Basic fears of life?

[Magnifico]

Hola Bellos,

I am dealing with some dramatic childhood memory right now and discover that any of those lead to basic fears I still have today. I want to really understand what kind of fears I have and which basic fear there are in Life. So,

What are basic fears of life?

I know there is fear of rejection, fear of success, fear of failure but there are a lot more fears I struggle to put in words. Maybe I am also overanalysing this but I would love to have a overlook over this topic. Or is every fear rooted in the fear of death?

 

Let me know your thoughts
Love Tim

[Bill W]

Nice topic. I'm sure there will be a variety of perspectives on this. 

For me, what made sense, was the Susan Jeffers book (Feel the fear and do it anyway). She believes our main fear is "I can't handle it". I might be paraphrasing somewhat. She writes that it is not the incident as such that is the main fear (such as I will lose my job, I will lose my spouse, I will go bankrupt etc), but the root fear is that we won't be able to handle it. Not sure if I am making sense here. I know it sounds really simplistic, but it really resonated with me. She keeps emphasizing the "I can't handle it" being the root cause of fear. Or I suppose "I won't be able to handle it".

Although, I am not sure this would fit for someone whose fear is death, or perhaps it would fit?

This links in with one of my favourite definitions of psychological stress (again I paraphrase)..... stress occurs when we are asked or required to do something that exceeds our perceived level of competence. I also like this definition..... stress occurs relative to when we underestimate our competence whilst simultaneously overestimating the risk. 

So this is my quite basic response to your question. It might not be the most sophisticated of replies you'll get! 

[Farnaby]

2 hours ago, Magnifico said:

Hola Bellos,

I am dealing with some dramatic childhood memory right now and discover that any of those lead to basic fears I still have today. I want to really understand what kind of fears I have and which basic fear there are in Life. So,

What are basic fears of life?

I know there is fear of rejection, fear of success, fear of failure but there are a lot more fears I struggle to put in words. Maybe I am also overanalysing this but I would love to have a overlook over this topic. Or is every fear rooted in the fear of death?

 

Let me know your thoughts
Love Tim

@Magnifico I think one of our deepest fear is fear of abandonment and it is first experienced when we don't get our needs met as a baby. As a baby you had no time conception so 5 minutes feel like an eternity and when you were hungry for example you felt like you were going to die. Of course if this doesn't happen too often, you don't get traumatized or at least not significantly and later on you learn how to delay gratification. 

In my opinion, most of our other fears (fear of rejection, fear of failure and even fear of intimacy, because intimacy visceraly reminds us of the possibility to feel abandoned) are deeply related to this basic fear and as you said fear of death is probably the most basic fear of all. 

 

[Magnifico]

3 hours ago, Bill W said:

Nice topic. I'm sure there will be a variety of perspectives on this. 

For me, what made sense, was the Susan Jeffers book (Feel the fear and do it anyway). She believes our main fear is "I can't handle it". I might be paraphrasing somewhat. She writes that it is not the incident as such that is the main fear (such as I will lose my job, I will lose my spouse, I will go bankrupt etc), but the root fear is that we won't be able to handle it. Not sure if I am making sense here. I know it sounds really simplistic, but it really resonated with me. She keeps emphasizing the "I can't handle it" being the root cause of fear. Or I suppose "I won't be able to handle it".

Although, I am not sure this would fit for someone whose fear is death, or perhaps it would fit?

This links in with one of my favourite definitions of psychological stress (again I paraphrase)..... stress occurs when we are asked or required to do something that exceeds our perceived level of competence. I also like this definition..... stress occurs relative to when we underestimate our competence whilst simultaneously overestimating the risk. 

So this is my quite basic response to your question. It might not be the most sophisticated of replies you'll get! 

I like the stress quote very much with understemating yourself and overestimating the risk. The whole "I won't be able to handle it"-fear is something I've never heard of but makes good sense when I think about it. Thank you very much

[Magnifico]

1 hour ago, Farnaby said:

@Magnifico I think one of our deepest fear is fear of abandonment and it is first experienced when we don't get our needs met as a baby. As a baby you had no time conception so 5 minutes feel like an eternity and when you were hungry for example you felt like you were going to die. Of course if this doesn't happen too often, you don't get traumatized or at least not significantly and later on you learn how to delay gratification. 

In my opinion, most of our other fears (fear of rejection, fear of failure and even fear of intimacy, because intimacy visceraly reminds us of the possibility to feel abandoned) are deeply related to this basic fear and as you said fear of death is probably the most basic fear of all. 

 

Well fear of abondonment is definetly something I haven't consider so far (for me). But I think it is also in me in some way. At least would make sense because as you said it is one of our first dramatic incident in our life. Thank you very much @Farnaby