The most difficult thing is to develop emotional intelligence for people who tend to forget information about their emotions, completely block it, especially if this happens from childhood, if it is already a family culture of dealing with emotions. It is not at all easy to find contact with one’s own feelings in this case, as they need to be explored from the very beginning. It is not easy, but possible! This is hard work that can only be done in a state of high awareness and a very strong contact with the body.
Welcome to the world of emotions…
Fear
Fear. How does it Serve?
Fear is a fundamental emotion, because the purpose of fear is to save life, this is its main goal. If we talk about the life value, fear is never too much, there is nothing more valuable than life.
We face fear too often, because it is primarily to take care of life. It controls our actions, if it were not there, we would not understand at all where we could stumble and fall, it would not even occur to us. And even if we stumbled and fell, we could not use this experience on a simple logical level, because this painful experience usually reminds us of fear.
Pain is some kind of harm to the body, the highest degree of pain usually leads to death. Even when we pricked a finger and got the experience of this pain, the next time we’ll be afraid a little bit of such a situation, but we feel fear. So we should think in this direction when we talk about fear, because in our brain there are ancient departments that work very quickly at the level of instincts. In these parts of the brain (the reptilian brain, the limbic system itself), very strong primitive pain-fear relationships are stored. If we are very afraid of something, it means that our ancient brain perceives the situation almost as a situation of “life and death.” And only owing to the “modern” part of the brain (cerebral cortex) we can reorient ourselves and help ourselves cope with this fear.
According to Jung approach, the most terrible fear for humanity is the abyss. On a large scale, people are afraid of death when they think of it as the abyss, after which there is nothing. Any religion gives us an understanding that there is something else beyond death, and if you believe in it, you will escape the abyss. Such knowledge allows you to feel calmer. So a person should follow a set of certain rules about what to do in order to avoid a bad scenario after life. The good purpose of religion is to create conditions for a person to live in a state of faith. In this state, a person can look at the desired future, set goals and move towards them calmly and confidently. But at the same time, when there is a certain set of rules that must be followed, a person has a fear of violation of these rules. It turns out a paradox: tools that are designed to make our life more relaxed, i.e. deliver us from fear, they also bring this fear.
We should be thankful to our fear that it saves our life
and gives us the cue how to avoid danger and pain.
Fear is careful of preserving our life
and protecting us against pain.
We all have habitual behavior, habitual emotional reactions, family scenarios of relationships with others. The habitual means the successful. Why do we declare so categorically, because at first glance our behavioral strategies very often do not lead us to a desired result?
In past experiences (in your own or in the experience of your ancestors) it was this particular pattern of behavior that was successful. It means that once such a behavior, such a position in life allowed someone to save life or allowed to continue life, which led to the birth of new family members, so this model was imprinted in ancient memory as a successful one and it doesn’t matter how much time have passed, but unconsciously you still use this model. Going beyond such behavior at a subconscious level is perceived as a threat to life. The subconscious mind tells us: “Do like that – and it will save your life.” Despite the fact that now such a behavior may not lead to where we want, we should be grateful to it, because once it has already saved a life.
In order to change the usual model of behavior, you need to make much effort, because we will need to face fear, which greatly inhibits us from giving up this strategy, identifying any other behavior as a threat to life.
For example, an attitude about money. Most of our ancestors in the post-Soviet space had money savings and material wealth, but during the political and historical events they were deprived of them, they were subjected to repression and dispossession, they suffered. This situation could not but affected the descendants. A large amount of time has passed, but now a lot of people is still, desiring material prosperity, unconsciously refusing the opportunity to earn a lot, as there is a stable model in the memory that leads to suffering or death. According to this fact, many of us have to re-learn at the level of will and awareness to withstand the discomfort (fear) that accompanies the presence of large sums of money, to save and accumulate them, despite the fact that all the time we want to waste them or get rid of them.
Everything unusual and unknown causes fear. Accordingly, the information becomes very valuable. What is around the corner? What awaits me tomorrow and the day after tomorrow? What are the prospects in this area? What do these people expect from me? What is the economic situation in the country? Information helps to calm your fear.
When we start something new, even if the business we desire, we always experience fear, because the unknown is ahead. And the more valuable the goal for us, the more fear we will experience in the process. It is human nature to exacerbate his inner state: “What will happen if it doesn’t work out?”
In order to cope with your anxiety, you always need to remember your ancient brain, this allows us to sober up a little.
“My life is out of danger, in reality there is no danger”
Yes, there are places in war in the world and bullets are whistling —this is a real danger. But there are a lot of peaceful places in the world and all the dangers are largely invented by us. The ancient man really had dangers around every corner: wild animals, bad weather, bad harvest. In the modern world, people have learned to organize their lives in such a way that we always have something to eat, where to sleep, what to wear, etc. In this sense, we have largely secured ourselves. Of course, there are and always will be those people who are still fighting for survival in the modern world.
Interestingly, people who have to survive are much braver than those who live in comfort. When you survive, you have no choice, you act on the basis of vital necessity. If you try to steal a bun in the store when you’re full, you will begin to have a lot of psychological barriers, thoughts, you will worry what others will think about you, about the consequences if you get caught. But if you haven’t eaten for 5-7-10 days, you don’t think about anything at all, you just take it and eat it right in the store, and you don’t care that they look at you, that you are being led somewhere, the most important thing you did eat.
Why do we worry so often about what others think of us? Why is it so often the fear of condemnation or “sidelong glance” stops us? In the ancient world, the affiliation and location of the tribe to which you belonged was important at the level of survival. If you are excluded “you are bad, get out”, it would be tantamount to death; to cope alone with those severe conditions was almost impossible. Relationships with society at the level of the