“You’re having a whale of a time … then suddenly on the horizon, you spot them – the emotional pirates. They want to rob us of our dreams, our self esteem and even our health”
Mike McLaughlin
A colleague told me of a his experience one dark and wet February night travelling to conduct a Workshop. The destination is a small English country house hotel. But where is it? It’s very late and he calls the hotel to ask for directions and receives a very welcome, but sadly untypical response.
Directions are given with both warmth and clarity. “Have you eaten sir?” asked the receptionist. On arrival, the reception is almost miraculous. The Chef had stayed on ready to prepare a meal. The receptionist stood by, wine glass in hand, in friendly greeting.
What would you have felt about such a hotel? All too often we stay almost anonymously in hotels and so this experience would be, and was to my colleague, an absolute revelation. Large hotels spend a fortune training staff in search of the edge in relationship marketing. At this small hotel it seemed that this exceptional service was just business as usual.
A month or two later an interesting thing happened. Mike returned to the hotel and by chance met the owner. Mike eagerly started to recall the night of his late arrival in order to give well deserved praise. Three times he started to tell his story and three times he was interrupted by the owner whose almost automatic reflex seemed to be to grovel and apologise.
The manager’s fixation was completely negative and focused on a need for apology. The manager’s belief system was that “customers complain” and “we aren’t worthy”. Despite the reality of Mike trying to praise the man and the hotel, that manager probably still holds that distorted belief today.
Despite human preoccupation with emotion for millennia, we are still a long way from fully understanding the true nature of everyday things such as fear and love. What is the relationship between emotion, memory and the brain? How do we learn to experience emotions? What are the consequences for us?
Fear is an emotion that warns us that we are due to experience pain. It’s therefore to be viewed as a benefit because it is present for our protection. It’s an emotion that impacts upon us all to different degrees, yet it’s somehow a highly personal thing because we certainly don’t seem to fear the same things.
How is it that some people are willing to risk their lives to follow Ernest Shackleton to the Antarctic and yet others are afraid to ever leave their own town or village? How is it that some people create wonderful businesses and others dream about this but never take action because of the fear of change? Businesses spend millions in response to anticipated problems in managing change - but ultimately it is only our resistance to change that damages us.
Working definition of fear
Here is a definition of fear. Fear is a subjective state of awareness brought about when body and brain systems react to perceived danger. There is more too it than just simple thinking. No one ever says “I think afraid”; they say “I feel afraid”. No one ever says, “I think stressed out today”; they say “I feel stressed out today”. Fear is about feelings and emotions and these are just the conscious products of unconscious processes.
Fear is the great barrier which stops people from having a great life. It stops people from following their dreams. What is really sad, is that fear is something we experience, projected from things we know nothing about. How many people fear poverty yet have no experience of it? How many people fear loss which spoils the joy of possession? What is the point of having a long life if there is no quality to it? In fact, the subjective experiences we call feelings are not even the primary business of the system that generates them!
Our physiology and our brain are equipped for survival and we can gain new insights as science strives to understand the link between emotions and the brain.
If emotions such as fear are learned by us through some process of lifetime experience and accumulated memory, is it possible to “unlearn” them and replace the emotion of fear with something more supportive of success and action?
Let me ask you a question? Should we really want to take fear completely away from our lives? Well I don’t think so, because sometimes it can be a warning that we have to respond to. Sometimes society has a problem because individuals respond to feelings of pain or fear by taking actions that aren’t a positive response to the real “warning”. Using drugs, TV watching, excessive alcohol, overwork and other strategies to mask a problem will never really take away pain and only mask the opportunity we have to learn and grow. Remember that our subconscious has a habit of reminding of feelings of hurt we try to bury.
The truth is that emotions such as fear and love, have great power. You have to realise that just a few positive emotions are all that you need to change your life for the better. By adopting emotions that are powerful enough, you can make any weaknesses meaningless.
Hi Derek, We both blogged about fear today :)
I'm interested in your idea that "fear is about feelings and emotions".
What would it be like for you if fear were just about physical sensations, without meaning attached?
Posted by: Judy | July 06, 2005 at 02:05 PM
Interesting question Judy. You remember the notion that Fear could be an acronym? - Fantasised Experience Appearing Real. Its all made up - how could we detach from meaning? - it's what makes us human. Although, that meaning is far from fixed. It is easy for one person to feel fear by imagining situations from the past or potential future. Another person could imagine that same scenario without fear.
Posted by: Derek Jones | July 07, 2005 at 01:34 AM