Maybe you want to start being a social media personality and your fear of what people may say is stopping you. The fear of bringing up an idea at your job, which you love, but are worried it will be rejected. Asking people for help. This fear hits self-esteem and confidence hard.
5. Loneliness: Another social fear, is the fear of being alone. While there are some people that can be by themselves all day and feel more than content, others struggle to go on errands on their own, the movies, or even a weekend getaway.
6. Disgust: Like pain, this could be related to physical disgust, like a public washroom, or related to food, like eating slimy foods. And like pain, people have thresholds.
7. Control: ‘Control freak’ may come to mind when you saw this. This fear does not allow those who hold it to live in the moment. They want everything to be perfect and control how things will happen. The more people try to control every aspect of their lives, the less they can truly live and experience what is happening around them.
Now that you know a little about what each core fear is about like Michelle encourages everyone to do, we would encourage you to write out each core fear and put a number between 1 and 7 beside it. 1 is a fear that you feel most minimally affects you and 7 is you would rather die than must face. Numbers can’t be skipped, and categories can’t share a number. We encourage you to have close people around you to do this too so you can see how different people are if they are willing to share. We asked one of our staff if it would be okay to share theirs and this is what they put:
3 PAIN
2 DANGER
7 EMBARRASSMENT
6 REJECTION
1 LONELINESS
5 CONTROL
4 DISGUST
Take this and compare it to your numbers. It probably tells you a lot about yourself and you might be thinking, ‘oh my gosh, how can that person have loneliness at 1!?’ And that is okay. This shows individuality and we encourage folks to do this again after some time. Have your fears changed?
At the end of all of this, these core fears are linked to the fear of the unknown, and we likely are scared to try them. Once you try something, it is no longer a fear of something, it is something that you don’t like. For example, let’s say you tried an exercise in the gym and didn’t like it. You wouldn’t say that you have a fear of that exercise, you would say you don’t like it. This is the same with items that are linked to your fears once you try it. Ignorance feeds your fear. We asked the staff who provided the response above if they have ever done an activity in their number 7 slot. “Public speaking,” they said, “I hate it, but I will always link it to my fear of embarrassment no matter how much I do it.” But they did mention that if they were younger, they would “have had danger much higher but after holding lots of weird animals and trying things, I learned that it is more of a like or dislike preference. Not a fear.”
So, you’ve made it this far, what do you do? It’s up to you. Now that you are aware of these fears, it is up to you to act on them to prevent them from affecting your life. Slowly, you will find that you won’t hesitate in things as much. Your view will expand as you learn more things about yourself. And maybe, it will give you a push to start something you’ve always wanted to do but felt like you couldn’t.
We hope this information helps you learn more about yourself in a positive way! Message us with topics that you would like covered.