Transcript (00:06): Hi there. Welcome. Today we are discussing a very important topic and we are discussing it from the perspective of psychology as well as philosophy. So we've borrowed this from psychological literature as well as independent books. I've referenced them all, so you will get a sense of what I'm talking about, but we are talking about the end of fear and whether it's possible to do so, and we will begin this with a discussion around beliefs and the role that they have in shaping our relationship with fear. So let's dive in. Let's have a look and let's see if we can take you to the end of fear. Now, beliefs give us psychological certainty. Any belief whether it's religious or believing in a norm or believing in a theory, gives us a sense of psychological certainty. In some cases, conforming to a belief system can even give us physiological security. (00:56) Beliefs also begets experiences. We then seek experiences consistent with our belief systems. For example, religious or educational. We seek religious experiences consistent with our beliefs or we seek to develop and learning experiences that enhance or develop certain beliefs. Post we have learned something. What are beliefs though beliefs refer to, and these are academic definitions to superstitions of commitments to traditional ideologies that do not require a truth condition. Unlike the way knowledge does, beliefs are often based on evaluation judgments. Beliefs are episodically stored material influenced by personal experiences or cultural and institutional sources. They're often static, but beliefs are important. Beliefs shape our behavior, and therefore they are often a trigger to achievement. For example, any business goal or a big achievement has roots first in belief of that reality that hasn't even occurred yet. The anticipation attached to beliefs breed fear as well. Almost any belief than breeds fear, religion breeds fear and even beliefs about a better future is accompanied by the fear of not achieving it. (02:08) A negative belief or anticipation is fear in itself. An extreme sense of belief can make people take very hard stance, even to the extent of hating each other, and as we've seen in history, it can even be a root cause for violence and wars. Now, certainty is security beliefs work as providing a sense of psychological certainty over subjects that we do not have definitive answers to and certainty is security. Whenever we are certain about something, we feel secure about it. The real world example of this is insurance. It provides a certain relief from an uncertain outcome. When any event interferes with this certainty, it causes fear because it makes us insecure. Now, insecurity can be a psychological or a physiological effect. Let's say you decide to go against a popular belief system in society, for example, religion or at work against your popular leadership opinion. (03:08) The end result is a risk taken, which by definition puts you in a less secure position. This may or may not actually lead to insecurity and therefore is at least psychological insecurity that exists in your mind. At the very least, the worst outcome of a psychological insecurity is always a physical threat of some sorts on income, on your job, on your belonging, or even existential. In securities always make this certain uncertain. It can make us defensive or withdrawn or attacking or even aggressive. In either case, uncertainty hampers our ability, at least temporarily to be able to create, to able to create anything new. The brain needs security to function. That's the basic fact because in insecurity, it is totally consumed with the very act of trying to create security. There are all kinds of fear that are born out of this phenomenon of insecurities, fear of survival, fear of failure, fear of unknown, fear of laughter, of ridicule, of belonging, of poverty, of rejection, of losing freedom, of dependence, of illness, and even death. (04:21) In fear, there is a loss of freedom because as we said, the brain is compelled to fall prey to the fear to create security first before doing what it otherwise might just want to do if it was free. Fear takes away the freedom to explore. Certain fears become all inclusive purposes itself for people. Fear takes away the freedom to explore. Fear takes away abilities to see different perspectives. Fear shuts down to other experiences. The mind correlates everything to the belief that perpetuates fear and politicians use this phenomenon particularly well. Fear also takes away our ability to be alive in the moment because it is constantly accompanied by anxiety or by stress or by worries. Now thought is how we make sense of everything, right? Our basis for thought is the sum total of our intelligence. That is our beliefs, knowledge, experience, learning, everything that this is all stored in our memory. (05:21) Therefore, thought is a function that is possible only through memory thinking means to conjure or come up with images from this memory and making connections to the occupation of the present. So how does fear come alive? The movement of images in our thought process triggers a certain memory or triggers thinking through memory, which leads to certain judgments about the subject that we are thinking about, and this may bring uncertainty or insecurity to the fore, and that leads to fear. Fear is then born and alive, but fear has a distinction. Fear is different from danger. Now see, danger is a now event. For example, you are listening to this right now and you spot a snake in your room. Now that's an event that's occurring right now. It is danger and your mind will automatically choose aflex action to escape, to run, or to counter it. (06:18) You won't have to really think in danger. Intelligence is usually automatically in operation. Fear, on the other hand, is a future event induced by beliefs and memory. Ask yourself this question in this moment as you're listening to this or you're reading this, are you afraid? How will then fear enter your mind? Think about it. You will have to imagine a situation you will have to activate thought you will have to conjure images and bring fear into the present, won't you? Because it doesn't exist in the moment right now. You see in this moment, there is no fear. You bring it through imagination. Fear is belief in operation and beliefs are choices. When we think in terms of time, let's say from past to the future, the mind creates opposites or divisions of different possibilities or different things that can happen. These are beliefs about what may happen, what may go wrong. (07:16) It may be needed for rational thinking and to come up with solutions, but the uncertainties arising out of the thought process end up consuming our minds with fear. The key to remember is that we bring it upon ourselves. As such, the event that we are imagining or that we are thinking about hasn't occurred and we never will in this moment, for example, there is no fear, but we bring it in and how do we bring it in? We bring it in by imagining, and then we influence behavior for an event that is not even real. For example, I might imagine that people will laugh at me if I'm a presenter, so to say, and never attempt it. Now. Fear has already modified your behavior without ever being tested. And beliefs that people will laugh has acted as a catalyst and an assumption that it is something terrible. (08:07) If people laugh is the second belief that has worked. Magic, the brain ignores every possible benefit to conform to the fear, and yet none of this has ever even occurred. It's all occurrence in the mind. Observe this occurrence in the mind. What is it doing? How does it bring fear into existence? If you just take a pause and you observe it, you sit by yourself and you observe this movement of thought, this movement of images in the mind, and you just simply observe it as to how it induces fear, then what takes place, it automatically ends the fear because your intelligence and your brain will see through it. The fact that it doesn't even exist in the first place, intelligence is the ability to see the fact. If you see it, there is no fear. If you see fear, then false belief and not intelligence is in operation. (09:04) Remember, danger and fear are separate things in this moment. There is no fear. You will have to bring it in by thinking about it, and that is a matter of an active choice in this very moment. You are not afraid. In this moment there is no fear. How does fear enter your mind? The fear enters your mind. When you bring it in through your imagination and you bring it, you bring about a certain reality, it doesn't exist, and that is a huge insight in dealing with a lot of psychological fears that we have just imagined and made out to be real, but it's not really real because it's a creation of images and you can observe the movement of those images, and when you do quietly are able to scan through what's happening in your mind, you will notice that you automatically have the ability to instantly put an end to the fear.