According to classical mythology, fear is born from two gods: from Venus, the goddess of love, and from Mars, the god of war.
It is a beautiful metaphor to explain that this feeling originates from what we want and what we do not want to lose.
It is associated with attachment, so the most dangerous people are those who are not even afraid of losing their life.
The war, by the way, also contains an interesting metaphor.
Behind unnecessary aggressive attitudes is fear.
If not, let's think about how much small dogs wear themselves out barking at a potential threat.
Let's go back to Venus. In my experience, I have always seen that,
to achieve a goal, it is as important to identify what we want as it is to recognize the brakes or fears that prevent us from achieving it
. Or, in other words, we have to identify what are the attachments, the old beliefs that make it difficult for us to continue moving forward. What is our hidden Venus. For that we can rely on a process that consists of five phases. We will take as a reference an investigation based on mental flexibility that I have carried out for years and the model that researchers Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, from Harvard University, published in their book
Immunity to change.
The first phase consists of
asking ourselves what we would like to achieve
.
What are our dreams.
For example, having more friends or being kinder to yourself when you make a mistake.
We can be inspired by some simple exercise in which we go through different perspectives, such as the wheel of life.
Second,
what are the old habits that keep us from getting it
?
Here the first interesting gap arises between our desire and what we are actually doing.
We want to be more sociable or improve in our internal dialogue, but we lock ourselves at home or we crush ourselves at the first change.
When a gap of these characteristics appears is when we must delve into the following phases.
Third stage:
what advantages does it bring me to keep repeating what I do even if it doesn't suit me?
Or, put another way,
what is my
hidden agenda
?
Or what is my hidden Venus, using the mythological metaphor? Every habit, even if it does not suit us a priori, has some kind of benefit that makes it difficult for us to detach ourselves from it. They are the hidden spoilers that prevent us from achieving our goals. Answering the questions posed opens the chapter of our fears, often unconscious, or awakens our psychological immune system, according to Kegan and Lahey. Just as our immune system defends us from threats, the psychological system protects us from uncomfortable emotions such as shame, failure, or guilt. If we rely on the examples above, it could be to avoid the fear of rejection and so I stay home. Or the belief that if I relax in the face of mistakes, I can stop being responsible.Each person has a fear or a crazy belief that they must inquire about in order to get rid of it.
The next phase consists of dismantling the crazy beliefs or fears (which are still beliefs).
On what assumptions does my hidden agenda rest?
In the examples we have used, it could be “people reject me if they see that I want to be part of the group”; "If I am not demanding of myself I can become lazy" or "if I am vulnerable, people will stop trusting me." Once again, everyone has their own speech.
Finally, in the fifth phase, we
need to dismantle the previous assumptions
.
For this we can reel off each of the previous stages with powerful questions such as, for example: do all people reject me?
When has it happened to me?
When has it not happened to me?
What can I do to remedy it?
Fortunately, we are able to use critical thinking about our own beliefs to dismantle fears and unlock the brakes that prevent us from achieving our goals.
Pilar Jericó
is an entrepreneur, writer, lecturer, PhD in Business Organization and disseminator of research on human behavior.
www.pilarjerico.com