READ TIME: 12m
DR JOHN DEMARTINI - Updated 2 months ago
Like many people, you may perceive fear to be a negative human emotion. If so, you may be surprised to hear that fear can be your greatest guide to empowerment and authenticity.
If you pay attention to the feedback your fears provide, you can become more centered, balanced and objective, and have greater mastery in all seven areas of your life
What is fear?
Fear is an polarized emotion that results from an assumption that you're about to experience in the immediate or distant future, through your senses or imagination, more loss than gain, more negatives than positives, more pain than pleasure, more disadvantages than advantages, and more risk than reward.
It's an ASSUMPTION that you're likely to have what you perceive will be a negative experience.
Fear, also referred to as a phobia or nightmare, has philia or fantasy as its exact opposite. These both work together in the same way as magnets with their positive and negative poles.
There are two sources of fear for human beings:
A: The fear of loss of that which you seek,
and
B: The fear of gain of that which you are attempting to avoid
Think of animals in the wild that fear the loss of prey (food - life) and the gain of predators (being eaten - death).
An example closer to home might be the fear of losing someone you are infatuated with and in a relationship with, or the fear of gaining unwanted financial bills.
- Anything in your life that you think is supportive of what you value most is perceived as prey - and you're likely to fear the loss of it.
- Anything that challenges what you value most in life is perceived as a predator - and you’re likely to fear the gain of it.
To go back to the example of animals in the wild – when they are faced with a predator, they will fear the gain of that predator and become infatuated with getting away from it.
In a relationship, when you become infatuated with someone you will fear the loss of them. You can't separate the two – they are like two poles of a magnet.
So, there's no such thing as a phobia without a philia. They are inseparably entangled like two poles of a magnet or two quantum-entangled particles.
Now imagine you draw a line right down the centre where you embrace both the phobia and the philia, the positive and the negative. In other words, you remain completely neutral and objective with a balanced state of mind.
As you neutralize your emotions and go into this more balanced and reasonable state, you are likely to get to a point where you don't have a fear of loss or fear of gain.
Your intuition is constantly trying to help you get to that balanced, objective state.
If you’re infatuated and only conscious of upsides, your intuition will try and make you aware of possible downsides.
If you’re only conscious of the downsides, your intuition will try to get you to see the upsides and bring you back into balance.
So, you could say that fear is a valuable feedback mechanism to let you know that you have a polarized perspective and seeking a one-sided philia, or fantasy. If you neutralize it, and embrace both sides simultaneously you could become even more of your most authentic or balanced self.
The role fear can play when setting goals in your life
If you set a goal that is a fantasy involving a positive without a negative, you will likely experience anxiety, phobia and fear in your mind - feedback to let you know that you’re not pursuing an objective.
In philosophy, the word objective or objectivity means neutral or both-sided.
A fantasy is one-sided – a positive without a negative.
An objective includes both a positive and a negative. So, if you pursue a positive without a negative, you likely have an anxiety and a phobia surface in your mind to try to intuitively point out the downsides that you're overlooking.
It is wiser to pursue an objective where you embrace the positives and the negatives equally. In doing so, you are more likely to mitigate risks, moderate expectations, and anticipate and prepare for the challenges and downsides that will inevitably emerge.
For instance, when venturing to Mars, like Elon Musk's ambitious project, it is crucial not to rely solely on positive thinking. If you only focus on one side and neglect to consider the potential pitfalls, you lack preparation and a genuine objective. As such, you likely have a fantasy and not a true obtainable goal or objective.
This is the root cause of phobias—the fear of losing what we seek and the fear of gaining what we try to avoid.
It is the fear of losing what we desire and the fear of acquiring what we wish to evade that leads to human suffering. This concept aligns with what the Buddha sought to convey.
The seven fears that most often arise due to the existence of seven corresponding fantasies:
Fear #1: The first fear is the fear of loss of knowing, specifically the fear of not possessing sufficient intelligence, not being smart enough, or lacking the necessary qualifications.
This fear also includes the loss of knowledge and memory.
People often hesitate to take action because they fear they don’t know enough. They have a fantasy that they “should” know everything and have a phobia that they are unprepared or don’t have the right skills. As a result, they tend to hesitate, procrastinate and frustrate instead of taking action.
How to dissolve or balance this fear: It is wise to note that fear is not your enemy. Instead, it is a signal that you are likely chasing a fantasy, exceeding your knowledge base, and going beyond what you know.
In other words, the fantasy triggers anxiety and the fear of inadequacy to help you set real goals with real objectives and real timeframes intellectually.
Fear #2: The fear of losing business, failure, and clients most often arises from a fantasy of gain.
The bigger the fantasy, the bigger your fear of loss is likely to be. The more you fantasize about gaining clients, the more inclined you are to project assumptions about their needs instead of genuinely understanding them.
How to dissolve or balance this fear: To prevent the loss of clients, it's wise to consider the obstacles and determine what the clients seek in their interactions with you.
Not anticipating and meeting their needs often results in their departure. Therefore, this fear of losing clients is valuable feedback that it would be wise to meet the actual needs of your clients for sustainable and fair exchange.
Once you establish a genuine objective, this fear most often dissipates, as you have dissolved the fantasy and brought about balance.
Fear #3: Similarly, in finance, there can be a fear of losing money or not making enough.
This fear tends to arise because of a lack of due diligence and gambling with probabilities instead of taking the time to research investments with high probabilities, mean values, and intrinsic worth.
How to dissolve or balance this fear: It is wise to approach investments and business with a focus on probability rather than fantasy.
Fantasizing about becoming the next Amazon without proper due diligence, strategies, tactics, and meeting actual needs is highly likely to lead to disappointment and fear in your pursuit.
Fear #4: The fear of losing relationships.
If you’re infatuated with someone (the philia or fantasy), you’re likely to have a fear of losing them (the phobia or nightmare).
Fear of losing an individual can also be accompanied by feelings of jealousy and envy towards anyone you perceive may challenge the relationship or “steal” the individual away from you.
How to dissolve or balance this fear: It is wise to understand and fulfill your partner’s unique hierarchy of values as well as dissolve any fantasy expectations you’re projecting onto them.
If you cling to a fantasy of who they are, you may play the underdog, and they may feel an imbalance, causing them to keep their options open until they find a more equal match.
True love involves embracing both sides of an individual, because the majority of people want to be loved and appreciated for who they are. They don’t desire to be caught trying to live up to a fantasy version of themselves that you’re projecting onto them.
Fear #5: The fear of rejection in social interactions
This fear often stems from placing individuals on pedestals, giving power to them and their opinions, and valuing their opinions over your own. This is an imbalanced perception that often results in the fear of loss of that exaggerated individual.
How to dissolve or balance this fear: This fear of rejection is valuable feedback to let you know that you have a fantasy about the individual, which is why you likely value their opinion more highly than your own.
If you take the time and do the work to balance your perceptions of that individual, you are more able to address their opinions without fear. No one is worth putting on a pedestal. Do not be fooled by outer facades.
Fear #6: The next fear is the fear of losing health, wellbeing, vitality, or beauty.
For example, if you're a beautiful woman and suddenly find yourself in your seventies, you may notice a gradual fading of your beauty, at least in the eyes of younger individuals.
This can evoke a fear of losing your beauty, stamina, energy, or overall health – a fear that likely stems from the fantasy you associate with these qualities and the assumed pleasures they bring.
The more you have a philia about your looks and your youth, the more likely you are to have a phobia about aging.
How to dissolve or balance this fear: It is wise to understand that each stage of life brings its own blend of pain and pleasure.
The fears you experience when you are young differ from those when you are old, yet you still encounter attachments (philias) and aversions (phobias).
Fear #7: Similarly, spirituality can give rise to fantasies that instigate fears.
For instance, you may have a fantasy about the afterlife and then fear the loss of that afterlife. Some individuals promote these fantasies in an attempt to provide meaning and prevent you from having nihilistic views.
How to dissolve or balance this fear: It is wise to accept that the fears you experience compensate for the fantasies to which you are holding onto or have become addicted to.
As I often say, depression is a comparison of your current reality to a fantasy. Depression can provide valuable feedback to help break your addiction to these fantasies, guiding you back to balance, real objectives in life, and a grounded perspective of reality.
Whenever you have a polarized view, you create a bi-polarity that disempowers you.
Anything you infatuate with occupies space and time in your mind and runs you.
Your fantasies (philias) occupy your mind, run you and distract you. They also result in corresponding fears (phobias) to try and bring you back to objectivity and neutrality.
Instead of seeking out a one-sided life – positive never negative, kind never cruel, giving never taking, fantasies never phobias – it is wiser to live congruently with your highest values which means those priorities that are truly most important to you and that your life already demonstrates as being a the highest priorities.
In doing so, you are more likely to set goals that are true objectives, awaken your leadership, mitigate risk, be proactive instead of reactive, be balanced and stable instead of living with the oscillating two sides of your fantasies and phobias, and living a life where you are inspired and vitalized instead of anxious and fearful.
To Sum Up:
- The fears you encounter in life, such as the fear of not being smart enough, failing in business, losing money, the loss of loved ones or the respect of loved ones, rejection by friends, health issues, death, or breaking the morals of spiritual authorities, can have a significant impact on your life you don’t know how to process them.
- Your fears are feedback to bring your perceptions and intentions back into fully conscious and objective balance.
- Being infatuated or immersed in fantasies means you’re often blinded to the potential downsides and can result in distress when unexpected negatives arise. However, by setting authentic objectives and neutralizing the influence of fantasies, they can transform into tangible and more achievable goals.
- Strategic planning and preparation for both the pleasures and pains enables you to embrace eustress, inspiring you to pursue challenges and unlocking your innate genius and creativity.
- If you have not yet identified your unique set of highest values, you can either work through the FREE Demartini Value Determination Process on my website, or register for my signature program, the Breakthrough Experience, where I take you step-by-step through the process.
- The Breakthrough Experience is a powerful two-day seminar to help you identify your purpose, vision and mission, highest values and priorities,. It also helps you to set real objectives, achieve balance, and embrace both the positives and negatives in your life.
- During the Breakthrough Experience, you will also learn the powerful Demartini Method, a scientific tool to help you dissolve infatuations, resentments, philias, phobias, nightmares, and fantasies so you can be objective, balanced and masterful.
- By recognizing that phobias are indicators that you are not pursuing true objectives, you can dissolve them by embracing both sides of the coin, mitigating risks, and preparing yourself.
Attending the Breakthrough Experience is a wonderful opportunity to replace fantasies with authentic objectives, dissolve phobias and nightmares, and embark on a remarkable journey of transformation.
By letting go of illusions and embracing reality, you can break free from the limitations of fear and live an extraordinary life.
Are you ready for the NEXT STEP?
If you’re seriously committed to your own growth, if you’re ready to make a change now and you’d love some help doing so, then book a FREE Discovery call with a member of the Demartini Team so we can take you through your mini power assessment session.
You’ll come away with a 3-step action plan and the foundation to empower your life.
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