Fear Of Defeat

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

How do you start interacting with your fear?

The consciousness of a modern person lives in extremes: either we are paralyzed by fear, which we rationalize as prudence, or we rush to the embrasure, headlong, discarding a strategic miscalculation as unnecessary.

The fear of failure - the fear of error - is closely related to the fear of being ashamed again, as was the case in early childhood. Some of us were ashamed for a loud voice, some for fidgeting in a chair, some for unwillingness to share a toy. Among the modern inhabitants of the planet, there are no obscene ones. The fear of failure goes hand in hand with the fear of receiving disapproval from others.

Today we live in a society where the sense of our own worth is closely related to the reaction of others. The world is full of adults who live in full confidence that other people determine our worth; that favor must be won; that our value is conditional and subject to constant affirmation throughout life. We constantly prove something to someone: our importance, our uniqueness in work. Many of us get to the point where we feel the need to defend our right to be loved and the only one among countless rivals and rivals: we want to be people who deserve the love of another person.

It is not surprising: in a capitalist society built on selfish self-assertion and aimed at survival through the accumulation of maximum profit, competition is translated from the work environment to personal life.

Recently, on the subway, I snatched the bold phrase from a book from a girl swinging to the beat of the wheels: "Comparison helps us understand who we are and who we want to be." And it's true! To determine what we want in life, we need to go through exactly the opposite experience. To understand white, we first need to face black.

The danger of this situation can be manifested in cases where we rationalize envy as a motivation. Operating in a hierarchical society is unbearable for many of us because we had painful experiences with an authority figure (read: parent) as children.

How do we feel when we are ashamed? While we are small, the feeling of oneness with the world is our natural state, therefore, conceptually, we are unable to separate ourselves and our action. The process of being “ashamed” makes us feel that something is wrong with us. Moreover, we cannot change this “not so”, no matter how hard we try. When we are ashamed by someone entrusted with our physical, mental, and spiritual well-being, we feel it is dangerous to be subservient. Therefore, as an adult, we prefer to choose scenarios in which the responsibility for our own well-being lies entirely with us.

The truth, however, is that one is not a warrior in the field. A person needs a different person. The need for another person is just as vital a human need as for food and drink. In an attempt to fit these two truths into our heads - that it is safer to control everything by ourselves and the desire for unity with our own kind - we take one of two positions:

1) we accept as an axiom the statement that everything in the world is given by hard work, and that all life is proof to yourself and others that you are worth something. Along with the self-destructive upholstery of the thresholds of the spheres of activity that are far from the individual's nature, subconsciously we feel that the elusive goals play the role of straw bedding: as soon as the next goal fails with a bang, we can always protect ourselves from admitting a mistake - and thus shamefulness - by reminding ourselves that "Life is hard and unfair."

2) we voluntarily renounce the role of the creator of reality and surrender ourselves to another person in full care, counting on his good will. We sacrifice our interests and, in fear of losing him, assent to him - after all, this is the only way we know to gain trust. In the event of psychological or physical violence by the “guardian”, moral and sacrificial behavior is our psychological defense. We cannot give up the role of the victim for the reason that compassion and regret on the part of other people makes us understand that we are good, right and loved.

The way out of this situation is to find a balance. The first step is finding a starting point. The starting point is a childhood situation in which a loved one or parent shamed you.

If identifying an emotion by the name of shame is difficult, it is a sign that most of our emotions have been (and continue to be) relentlessly suppressed. Whether we decide to do this now or later, since we have chosen the path of self-improvement, we will still have to dig out our emotional deposits and build up our emotional vocabulary. So take the first step!

Remember how at the beginning of the article we saw that there is not a single person on the planet who would not be ashamed - albeit for the smallest, but nevertheless! - in childhood? Now the task is to shed the light of your consciousness on this smallness.

Once the situation associated with shame is discovered, it needs to find a solution. The process of uniting with your little one - or with your inner child, as psychologists call this process - can be imagined as a puzzle that falls into place in your chest.

You can do a little visualization that transpersonal psychologist Teal Swan recommends:

“Imagine that you, in your adult form, are near your little self and tenderly hug him and take him in your arms. Introduce yourself to your little baby self and thank him or her for what he or she did for you. Let this courageous little one know how brave he was, and that his function has been fulfilled, and that you have taken care of everything, and that now he can deservedly rest. Offer the little “me” the food he loves more than anything else. Dress him in the clothes he wants to wear. Help him fall asleep if he wants to, and place at his feet, if necessary, an animal - a stretching fluffy pet that will keep the baby calm and with which the baby will always be happy to play. At the end of visualization, open your eyes and scan your inner state.”

The fear of mistakes - aka the fear of failure - is a wall built with our own hands that holds us back from great, happy achievements. Paying attention to your fear and interacting with it without violating it and yourself is fundamentally important and necessary.

No one forces us to attack, suppress, or ignore our fear. Fear of the unknown is a normal human condition. The fear of error, imposed on us in childhood, requires recognition and consideration in the form in which it is. Being able to recognize the connection between him and the shame experienced in early childhood will be the first step in overcoming the fear and suggest how best to befriend it.

Lilia Cardenas, integral psychologist, psychotherapist