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January 2009 
Everything Changes! How our IOS Functions No.13
Posted on Aug 21st, 2008
by 
dannyboy
dannyboy
Before we go any further I want to take a moment to hopefully crystallize the connection between each of us and the experience of change. Anytime we perceive change an unknown is created. Unknown means we don't know what happens next…our need to be in control is under attack! We could think of it as a metaphorical door--what's beyond the door is unknown and every fiber in our body is silently screaming "don't walk through that door!" Whether we realize it or not this is the essence of our resistance to change. In this first section of part three I'm attempting to quantify the most common reactions that our internal operating system has to change. What's difficult to translate about these reactions is they are so much a part of us that unless we look closely at ourselves we don't even notice this is our reaction. We led off our discussion with the need for control, in most cases we don't even recognize the need for control until a change happens and our sense of control is threatened. In this segment we talk about the impact of fear and how it affects our actions when triggered by change. Here again, you may not even recognize this chain reaction--you may not think it's fear that is driving your reaction…but look closer. The key concept here is the more we're able to understand about ourselves the better equipped we are to deal with change when it comes up…
The Impact of Fear
S: Anytime our sense of control is threatened there is the possibility of experiencing fear. Fear is another of our internal operating system's programmed responses to not being in control. All fears originate as a fundamental desire for self-preservation. Yet, we don't always recognize our fears as fear because fear wears many masks. Skepticism is a mask we wear when we fear being fooled. Anger is often not seen as fear, yet it masks underlying situations we fear. It may be worth noting that anger while a projection of our fear, can promote a direct sense of fear in others. Our attachment to knowing, masks our fear of the unknown. Our need for control, masks a fear of not being in control. Fear proves a formidable barrier to moving through any experience of change. We should recognize that fear generated by our internal operating system plays a considerable role in our choice of interactions with our surrounding environment.
S: It's also important to recognize that fear is a fundamental part of our make-up. It's there to help insure our survival, to assist us in developing a healthy respect for danger. All the bravado over trying to conquer fear isn't really productive, and may result in misplaced aggression targeted to oneself. Extreme sports enthusiasts aren't conquering their fear; they're getting high on the adrenaline rush the body manufacturers when it senses danger. When we see T-shirts emblazoned with "No Fear," we can be sure the wearer is in denial of his true feelings. And yet, all this talk about fear suggests that we are becoming more aware of the feelings associated with it.
One of the keys to handling change more effectively is developing a better understanding of fear. The first step is recognizing that fear is a product of our internal operating system. Change can cause our internal operating system to trigger fear, but as we'll see our survival isn't always at stake.
Q: What is fear?
A: Fear is a powerful emotion created in response to our internal operating system's sensory impressions of our environmental conditions.
S: Do you recall from our exercise in part two that we demonstrated emotions are the product of thoughts and that we can create emotions by thinking certain thoughts?
Exercise: Ok, I want you to think of something that scares you, in other words, create the emotion of fear.
Q: What happens physically when you think about something that scares you?
Q: Are you able to think clearly? Does your heart beat faster? Is your breathing restricted? Do you feel a kind of paralysis? What other symptoms are you aware of?
Q: Do you like these feelings? (Yes / No) Why?
S: What's important to notice here is we can create the very real experience of fear simply by manipulating our thoughts. Our internal operating system triggers the release of adrenaline and a host of other chemicals into the bloodstream creating physical effects, whether the danger is real or not. Do you see that?
Key Concept: Fear is our internal operating system's reaction to anything that could be interpreted as a threat to self-preservation. Our reaction is very similar whether the threat is real or imagined.
Q: When you jump out of an airplane your mind triggers an adrenaline release even though you have a parachute. When you bungee jump off a bridge you're pretty certain the cord is going to hold you, but you get a huge adrenaline rush anyway. Why?
A: Even though you wouldn't do it if you didn't think it was safe, your mind is playing 'what if' games--"what if this strap slips off my feet? What if the chute doesn't open--hasn't this happened to other people resulting in their deaths?" Our inner operating system of thoughts and emotions is working overtime trying to quantify the risk we're taking, and in the process creating fear.
S: Now some to the things we've mentioned here have real elements of danger--jumping out of airplanes and bungee jumping to name a couple. So it might be natural for us to feel fear in these situations. Other situations like watching a suspenseful movie, or going on a carnival ride involve fear that is more imagined than real. And this is the key to beginning to understand and work with fear. As we have seen the mind doesn't distinguish between real and imagined fear, it generates the emotion in either situation.
S: The fear that change produces may also be real or imagined. If, for example, we're on an airplane and the captain announces a mechanical difficulty, the fear that arises may be real. However, people who have a fear of flying experience fear even though no problem or difficulty exists. In this case, the imagination is producing thoughts that are creating a sense of fear. Yet, the physical reaction produced by fear is the same in both cases. So without the knowledge of how our internal operating system is conditioned to respond--our experience of fear is the same whether it's real or imagined.
Q: Ok, are we starting to see why it's important to understand fear?
Let's get back to our other theme here--how fear impacts us.
S: When we experience fear it plays a substantial role in our choice of subsequent actions. In other words, it affects how we interact with our outer environment. Our natural reaction to the sensation of fear is to retract or pull back. This effect is being created by an internal operating system that is reacting to sensory perceptions of the outer environment. In searching for a stored thought or memory as a contextual reference point our operating system is trying to imagine an outcome and may simultaneously perceive a threat. Any threat, triggers fear like a default setting on your computer. So any change in circumstances perceived by our internal operating system can trigger fear, and effectively curtail our ability to move forward or experiment with the new circumstances.
S: Let's illustrate what we mean by using our airplane example from above. When the pilot announces a mechanical difficulty the first thought that flashes through some people's mind is, "Oh my god, we're going to crash!" This thought is brought up as a reaction to the unknown 'mechanical difficulty' and instantly generates fear. The fear then drives our actions, in this case we could lose our ability to think rationally and remain calm, we might become hysterical, have trouble breathing, it could even trigger a reaction as serious as a heart attack.
S: This is true for less dramatic examples of change as well. Being confronted with any unknown can result in thoughts being recalled by our internal operating system, and some of these thoughts will likely produce fear. So once again, fear is our internal operating system's response to anything it perceives as a threat from our surroundings. Does that make sense?
Note to reader: Thanks for reading! The next segment in our series deals with 'the need to know' another of our internal operating system's programmed features... As always, I would be delighted to have you share your comments or ask questions.
Copyright 2008. The information here is reproduced from Everything Changes! Understanding and Dealing with the Change in our Lives. It is provided for personal use. I encourage you to share it with your friends. Otherwise the material may not be reproduced, copied or used in any other way without written permission from the author, Dan Richardson.
The Impact of Fear
S: Anytime our sense of control is threatened there is the possibility of experiencing fear. Fear is another of our internal operating system's programmed responses to not being in control. All fears originate as a fundamental desire for self-preservation. Yet, we don't always recognize our fears as fear because fear wears many masks. Skepticism is a mask we wear when we fear being fooled. Anger is often not seen as fear, yet it masks underlying situations we fear. It may be worth noting that anger while a projection of our fear, can promote a direct sense of fear in others. Our attachment to knowing, masks our fear of the unknown. Our need for control, masks a fear of not being in control. Fear proves a formidable barrier to moving through any experience of change. We should recognize that fear generated by our internal operating system plays a considerable role in our choice of interactions with our surrounding environment.
S: It's also important to recognize that fear is a fundamental part of our make-up. It's there to help insure our survival, to assist us in developing a healthy respect for danger. All the bravado over trying to conquer fear isn't really productive, and may result in misplaced aggression targeted to oneself. Extreme sports enthusiasts aren't conquering their fear; they're getting high on the adrenaline rush the body manufacturers when it senses danger. When we see T-shirts emblazoned with "No Fear," we can be sure the wearer is in denial of his true feelings. And yet, all this talk about fear suggests that we are becoming more aware of the feelings associated with it.
One of the keys to handling change more effectively is developing a better understanding of fear. The first step is recognizing that fear is a product of our internal operating system. Change can cause our internal operating system to trigger fear, but as we'll see our survival isn't always at stake.
Q: What is fear?
A: Fear is a powerful emotion created in response to our internal operating system's sensory impressions of our environmental conditions.
S: Do you recall from our exercise in part two that we demonstrated emotions are the product of thoughts and that we can create emotions by thinking certain thoughts?
Exercise: Ok, I want you to think of something that scares you, in other words, create the emotion of fear.
Q: What happens physically when you think about something that scares you?
Q: Are you able to think clearly? Does your heart beat faster? Is your breathing restricted? Do you feel a kind of paralysis? What other symptoms are you aware of?
Q: Do you like these feelings? (Yes / No) Why?
S: What's important to notice here is we can create the very real experience of fear simply by manipulating our thoughts. Our internal operating system triggers the release of adrenaline and a host of other chemicals into the bloodstream creating physical effects, whether the danger is real or not. Do you see that?
Key Concept: Fear is our internal operating system's reaction to anything that could be interpreted as a threat to self-preservation. Our reaction is very similar whether the threat is real or imagined.
Q: When you jump out of an airplane your mind triggers an adrenaline release even though you have a parachute. When you bungee jump off a bridge you're pretty certain the cord is going to hold you, but you get a huge adrenaline rush anyway. Why?
A: Even though you wouldn't do it if you didn't think it was safe, your mind is playing 'what if' games--"what if this strap slips off my feet? What if the chute doesn't open--hasn't this happened to other people resulting in their deaths?" Our inner operating system of thoughts and emotions is working overtime trying to quantify the risk we're taking, and in the process creating fear.
S: Now some to the things we've mentioned here have real elements of danger--jumping out of airplanes and bungee jumping to name a couple. So it might be natural for us to feel fear in these situations. Other situations like watching a suspenseful movie, or going on a carnival ride involve fear that is more imagined than real. And this is the key to beginning to understand and work with fear. As we have seen the mind doesn't distinguish between real and imagined fear, it generates the emotion in either situation.
S: The fear that change produces may also be real or imagined. If, for example, we're on an airplane and the captain announces a mechanical difficulty, the fear that arises may be real. However, people who have a fear of flying experience fear even though no problem or difficulty exists. In this case, the imagination is producing thoughts that are creating a sense of fear. Yet, the physical reaction produced by fear is the same in both cases. So without the knowledge of how our internal operating system is conditioned to respond--our experience of fear is the same whether it's real or imagined.
Q: Ok, are we starting to see why it's important to understand fear?
Let's get back to our other theme here--how fear impacts us.
S: When we experience fear it plays a substantial role in our choice of subsequent actions. In other words, it affects how we interact with our outer environment. Our natural reaction to the sensation of fear is to retract or pull back. This effect is being created by an internal operating system that is reacting to sensory perceptions of the outer environment. In searching for a stored thought or memory as a contextual reference point our operating system is trying to imagine an outcome and may simultaneously perceive a threat. Any threat, triggers fear like a default setting on your computer. So any change in circumstances perceived by our internal operating system can trigger fear, and effectively curtail our ability to move forward or experiment with the new circumstances.
S: Let's illustrate what we mean by using our airplane example from above. When the pilot announces a mechanical difficulty the first thought that flashes through some people's mind is, "Oh my god, we're going to crash!" This thought is brought up as a reaction to the unknown 'mechanical difficulty' and instantly generates fear. The fear then drives our actions, in this case we could lose our ability to think rationally and remain calm, we might become hysterical, have trouble breathing, it could even trigger a reaction as serious as a heart attack.
S: This is true for less dramatic examples of change as well. Being confronted with any unknown can result in thoughts being recalled by our internal operating system, and some of these thoughts will likely produce fear. So once again, fear is our internal operating system's response to anything it perceives as a threat from our surroundings. Does that make sense?
Note to reader: Thanks for reading! The next segment in our series deals with 'the need to know' another of our internal operating system's programmed features... As always, I would be delighted to have you share your comments or ask questions.
Copyright 2008. The information here is reproduced from Everything Changes! Understanding and Dealing with the Change in our Lives. It is provided for personal use. I encourage you to share it with your friends. Otherwise the material may not be reproduced, copied or used in any other way without written permission from the author, Dan Richardson.
Access: Public
Having read the comments on fear, I urgently feel the need to offer some corrective responses. I have worked with fear of flying for twenty-eight years, and have learned so much about fear and what causes it.
The idea that fear arises when control is lost is backwards. That is ONLY true for a person who is insecure and needs to control to feel safe. A person who feels secure in the world does not grasp for control. Nor is the secure person frightened by the unknown.
If you simply imagine what it would be like to be merely amused – not frightened – by the unknown, and to feel no need to control … doesn't that precisely describe the peace you wish for?
We humans develop security within the first two or so years of life – or not! We develop security when another person, the person who cares for us, tunes into us, and lets us know that he or she has us in mind. Not only that, but by tuning into us, that person has YOUR MIND in THEIR MIND. It is important for the child to know that the caregiver is not projecting their mind into you mind (and thinking it is yours); no, they really are using their skills to build in their mind an approximation of what is in your mind.
And, they FEEL for you. If you are in pain, they feel pain. That makes you safe. They can't hurt you without feeling pain.
Obviously most of us lacked that kind of parenting. Now what? We can, of course, seek security through control, through reassurance, or through escape. Those are our “security blankets”.
But those are only band-aids. The real question is how to accept reality, and live adding nothing (to obscure reality) and live subtracting nothing (to escape from reality).
Control is just a symptom.