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We are afraid to love in full force because of the fear of losing a loved one. We do not know how to survive the fear of the unknown, loneliness, pain, poverty, war. Psychologies has selected five quotes from prominent people from around the world that help you reconsider your attitude and find a way out of the labyrinth of fear.
Go into your fear. Do at least one thing every day that scares you. Afraid to call on the phone – call and talk, even if your voice trembles. If you don’t know the answer to a question, say so. If you turn off the road because you don’t want to meet an unpleasant person, go straight to him and say hello first. These small feats do not seem to change the situation drastically, but they greatly increase self-esteem, and fear is gradually “blown away”.
The Russian writer Nina Berberova, one of the voices of the Silver Age in exile and the author of a wonderful autobiography, Italics Mine, used this method to keep the fear of loneliness and anxiety for the future from enslaving herself. Already a middle-aged woman, she managed to overcome the strongest phobia – rabies.
“In recent years, I have felt more and more clearly that I should get rid of hydrophobia, that this, in fact, is not even my fear, but someone else’s, imposed on me, that in old age I will be powerless against manias that will lead to various other phobias. . That this terrible weakness deprives me not only of a huge number of pleasures, but, more importantly, of that inner harmony, which is the fundamental goal of all life. It is necessary to get rid of “fads” before the age of fifty, because then these monsters – fears, doubts, mirages, prejudices – become obsessive ideas, weaknesses from which there is no escape, from which the personality begins to crumble, like the plaster of an old wall, and then itself the wall begins to crumble, and this is an ugly, disgusting and shameful sight.
Nina Berberova, “Italics is mine”
The word “litany” (part of Catholic worship) is familiar to every fan of science fiction thanks to the American writer Frank Herbert. The Litany Against Fear is a kind of prayer that Herbert’s characters use to “pass” through the labyrinth of fear.
Read more:
- What is the reason for our phobias?
As a rule, we begin to worry long before an unpleasant event – we replay bad scenarios in our heads again and again and drive ourselves into severe stress. It is much more reasonable to tell yourself that an unpleasant event that causes fear (say, a plane ride) takes a short period of time, and promise yourself that you will worry strictly during this time. Mentally put your fear in a box under your bed and forget about it. If consciousness returns to fear before the appointed time, tell yourself that it is already in the box and now is not the time to get it. So you can track how often thoughts return to fear, and better control them. When it’s time to go through fear, you can repeat the litany to yourself, like auto-training.
“I shouldn’t be afraid. Fear is the killer of the mind. Fear is a small death that entails complete annihilation. I will face my fear. I will let it run through me and through me. And when he leaves, I will turn my inner gaze to his path. Where there was fear, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Frank Herbert, Chronicles of Dune
“Imagine the worst, and you will protect yourself from disappointment” – how often we hear this advice from others. We are afraid to love because of the fear of losing, we are afraid to share good news and hopes for fear of jinxing, but in fact we impoverish our lives. Psychologist Brene Brown believes that only our vulnerability helps to disarm anxiety and find a way out – you need to meet fear with an open visor.
Read more:
- Deal with your phobias
“Most of us know the terrible feeling: you have just been blissful in joy, but something happens – and now you are already defeated, thrown into fear, you are flooded with a sense of your own vulnerability and loneliness. Until we learn to live with our vulnerability and transform its gratitude, strong love will often bring with it the fear of loss. If I had to put together in one sentence everything I have learned about fear and joy over the years of scientific research, I would say: darkness does not destroy light; she shows it. Our fear of the dark is what poisons our joy.
We firmly believe that we will suffer less if we imagine the loss in advance, prepare for it. This is a way to deceive yourself, your vulnerability. We are wrong. The truth is, if we don’t cultivate gratitude and allow ourselves to be happy, we’re missing out on two things in life that help us get through the hard times that are inevitable in everyone’s lives.”
Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection. How to love yourself the way you are
Fear can make you feel like a failure, abandoned by everyone, like on a desert island – I am alone in my horror, no one has ever experienced anything like this. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Marilyn Robinson urges in a moment of despair to remember that all the great people we admire have gone through the same trials in life that we have, and that the strength of a person lies in his vulnerability.
“The ancient Greeks and Romans were right: the fate of a person – unique, difficult, overshadowed by shadows and doubts, brilliant – is not meant to be lived in comfort. The biblical “valley of the shadow of death” is about this, and you are robbing yourself if you refuse to experience what humanity has experienced before you, including fear, doubt, and grief. We go through the pain and hardships of life, feeling like failures, taking them as defeat instead of saying, “I will get through this, everyone I have ever admired has gone through this, great music was born from this, great literature was born out of this. We should learn to think of our human vulnerability as a privilege.”
* Marilyn Robinson, interview with The Paris Review
Human rights activist, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi spent 15 years in prison. Her struggle for the freedom of Burma (Myanmar) from the military junta demanded incredible courage and resilience from her. In 1991, while under house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi wrote the essay “Freedom from Fear”, in which he formulates the most important idea – that fear is not characteristic of a civilized person, and courage can be made a habit if you do small brave deeds every day. .
“Within a system that denies basic human rights, fear rules everything. Fear of being in prison, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure. The most insidious and treacherous kind of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom and despises as stupid, irresponsible, unimportant or useless the little daily acts of courage that help preserve self-respect and innate human dignity… But even under the most infernal state machine that crushes everything alive, courage rises again and again, because fear is not the natural state of a developed person.
** Aung San Suu Kyi, “Freedom from Fear”
«Freedom from Fear And Other Writings» (Penguin Books, 2010).