Saturday, September 20, 2014

There is really nothing to be afraid of



Hello Speed Reader or Soon-to-be Speed Reader,

A student in the speed reading workshop this past weekend said after our notetaking discussion that she felt like her head would explode if she took notes in this very different new way! I told her that it was quite unlikely that her head would explode under any circumstances and that she really didn't have anything to fear. She didn't seem convinced. I noticed that during the reading and notetaking exercise that followed, she drew her note taking line down the middle of her page, not diagonally across the page as instructed. 

The power of the conditioning in our lives is so strong that many folks have very irrational fears about learning something new. What harm would it have done to do it our way for a few minutes, just to try out a process that presidents and world leaders and millions of other people have tried? Conditioning breeds fear. Fear of trying something different, fear of doing something unfamiliar. Even though her old notetaking and reading methods weren't very good, I suspect that doing something familiar felt safer.
Gabrielle Roth, author of the book "Maps to Ecstasy," says, 

"Fear is a vitally useful emotion. It places you on alert, catalyzes your senses, and heightens your awareness in the face of danger. Fear is your friend, the radar for your voyage through life. It is a basic instinct of human survival - physical, psychological, spiritual. We need to have an acute sense of what threatens our well-being."
 
Unfortunately, the way our lives unfold, we often don't fully acknowledge our fears and then we then become afraid of even those things that could help us. Roth says, "I find that virtually everyone is locked in fear; people are afraid of everything - losing their job, losing their lover, losing their life; they're afraid of success, afraid of being too happy, afraid of the truth, afraid of feeling, afraid of moving, of changing."
How many of us have experienced the tightening of the throat, neck, and lower back that accompanies an unreleased fear? Unreleased fear stiffens the jaw, contracts the forehead and locks the knees. And it stifles learning, keeps us from enjoying our work, and sabotages relationships.
Roth says, "Fear writes its signature all over the body, but we are all so used to it we've become desensitized to the loud-and-clear message of our body language. And this pervasive fear simply compounds itself; it paralyzes our life energy, seizes up our feelings. We're so afraid of what we are going to lose, so painfully attached to what we have, that we numb ourselves into a living death to shield us from the pain of real living. By clinging to life as we have it, we deny ourselves a vibrant present and future."
Fear keeps us from learning new things, even those things that could change our lives.
When the immobilizing energy of unexpressed fear is released, fear can be transformed into what Roth calls its "natural dynamic partner," excitement. When we give appropriate attention and expression to our fears as they arise, then the pent up energy and the paralysis can be released. Roth says, "Fear properly channeled yields wide-awake engagement."
What if everyone was wide-awake and engaged? If this happened, the face of the world - and our lives - would change overnight.
If we were wide-awake and engaged, we would have no fear of new things. We would learn everything and not fear that our views and beliefs were being threatened.
If we were wide-awake and engaged, we would enjoy our jobs, whatever they were, and see the bigger picture of who we serve in those roles. A welder can be proud of his/her work. Without it, big things fall down! A proud welder knows the weld is like a signature. An auto mechanic keeps the world moving and can do things for people that a nuclear physicist can't!
If we were wide-awake and engaged, we would welcome those things that challenge our beliefs and the assumptions that we have made about how the world works. We would welcome criticism and always be looking for a new way to accomplish our goals and live harmoniously in the world.
If we were wide-awake and engaged, we wouldn't worry so much about always trying to do things that were in our comfort zone. We would stretch, grow, and learn with ease, not shying away from temporary frustration. In fact, we would welcome feelings of frustration, since that would mean we are learning something new!
If we were wide-awake and engaged and walked through the world with well-managed fear, we would love more freely, give more readily, and embrace the iconic principle of "do no harm."
Experiment with this. Look at your own fear response. Is it in proper proportion to the circumstances? Are you adequately and appropriately expressing your fears? Are you afraid of those things that could actually help you?
When learning something new and you feel that familiar resistance or hesitance, always ask yourself: "Really now! What harm could it do to try?!"
Let us help you make it happen.

Jackie

Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.
President, Center for Lifelong Learning
PO Box 77316 | Seattle, WA 98177 | USA
Cell: (206) 755-9272


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