Destroy fear

Dr. David Schwartz believes that fear is real; and we must recognize it exists before we can conquer it. He further opines that most fear today is psychological. Worry, tension, em­barrassment, and panic all stem from mismanaged, negative imagination. But simply knowing the breeding ground of fear does not cure fear.

“If a physician discovers you have an infection in some part of your body, he does not stop there. He proceeds with treatment to cure the infection.”

The old “it is-only-in-your-mind” treatment presumes fear does not really exist. But it DOES. Fear is REAL. Fear is success enemy num­ber one. Fear stops people from cap­italizing on opportunity; fear wears down physical vitality; fear actually makes people sick causes organic difficulties, shortens life; fear closes your mouth when you want to speak.

Fear-uncertainty, lack of confi­dence–explains why we still have economic recessions. Fear explains why millions of people accomplish little and enjoy little. Truly, fear is a powerful force. In one way or anoth­er fear prevents people from getting what they want from life.

Fear of all kinds and sizes is a form of psychological infection. We can cure a mental infection the same way we cure a body infection-with specific, proved treatments.

First, though, as part of your pretreatment preparation, condition yourself with this fact: all confidence is acquired and developed. No one is born with confidence. Those people you know who radiate confidence, who have conquered worry, who are at ease everywhere and all the time, acquired their confidence, every bit of it.

MISMANAGED MEMORY

According to Dr. Schwartz, much lack of self-confidence can be traced directly to a mismanaged memory.

Your brain is very much like a bank. Every day you make thought deposits in your “mind bank.” These thought deposits grow and become your memory. When you settle down to think or when you face a problem, in effect you say to your memory bank, ‘’What do I already know about this?”

Your memory bank automatically answers and supplies you with bits of information relating to this situa­tion that you deposited on previous occasions. Your memory; then, is the basic supplier of raw material for your new thought.

Dr. Schwartz offers two specific things to do to build confidence through efficient management of your memory bank.

First, deposit only positive thoughts in your memory bank. Everyone encounters plenty of unpleasant, embarrassing, and discouraging situations. But unsuc­cessful and successful people deal with these situations in directly opposite ways. Unsuccessful peo­ple take them to heart, so to speak. “They dwell on the unpleasant situations, thereby giving them a good start in their memory. They do not take their minds away from them. At night, the unpleasant situation is the last thing they think about.”

Confident, successful people, on the other hand, “do not give it another thought.” Successful peo­ple specialize in putting positive thoughts into their memory bank.

Second, withdraw only positive thoughts from your memory bank. Psychologists believe that there will be no need for their services if people would do just one thing: “destroy their negative thoughts before those thoughts become mental monsters.”

“Most individuals I try to help,” one Psychological Consultant says aptly, “are operating their own private museum of mental horror. Many marriage difficulties, for example, involve the ‘honey­moon monster.’ The honeymoon was not as satisfactory as one or both of the marriage partners had hoped, but instead of burying the memory, they reflected on it hundreds of times until it was a giant obstacle to successful marital relationships.”

“A person can make a mental monster out of almost any un­pleasant happening,” the Con­sultant goes on. “A job failure, a jilted romance, a bad investment, disappointment in the behavior of a teen-age child – these are common monsters I have to help troubled people destroy.”

It is clear that any negative thought if fertilized with re­peated recall, can develop into a real mind monster, breaking down confidence and paving the way for to serious psycho­logical difficulties.

Do not build mental mon­sters. Refuse to withdraw the unpleasant thoughts from your memory bank. When you re­member situations of any kind, concentrate on the good part of the experience, and forget the bad.

It is easy to forget the unpleasant if we simply refuse to recall it. “Withdraw only positive thoughts from your memory bank. Let the others fade away; and your confidence, that feeling of being on top of the world, increases upward. You take a big step forward conquering fear when you refuse to remember negative, self-deprecating thoughts.”

FEAR OF OTHER PEOPLE

Why do people fear other people? Why do many folks feel self-conscious around oth­ers? What is behind shyness? What can we do about it? Dr. Schwartz is of the opinion that fear of other people is a big fear. However, there is a way to conquer it. “You can conquer fear of people if you will learn to put them into proper per­spective.”

Cut to the core, people are alike in many, many more ways than they are different. The other fellow is pretty much like us. Therefore, if the other fellow is basically like me, there is no point in being afraid of him.

Dr. Schwartz proposes two ways to put people in proper perspec­tive. First, get a balanced view of the other fellow. Keep these two points in mind when dealing with people: first, the other fellow is important. Emphatically, he is important. Every human being is. But remember this, also: You are important, too. So when you meet another person, make it a policy to think, “We are just two important people sitting down to discuss something of mutual interest and benefit.”

This mutually important attitude helps you keep any situation bal­anced. The other fellow does not become too important relative to you in your thinking. “The other fellow might look frightfully big, frightfully important. But remem­ber, he is still a human being with essentially the same interests, desires, and problems as you.”

Second, develop an understand­ing attitude. People who want figu­ratively to bite you, bark at you, pick on you, and otherwise chop you down are not rare. If you are not prepared for people like that, they can punch big holes in your confidence and make you feel completely defeated. You need a defense against the adult bully, the fellow who likes to throw his meager weight around.

OUR CONSCIENCE

When you do anything that goes contrary to your conscience, you feel guilty and this guilty feeling jams your thought processes. You cannot think straight because your mind is asking, ‘Will I get caught?’

It is believed that many criminals are captured not because any clues point to them but because they act guilty and self-conscious. Their guilt feeling puts them on the suspect list.

There is within each of us a desire to be right, think right, and act right. When we go against that desire, we put a cancer in our conscience. This cancer grows and grows by eating away at our confidence. Avoid doing anything that will cause you to ask yourself, ‘Will I get caught? Will they find out?

Will I get away with it?” Do not try to make an A if it means violating your confidence. Learn the practical value of doing what is right.

Doing what is right keeps your conscience satisfied; and this builds self-confidence. When we do what is known to be wrong, two negative things happen. First, we feel guilt and this guilt eats away confidence. Second, other people eventually find out and lose confidence in us. Do what is right and keep your confi­dence. “That is thinking yourself to success.”

There is psychological principle that posits that “To think confidently, act confidently.” Psychologist Dr. George Crane puts it this way, “Re­member, motions are the precursors of emotions. You cannot control the latter directly but only through your choice of motions or actions….

To avoid this all too common tragedy (marital difficulties and misunderstandings) become aware of the true psychological facts. Go through the proper motions each day and you will soon begin to feel the corresponding emotions.”

BY CAPT SAM ADDAIH (RTD)