What is Fear?

There is the evolutionary, instinctual biological fear that we have no control over such as falling. hence we use the fight or flight mechanism from our brains.

Other than that "We fear what we want most".

 

Fear is a feeling that impedes us from engaging in activities which can be perceived as possessing a negative consequence. It can manifest itself in many ways from abstaining from certain activities or in some cases repudiating certain ideas. Sometimes people may fear considering perspectives antagonistic to the views that they have adhered to their entire life as should they find said views false, it means that they have to restructure their perspectives and they dislike the possibility of wandering into unknown territory and becoming more unhappy or miserable.

In the end we all have to some extent the capacity to resist or to challenge fear, this what we refer to as courage and it takes a great deal of courage to pursue one's own "truths".

 

Fear is the reoccurring thought that something is going to happen or might happen if _________. To avoid whatever is going to happen the person will develop an aversion to it, it whatever it is they rationalize will make that certain thing occur.

 

Fear is memory. Without memory, there's no fear. Like every other experience, it is sometimes useful, other times - not so useful. It quickly becomes prejudice. Especially in this century, I would always prefer to have no experience, than to be biased by experience.

 

i notice a common theme is that all the infjs have to leave home because their parents are too stupid to know what truth is and they are on a quest for it. youd think that after so many generations of infjs at least on of them would have found it

 

I suppose fear can be considered an indelible aspect of people, however should we attempt to keep an open mind and try to transcend our experiences it is possible to palliate it significantly and off course it also matters what are the specific fears. We are all individuals so thus we all possess a certain degree of fear attuned to that which we, as individuals, fear.

 

I see fear commonly coupled with the potential loss of something, and it may be an instinctive reaction to this. In the end living with perpetual fear is harmful....because so many times if becomes a spiral that can paralyzes us. I cannot tell you how many times I have run into the dynamic of my setting aside fear...and then moving forward...only to find that the thing I feared losing was not lost at all...in fact I received even more in a way I might never have imagined, transformed.

I think we start to experience fear at a very early age when we are a just a bundle of needs that have to be met...this are our first primative experiences of fear. Trouble is, we tend to move forward in life still very much connected to this instinct (sadly, sometimes our life experience may reinforce this) and the idea that "there is not enough" and the world will not give me enough" becomes our default mode. So I have to get.

Ideally we can move past our fear to discover at some point that there is enough. A connection to the Divine can even instill a deep realization that there is infinitely enough. In this process, moving past fear (as a world view anyway) is critical.

Just a few random thoughts based on what I have seen, no clinical study...

 

Quite True, especially about the need to transcend fear

 

In general, yes I agree. However, I would also recommend taking some time to respect the subtext of what is being recommended. Are there legitimate pitfalls and can these be avoided? Are there other voices within the same culture that might provide some real wisdom? It's an exercise in inquiry. In certain cases, I have come to say "I do not understand this" rather than "I do not agree with this" especially if I respect a viewpoint but see it differently for good reason. Might leave the door open in case I see it all from another perspective at some point.....it happens.

The reason I mention this is that one must be aware of the danger of following good ol' St. Ego right off a cliff. Some of these barriers can help steer us, but you're right, they should not totally hold us back. We should follow our conscience, but we are equally bound to inform our conscience.

 

To anticipate a change of an unknown quality is to fear. There is a belief in the possibility of losing something irreplacable to it aswell.