Fear and Ego the Cancer of Modern Man by Mahboob Ali khan MHA, CPHQ

Fear and Ego the Cancer of Modern Man by Mahboob Ali khan MHA, CPHQ

Why tackling a subject that has been turned upside down in so many books, conferences, etc.? What new things can I possibly say on the matter?

These were two questions that kept me from writing this, and yet, it didn’t give me peace—I went to sleep, and I woke up with the same words going round and round in my head: Fear and Ego. I don’t know if I’m going to say something new, but I’m surely going to put on paper my own thoughts and experience on the matter.

A recent conversation spread a different light on the concept of Fear.

I know and experienced the fact that it is the worst enemy one can ever have since it lurks in the darkness of your soul, it’s faceless, and loves to dismantle every initiative of growing and evolving spiritually, which one may have. It is a clever and observing enemy, and it always succeeds in finding your weak spot. Once found, it will start hammering until you go beyond the pain limit and become as inert as a statue. Is it sunny? Is it rainy? Tornados blow away your house? Who cares? You’re dead! A living dead! Fear stripped you of all your will power.

Yes, I was aware of all that! Yet, it never crossed my mind that a person can start feeling unworthy because of Fear. (S)he goes through a myriad of misfortunes, rejections, mockery, people turning their backs when (s)he mostly needs them by her/his side, until one day, when a thought takes birth, first like a mere whisper, then louder and clearer: “You are unworthy!”, “Do nothing, you have no energy left for one more heartbreak!”. Resignation, too, pays a visit to its friend, Fear, and they throw a party at your funeral, since that’s the moment you’re dead!

Perceiving your inertia as a consciously taken decision is even worse (“I’m better off without investing feelings or acting in any way!”). It won’t keep you from being hurt again. What you’re doing is punishing yourself with continuous suffering, since you’ll still be miserable.

The only question one should ask themselves when realizing that they have a fit of resignation is: “What’s the core of all those misfortunes, rejections, etc.?” The answer is simple: Still Fear! It is the one, which keeps telling you whenever you start a new relationship or business that you’re going to fail. And it is right! When you hold hands with Fear, you start walking on solid ground as if you’re on slippery ice. Sooner or later, you’ll find that spot that will make you fall, and even if it isn’t there, you’ll invent it. You’ll be the one pushing away people and ignoring opportunities, and not the other way around. When people go, business fail, again you’ll blame it all on them, on hubris, or on who knows what ancient, vengeful god who doesn’t consider you worthy as a human being—you don’t deserve love, success, sunny days, and that’s why everything breaks in your house. You’re just a poor, miserable human being at the mercy of uncontrollable forces.

False! Each of us goes through days or even months like living nightmares, but attitude and acknowledging where is Fear talking through you helps a lot and shifts the whole range of events.

You have to ignore Fear's voice! You’ll never be able to fight it to death, since it will always accompany you; ignore it, and give all of yourself to new situations and people, do your best under any circumstance, and that will do.

As Steven Pressfield said in his book, The War of Art:

“Resistance is like a telemarketer; if you so much as say hello, you’re finished. The pro doesn’t even pick up the phone. He stays at work.”

The hardest part is discerning its voice and not mistaking it for your own conscious choices. Inaction has never been a human choice! It’s ok to rest and gather your thoughts for a while, but whenever you get up and hear that voice telling you “Lie back down!” that’s not you, it’s It!

What’s Ego got to do with all these?

Steven Pressfield in The War of Art views Ego as such:

“I think angels make their home in the Self, while Resistance has its seat in the Ego.”

“The instinct that pulls us toward art is the impulse to evolve, to learn,

to heighten and elevate our consciousness. The Ego hates this. Because the more awake we become, the less we need the Ego.”

  So, what relationship is there between Fear and Ego? The author is right: Ego hates change, hates spiritual enlightenment, because it is so caught in the materialistic life that it shuns any glimpse of awakening to our higher self.

I for one see Ego as the defensive answer of Fear. They grow exponentially. The more fear you experience towards a certain course of action, the more Ego will take a hold on you. It is Fear’s best buddy! It comes with intentions of division, trying to separate your Self from all important ideas and impulses; it even separates you from the rest of the world. Thus, it eases Fear’s work.

So, when Fear alone finds it hard at putting you to death, it calls forth its deadly ally:  Ego, which will start to dismantle you presently. These two together trigger all your demons: resentment, hostility, blame, self-importance, victimization, anger, jealousy, complain, etc., and give them the necessary force to reduce you to the size of a fly in agony.

Ego will make you feel superior in your misery and full-of-failure life, and vests everything in martyrdom. It will make you consider all the others as little people incapable of such elevated feelings as yours.

I have no recipes on winning the battle with Fear and Ego! I think that the sooner one reacts the better. As I stated before, acknowledge its presence, discern its voice and words, ignore it!

Fear is afraid, too, and knows it cannot do the job alone: it needs you and your Ego! That’s why it keeps chattering in your ear trying to brainwash you. Fight it when it’s alone, for if Ego kicks in, the fight will be a life and death one.

Fear and Ego—they are the worst enemies you can have. The former is a force living inside you, the latter is part of you literally. It’s hard to fight something you don’t see, and yourself. It is a constant battle, but it is worthwhile since it gives you back to yourself in your full splendour.

You are worthy, you have the necessary energy to start over again, you love to give and receive love, you love change and new things, you love this journey called life! Don’t let that mean voice tell you otherwise! Don’t pick up the phone, when it rings! Fight it! Do it now!

“The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that

it can become a habit. We don't just put off our lives today;

we put them off till our deathbed.” (Steven Pressfield – The War of Art)

 

The (Only) 5 Fears We All Share

President Franklin Roosevelt famously asserted, "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself."

I think he was right: Fear of fear probably causes more problems in our lives than fear itself.

That claim needs a bit of explaining, I know.

Fear has gotten a bad rap among most human beings. And it's not nearly as complicated as we try to make it. A simple and useful definition of fear is: An anxious feeling, caused by our anticipation
of some imagined event or experience.

Medical experts tell us that the anxious feeling we get when we're afraid is a standardized biological reaction. It's pretty much the same set of body signals, whether we're afraid of getting bitten by a dog, getting turned down for a date, or getting our taxes audited.

Fear, like all other emotions, is basically information. It offers us knowledge andunderstanding—if we choose to accept it—of our psychobiological status.

And there are only five basic fears, out of which almost all of our other so-called fears are manufactured. These are:

1.    Extinction—the fear of annihilation, of ceasing to exist. This is a more fundamental way to express it than just calling it "fear of death." The idea of no longer being arouses a primary existential anxiety in all normal humans. Consider that panicky feeling you get when you look over the edge of a high building.

2.    Mutilation—the fear of losing any part of our precious bodily structure; the thought of having our body's boundaries invaded, or of losing the integrity of any organ, body part, or natural function. Anxiety about animals, such as bugs, spiders, snakes, and other creepy things arises from fear of mutilation.

3.    Loss of Autonomy—the fear of being immobilized, paralyzed, restricted, enveloped, overwhelmed, entrapped, imprisoned, smothered, or otherwise controlled by circumstances beyond our control. In physical form, it's commonly known as claustrophobia, but it also extends to our social interactions and relationships.

4.    Separation—the fear of abandonment, rejection, and loss of connectedness; ofbecoming a non-person—not wanted, respected, or valued by anyone else. The "silent treatment," when imposed by a group, can have a devastating psychological effect on its target.

5.    Ego-death—the fear of humiliation, shame, or any other mechanism of profound self-disapproval that threatens the loss of integrity of the Self; the fear of the shattering or disintegration of one's constructed sense of lovability, capability, and worthiness.

That's all—just those five. They can be thought of as forming a simple hierarchy, or "feararchy":

 

Think about the various common labels we put on our fears. Start with the easy ones: fear of heights or falling is basically the fear of extinction (possibly accompanied by significant mutilation, but that's sort of secondary). Fear of failure? Read it as fear of ego-death. Fear of rejection? That's fear of separation, and probably also fear of ego-death. The terror many people have at the idea of having to speak in public is basically fear of ego-death. Fear of intimacy, or "fear of commitment," is basically fear of losing one's autonomy.

Some other emotions we know by various popular names are just aliases for these primary fears. If you track them down to their most basic levels, the basic fears show through.Jealousy, for example, is an expression of the fear of separation, or devaluation: "She'll value him more than she values me." At its extreme, it can express the fear of ego-death: "I'll be a worthless person." Envy works the same way.

Shame and guilt express the fear of—or the actual condition of—separation and even ego-death. The same is true for embarrassment and humiliation.

Fear is often the base emotion on which anger floats. Oppressed people rage against their oppressors because they fear—or actually experience—loss of autonomy and even ego-death. The destruction of a culture or a religion by an invading occupier may be experienced as a kind of collective ego-death. Those who make us fearful will also make us angry.

Religious bigotry and intolerance may express the fear of ego-death on a cosmic level, and can even extend to existential anxiety: "If my god isn't the right god, or the best god, then I'll be stuck without a god. Without god on my side, I'll be at the mercy of the impersonal forces of the environment. My ticket could be canceled at any moment, without a reason."

Some of our fears, of course, have basic survival value. Others, however, are learned reflexes that can be weakened or re-learned.

That strange idea of "fearing our fears" becomes less strange when we realize that many of our avoidance reactions—turning down an invitation to a party if we tend to be uncomfortable in groups; putting off a doctor's appointment; or not asking for a raise—are instant reflexes that are reactions to the memories of fear. They happen so quickly that we don't actually experience the full effect of the fear. We experience a "micro-fear"—a reaction that's a kind of shorthand code for the real fear. This reflex reaction has the same effect of causing us to evade and avoid as the real fear. This is why it's fairly accurate to say that many of our so-called fear reactions are actually the fears of fears.

When we let go of our notion of fear as the welling up of evil forces within us—the Freudian motif—and begin to see fear and its companion emotions as basically information, we can think about them consciously. And the more clearly and calmly we can articulate the origins of the fear, the less our fears will frighten us and control us.