Fear and Self-Fulfillment

Source

I arrived at steemit two weeks ago. My objectives are to broadcast some educational material, and to talk with anyone who wants to discuss it with me. I can only hope and trust that people will actually use what I can recall for their own benefits.

On the Connections between Feelings, Self-Awareness and Self-Fulfilment

The research question of this essay is: How does experiencing one's fears contribute to self-fulfilment?

Here's the chain of logic that I describe below:

Fear is an experience.
Experiences may be repressed.
Repressing fear decreases self-awareness.
Increasing self-awareness increases personal effectiveness.
Increasing effectiveness produces better results in one’s endeavors.
Better results produce more fulfilment (and decreased frustration!).

I wrote something lately about being afraid (https://steemit.com/education/@rortian/community-discussion-my-fear).

I mentioned that I believe that all of our emotions are always with us because there’s nowhere for them to go other than beneath the surface of our respective consciousnesses.

It took me a very long time and a lot of academic research before I learned that so-called bad feelings (and there are quite a few of them, aren’t there?) aren’t necessarily bad.

And apparently, seeing them as bad might not be the best way to understand the benefits of experiencing them.

[What benefits??]

Well, I’ve been told that experiencing one’s least pleasant emotions is an essential element in understanding oneself (self-awareness).

However, it seems that there are ways to avoid experiencing them which prevent us from understanding our own motives and our own actions with much clarity.

And in my experience of learning from wiser people, understanding oneself is an essential element of producing fulfilling and flourishing lives.

What does it take to increase self-awareness in order to fulfil our purposes and achieve our goals?

Here are some other people’s good (imo) ideas on that:

https://www.developgoodhabits.com/what-is-self-awareness/
https://www.change-management-coach.com/self-awareness.html

The following story is from https://trans4mind.com/jamesharveystout/repress.htm#
I’ve edited it for the sake of brevity and clarity, and I added bold font to stress a few points. My editorial comments are in square brackets.

“Suppression…is a conscious choice not to indulge a particular thought, feeling, or action… Suppression is a useful psychological mechanism which permits us to concentrate on our affairs without being distracted by every impulse which arises, and without having to act on those impulses. We acknowledge the impulses, and we accept their presence and the fact that they might emerge again, to be reconciled or suppressed then.

“Repression...is similar to suppression in that a thought or feeling or emotion is not expressed – but in repression, we deny that the element even exists…

“[R]epression can cause…damage -- particularly because our unawareness of it means that we have less ability to recognize the ways in which it is affecting us and harming us…

“Our perceptions are distorted. While the repressed material is in the shadow, it projects onto people and situations; for example, fear which has been repressed and then projected will color our perceptions of the world [that is, any situation we face at a given time] as a frightening place. Because we are not perceiving accurately, we acquire incorrect [biased] information from our surroundings, and thus we respond inappropriately [in comparison with our own ideals]; we react fearfully to situations which are not truly dangerous. “Repression distorts not only our observations in this moment, but also our memories of the past and our expectations for the future.

“Repressed material is not available for our use. Every thought and emotion has a potential purpose – perhaps offering new perspectives, and some vitality, and a broader understanding of our wholeness… When we repress, we are refusing these gifts. For example, if we deny our fear, we are not able to use the energy that is associated with it, nor can we have a full perspective on the dangers [actual or imagined] which are triggering the fear.

“Repression prevents us from understanding ourselves. For example, if we examine our "selfishness" (instead of pretending that it doesn't exist), we might find the reasons for our behavior; perhaps we will realize that it is actually a reasonable response to people who are abusing our tendency toward generosity…

“Repressed material remains unresolved. If we don't even admit that an emotion or thought exists, we can't take action toward a solution...nor will we recognize the ways in which it is wrecking our friendships, and we won't seek ways to maintain our dignity and boundaries while also being loving and generous enough to support those friendships.”

If these ideas interest you, and if you haven’t heard them before, then I invite you to discuss them with me in the reply chain. If you’re already familiar with this story, then you might want to share it with others.

Thank you for listening.