Re: Overcoming fear

Duncan Pierce wrote:

>I get this a lot when I go climbing with beginners - there's really 
>very little you can say that is going to help someone over that "hard" 
>bit. They usually seem to do it by themselves in the end. And I notice 
>that for them, as for me, the "hard" bit usually only turns out to have 
>looked hard - when tried it was a bit of an anti-climax.
>
>Finding a safe way to test the feared thing is also risk-reducing. I 
>think this can be very successful. 
>
>Tracing back fears to root causes is extremely useful and probably the 
>most powerful of all techniques. When someone is able to connect the 
>emotion to why they feel this way I think it helps them to bring the 
>subconscious issues into the rational mind for evaluation. Once you've 
>got reasoning going on, it's much easier honestly acknowledge and weigh 
>risks, many of which turn out to be less serious than they initially 
>appeared. 
>  
>
Well said. Emotions are a powerful tool for tracing down beliefs. Once 
the belief is out in the open, then it takes some sort of experience 
with a new belief to start undoing the old belief.

"I believe if I do this bit of rockclimbing, I might fall and injure or 
kill myself."
"There's a rope here that will catch you."
"Okay, but you're asking me to take your word for it."
"Watch me fall ... see? I only fell a few feet - the rope caught me."
"Okay, but it might feel weird if I try that -- I might panic."
"Give it a shot."
[ here's the hard hump -- do they try it or not? ]
"Hey -- that wasn't so bad."
... and the beliefs start to change. When the beliefs change, the 
emotions will change with them.

-- 
Chris
http://clabs.org



 
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