My take on how to face your fears dudes... Not the truth.
There are many many posts out there that tells you to face your fears and when you ask them how they cant tell you anything else than "man up", "just do it" etc.
I know, I have done so on several occasions.
My favourite is "You gotta make a decision" thats my own but I realize that there is more to it than this.
It came to me when I was talking to a friend who recently made a life changing ... change? ...
You need a point to start.
Yeah, read that again!
Lets go over why we are afraid of facing our fears. (They are what we are afraid of, duh.
)
We are scared because we believe that accepting the fact or even seeing the fact that we have issues or arent perfect or even suck at something will make us less than we need to be. Like painting over a hole in the wall. It will still be there but not be a problem if nobody knows about it. That is of course not correct. If we were to add a second floor to the house, the wall wouldnt support the extra weight and the whole thing would collapse. Very much like people without inner game collapse when they try to base a relationship on PUA skills.
So we cannot accept or even see our problems because our self esteem is threatened.
Here I have to use my pillars of confidence theory... I believe that our confidence (or self esteem) rests on several characteristics. Like intelligence, looks, humor, personality etc. Most people pick one and build that up, they max it. Our self esteem rests on those like a roof rests on pillars. If one pillar goes up, so does our confidence. Unless of course the company we keep invalidates that one pillar by for example all agree on judging everybody by another characteristic.
If you base your confidence on spirituality, you may find youself small in the presence of rocket scientists...
Anyway, facing a fear that is directly related to a primary or secondary pillar will no doubt threaten our self esteem (potentially). We will tear down that pillar to build it up again. During construction we are weak and vurnerable. Or, so we think.
The situation I started with is one of my friends. This guy was so protective about his confidence that he closed himself into a world where the only things he cared about was intelligence and ethics. Everything else was BS. So he didnt even consider people who didnt share his etics and level of intelligence, he just didnt listen to what they had to say. No doubt because he would accept that other characteristica could be important as well and he was not good enough in using those. Of course, this guy didnt do very much to face his fears, he had it all figured out. Until by chance both his pillars crumbled and he was forced to rethink the situation.
Of course, Im not telling you to make your pillars crumble, that is extreme. But I want to warn you, dont build your confidence and self esteem up on only a few pillars. Build them all up.
Here comes the first step of the training, the one that nobody talks about. Self-Acceptance. This is not the same as accepting that you have faults.
This comes way before that, in fact, it is the opposite. This is acceptance of your own worth. Most people dont know how to do this. Many appear to but not many can.
You guys, need to find a couple of characteristics that define you. What makes you you. And you need to accept that those things, although they may also need improvement are good traits of your personalities. We are all fantastic human beings in some way, but we cant see it. We may think that we are the hottest guys around but deep down inside we know that it isnt true. That is why we must trust in something else. We must find what is specific for us, that one thing that nobody can take from us.
Anything really, that way you love your family, the way you give people the benefit of a doubt, that way that you cry when Simbas father dies. ANYTHING! Something that is only yours, something that makes you a good person. We all have something.
This.
Is.
Your.
Foundation!
Foundation to build on. If you accept that you got this characteristic and that in your judgement this makes you a good guy, if you accept that nobody can take it from you, then you are untouchable.
This is your startingpoint. This is your asylum. This is where you run when the shit hits the fan. When all of your other pillars crumble around you, you have a haven. Your self esteem will be safe.
Once you have this kind of security in your life, you can face any fear life can throw at you.
This realization was the turning point for my friend, he grew incredibly strong in just a few days. A bigger change than I have ever seen in anyone including myself.
I realized that this guy was standing in his haven and knocking down every other pillar he could find with a big mental sledgehammer. That is hardcore! He went back to scratch. He tore down everything he had ever believed in and built it up again as it should always have been. And why could he do that? Because he was safe within his haven, he had found his foundation.
So to recap. When facing your fears, you need something to cling to. You need to find your foundation. Something that gives you strength to go on even when all your other pillars of confidence fail you. This is important because in order to build up those pillars, you need to tear them down, question everything. Empty your cup.
I hope this will help some of you.
It helped me.
Ezo
CHAT
