Why do we fear, when we know that most of the fears are groundless
Our mind is not designed that way. A baby does not fear the snake, the response of the people around him makes it fear the snake. Our fears are a product of our programming. People eat things that other people shudder to look at. People have learnt responses and behaviours that are acceptable. It is the product of the environment we grew up.
The previous blog gives an idea of how this programming happens.
Sometimes fears are derivative. A fear of public speaking can be because of a fear of ridicule.
A deeper understanding comes from how the fears have been created. For this, I need to look back into my past life (the current one, not the previous reincarnations) and pick out the events where I had similar fears. For each such incident, I need to realise if my fears were groundless or not. Typically I find that most of what I feared did not happen.When we start finding the pattern, we get a sense that most fears are groundless and we have more confidence to face the future. We also find that we catastrophised(made mountains out of molehills) the outcome of each event. If we go further back, we can find out the root causes of our conditioning.
For example, the fear of ridicule could be because people laughed at me when I was performing on stage or at home when I was 5 years old.
Once we know and understand how we are conditioned, we have a choice.
- We can, of course, blame our conditioning for screwing up our life, and live life like that.
- We can decide to use ‘extinction’ as a method of modifying my behaviour that resulted from my fear. If I have a fear of enclosed lifts (elevators), I can shut myself in it for 1 second, see that my fear is groundless, and keep increasing my exposure to the fear under controlled situations, until I realise that the fear is groundless.
- The traditional method of throwing a person into the deep water to teach him how to swim has a risk of additional trauma and the fear of water being replaced by the fear and lack of trust of the person who threw him in.
- There are other therapies like CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) which could also help. The first one analyses what you think, find patterns in your negative thinking and allows you to logically argue the fallacy of the thoughts. The second one reprograms your thought process by using alternate modelling. Both require qualified professionals.
Values and personality formation – some theory
This comes from writings by Tad James who is paraphrasing the sociologist Morris Massey. Some parts have been removed for succinctness.
There are three major periods that a person will go through in values and personality formation.
- the Imprint Period, which occurs from birth until age 7
- the Modeling Period, which is from 8 to 13
- the Socialization Period, from 14 to 21.
THE IMPRINT PERIOD
The Imprint Period, from birth to age 7, is the time when we are like a sponge. We pick up and store everything that goes on in our environment. We get our basic programming in that Imprint Period. Our basic programming occurs between ages 2 and 4, and by the time a child is 4, most of the major programming has occurred. Most of the phobias are created between ages 3 and 7. That is where we find most of the earliest experiences that serve as the basis for a phobia. (Of course, there may be amplifications or reinforcement of the phobia after that.) There may also be no remembrance of the creation of the phobia because the learning processes that occur during the Imprint Period are largely unconscious. The Imprint Period occurs from ages 0 to 7 and is the basic programming of an individual. The child unconsciously picks up the parents’ behavior.
THE MODELING PERIOD
The ages 8 through 13 are the Modeling Period. Between 8 and 13 the child begins to consciously and unconsciously model basic behaviors. I can plainly remember a time when I was about 10. I was with my grandfather, who had a rather severe limp. I was unconsciously mimicking his way of walking. He saw me and scolded me for doing that, and yet at the time I was not aware I had been copying him. Perhaps you, too, can recall memories of how you modeled adults during this time. Maybe you can even remember having to dress just like Mommy or Daddy.
Before age 7 or so, the child is mostly unaware of any difference between the parents and himself. The child experiences no difference from parents. Then at age 8 the child begins to notice that there are people outside himself, and through age 13 he begins to look outside himself at the goings on in the world. They notice the behaviour of friends and family and model them. At that point, children begin to develop heroes. We notice that children have fewer conscious heroes before age 7 than after from age 8 to 13 they begin to start picking up the values of the people they have made into heroes. Massey’s point of view is that our major values about life are picked up between 8 and 13 (at around age 10). In addition, his point of view is that your values are based on where you were and what was happening in the world when you were 10.
SOCIALIZATION PERIOD
Ages 14 through 21 we call the Socialization Period. The child goes through a Socialization Period where social interaction begins with other human beings. The young adult here picks up relationships and social values, most of which will be used throughout the rest of his life. At age 21, values formation is just about complete. At this point core values do not change unless there is a significant emotional experience (or other therapeutic change is done). Other more conscious values change and evolve continually. People change and grow and their values change over time. The values people start with, however, the basic core values, are formed around age 10 and locked in at age 21.
More on academic pressure
Earlier, I focussed on parents and peers for putting pressure.
- The parents said that their children will have no experience in giving competitive exams. They also said that teachers now have more power as they determine a portion of the final grades and this will create a misuse of their power; that we were now following the American system and look what has happened to America; that they will now have to help their children with the projects at home instead of watching TV which is their birthright after returning from office.
- The teachers objected saying that because of continuous evaluation, their work load will increase. They do not want to do corrections locally.
- The children revolted saying that earlier they had to do tuitions and study only for the board exams, now they will also have to study the whole year, listen to the teachers, attend classes…essentially foregoing their birthright of bunking classes.
- Parents transmit their fear of taking care in old age, not having enough money, starvation etc. Therefore they instil the spirit of competition. Parents have their own fear of their position in society and loss of bragging rights
- Peers feed on the fear of not belonging as well as not allowing others to get ahead
- Children have a fear of self esteem also assimilate the parents and peer’s fears
- Professors have a fear of being blamed and the impact on their career
- Educational Institutes have a fear on one side of diluting the academic integrity and on the other side of the PR impact. (Maybe, they should put statutory warnings during the ‘welcome to the cream of the cream of country’ speech at orientation that ‘if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen’ or ‘we are not responsible for peer pressure, the grades and how you mind perceives both of them’)
- We have the fear of the unknown; and of change in status quo and our intention of mitigating that fear by having a nest egg, a proper education, job etc…
- Most of what we fear does not happen but the mind imagines the worst.
- Does it not boil down to having the courage to face our fears, and to control our mind of negative thoughts?
- I find that most successful people have this ability to not succumb to negative emotions and the ability to change the status quo. Look at the sales guys, they bounce back after so much rejection!
- If any counselling has to be done, it has to be towards managing self and our fears – not to erase the fears (which we can’t) but to manage them. Also to manage relationships and change, and what I call “emotional resilience”
- Can we as alumni teach them this? What is the benefit of our experience if we cannot tell the students about our fears, and what happens in reality?
- Can we as parents change our conditioning and try not to inculcate our values on our children?
- Why are we trying this systemic change, the big bang approach, where we have power only to influence a small section of society – the family. Can we start a chain reaction, slow but more permanent?
Suicides
http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/madhuris-death-8th-suicide-at-iit-kanpur-in-5-years-67150
I belong to this august institution. When such an article appears, it creates a furore and a sense of outrage among the alumni. Here is my letter to them.
Folks
Can I put it differently, at the risk of maybe raising the hackles, or maybe a derisive laugh, out of most of us?
I believe that the purpose of our existence to leave mankind better that we found it. Few of us have the means and the ability to uplift large sections of mankind. Most of us can focus only on ourselves and our children.
In our quest for money and fame, did we forget our children? Is it because we were conditioned by our environment, that we value money and foist success in competition and coming first as the criteria for giving favours and our affection? When did we last say, “Don’t worry about the grades?” Why do we look for the best schools, the best that money can buy, when the most important thing that we can give is understanding and support at home? Are we there at home? And when we are, do we sit in judgement based on our criteria or in understanding of their criteria?
Our children’s generation has grown up with a remote in their hand. They are conditioned to change channels when they do not like something. They get gratification instantly and they want quick results. When they cannot get it, they do not know how to handle it. But think…are they responsible for this environment or did we provide it to them? Did we give them the remote? Is it also the price of technological progress – the Wii – that prevents our children from going out and develop social and adjusting skills, the dependency on the internet to think on their behalf?
I do not want to comment on what IITK is doing. All successful organisations or people get defensive when their motives are questioned. That is the price of greatness. Is funding the answer – do we throw money at them similar to what we do at home? An expiation of our guilt – the reason we buy gifts for our children?
The idea of counselling is good, but in this generation and at this age, students want more peer support. That was the original purpose of the counselling service. I remember that even the concept of empathy was alien during our counselling training. That is sorely lacking in an increasingly competitive environment. I know this not just because I was part of the counselling service, but I counsel 20-24 years old students where I teach now. Their biggest issue is self esteem and peer pressure to conform.
How will money help?
The dean keeps asking for alumni to help in counselling. Most of that probably is career counselling – it that about how to get ahead at the cost of others? Are we fostering competition – fighting for the same scarce resources or are we helping students be more creative and find their niche, where they can use their strengths to their and society’s advantage. Some of our batch mates have found their niche – they love what they do and they provide employment while they do it. Are we promoting the argument for creating employment rather than moving money from the needy to the greedy as employees of already large and rich corporations who are downsizing rather than creating employment?
Most of us have 750-plus weekends left in our life. How do we want to spend them? By leaving a larger nest egg for our children to that they never learn to fend for themselves or to help others find their wings?
My apologies if I have wasted your time.
Chandu
Concentration
What is concentration? Is it focus? What does focus mean? Is it an action, where the retinal image is sharp? When you are listening to music – ‘concentrating’ on it – your eyes are defocused and closed. Are your ears sharpened? So is it using your senses more acutely? What does concentration during a lecture mean? Listening, hearing and feeling intently? Then how do you assimilate knowledge? What about the thinking part of learning?
Let us analyse this differently. Is concentration the absence of distraction? So when I close the door, turn off the music, create a sensory vacuum, am I concentrating?Our mind cannot be shut, our thoughts cannot be stopped.
I would say concentration is not getting distracted even if there are distractions present. Concentration is continuing towards your goal irrespective of distractions. What prevents us from concentrating?
- We do not have a goal. When we study, we just read a book until we fall asleep or get distracted. Distractions can be physical / external distractions – the ones that disturb our senses – people talking, moving, watching other things like emails etc. Or they can be mental / emotional / internal distractions – when our mind starts wandering. We lose our sense of the goal.
- So ideally, we should have a goal. We have the concept of micro-goals or ‘chunking down’ – breaking a goal into tiny sub-goals. In project management, we call these milestones. They are a measure of progress and they are a reason to celebrate small successes. I want to see my email – I decide that I will see it after I finish and understand 10 pages or even 5 pages. I should reward myself with things that I love to do – after I reach a micro-goal.
- Our mind plays games with us. It distracts us. We daydream. We go into flights of fancy, wishful thinking. Or we think of past incidents and try to give some meaning to of it (remember outliers and black swans). The way to handle it is not by telling our mind to shut up and focus. It is to watch the distractions and the thoughts but not get involved in it.
- When I teach meditation in class, it is not to raise our Kundalini or attain Samadhi or to blank my mind. It is to observe our thoughts, but not get involved in them. It is like I am the station master and a thought is a train, where the engine is the thought and the bogies are the emotions. We, as station masters of our mind, do not climb the bogey and ride with the train – we wave a green flag, observe and record the train timing and go back to our room – whatever we were originally doing.
The essence of concentration is not to have so much focus that we are lost in it. It is that we are aware of what our senses are feeling and what our mind is thinking, but we are not distracted by the thinking and the feeling. Too much focus is also a strain. It does not allow us to relax and assimilate. The best way to understand a paragraph is not to focus on each word, but to focus on a sentence and gradually the whole paragraph. That requires us to broaden our vision, not narrow it.
While reading J Krishnamurthi on education, I came across advice on how to meditate. It may be worthwhile to paraphrase the same:
“To learn about meditation, you have to see how your mind is working. You have to watch, as you watch a lizard going by, walking across the wall. You see all its four feet, how it sticks to the wall, and as you watch, you see all the movements. In the same way, watch your thinking. Do not correct it. Do not suppress it. Do not say, “All this is too difficult”. Just watch; now, this morning.
“First of all sit absolutely still. Sit comfortably, cross your legs, sit absolutely still, close your eyes, and see if you can keep your eyes from moving. You understand? Your eye balls are apt to move, keep them completely quiet, for fun. Then, as you sit very quietly, find out what your thought is doing. Watch it as you watched the lizard. Watch thought, the way it runs, one thought after another. So you begin to learn, to observe.
“Are you watching your thoughts – how one thought pursues another thought, thought saying, “This is a good thought, this is a bad thought”? When you go to bed at night, and when you walk, watch your thought. Just watch thought, do not correct it, and then you will learn the beginning of meditation. Now sit very quietly. Shut your eyes and see that the eyeballs do not move at all. Then watch your thoughts so that you learn. Once you begin to learn there is no end to learning.”
