Saturday, November 14, 2020

Two Innate Fears, All Other Fears Are Learned

Science has proven we are born with the fear of loud noises and the fear of falling.  Therefore all other fears are learned. If someone you trust tells you something that triggers your fear response, you react. But how you react is your choice.

The three fear responses are fight, flight, or freeze, and all of these are helpful short term for your safety, but to stay in any of these twenty-four-seven will break down your nerves, and stress will set in. Stress creates a compromised immune system, and that is an environment for disease.  Science proves that the ability to control your emotions and calm your nerves is the best medicine to promote healing to the body and make more straightforward decisions.

What remedy you choose to calm down is your choice. Do you go for alcohol, drugs, food, work harder, longer hours? What is your "go-to" to quell your "learned fear?"  Mine is turn off all TV, movie, loud music, turn off social media, and move away from negative attitudes from people around me, and go inside with meditation and gratefulness for everything I have now in my life. I choose what I listen to, who I listen to, and what I feel, not the world outside of me. 

Fear is useful, but I put a time limit on my anxiety. There is a deadline that I choose to stop worrying. If I stop worrying and have no answers, I keep meditating or do an activity that gets my mind in a calmer state. Exercise, walking out in nature, or listening to a teacher's lecture that I admire; Byron Katie Mitchell, Eckhart Tolle, Pema Chodron, Lisa Romano, Jordan Peterson, so many more, all of these have free videos on YouTube. These teachers do not freak out; they do not have panic attacks; they control their emotions. My goal in life is to control my feelings to live a balanced life. How I achieve this is to watch where I focus my thoughts. .

Indeed, you will not get the answers from the media. It is also sure that sitting in front of Netflix and eating pizza all day and night day will NOT help you. YOU have to change your focus mentally and your diet physically. YOU alone.

Recently I was enjoying music and meditating at night, and I fell asleep. I began to dream horrible, disruptive thoughts. Finally, I was so distressed I woke up. When I awakened, I pulled the earphones out of my ears, and the loud arguing was STILL going on in my head. It distressed me terribly. I pulled on my ears and could not shut off the destructive arguing I heard. Then I ACTUALLY woke up. Accidentally the "autoplay" was turned on in my iPhone, and it went to the news without my permission.

If dreams give any message, I supposed it to be this:

"Just because I stopped listening to destructive news, the stress was still in my mind after I turned it off because my mind could not forget the instant replay of negative news."

I could not control my thoughts while plugged into fearful reporting via autoplay in my iPhone.

To remedy this, I now put my meditation CD in my player with earphones. It is good to unhook from the digital internet as much as possible, and we must focus on the things we need to do to be safe during these uncertain times and begin to think of how to create a livelihood. To do this, one must be calm, collected, and open to new ideas.

News channels have to take the negative and rare events to get the public's attention or who would tune in day after day?  Negative news channels prey on your fears. In fact, they count on it. Clicks are money in the pockets for newscasters, and if fear is planted in your thoughts, you're trapped!

Learn to think for yourself with reason and logic. Do your research, get the facts straight. It takes work to learn how to be responsible for your life and detect lies. The good news is you were built to think and choose what is truth. You can do this!

Read books and get off technology as much as possible. Learn to think for yourself. Your mind is the most valuable tool you have, do not let anyone steal your mind away from positive words to keep your brain and body healthy. It is the one thing we all can do, no matter what is going on in the outside world...choose what we think.

Thankful to know this now. It took me years to discover I was responsible for my thoughts and actions. I am in control of me, not my past, not my neighbor, not the media, me. I choose peace. Your life is a gift t the world.





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