What We Fear Most

I was send this information in an email and I wanted to share it with you....

"The nightmare we fear the most is the one we've already lived through" - DW Winnicott

DW Winnicott was one of the first psychologists to exhaustively study children's nightmares. And they led him to an inescapable conclusion about life ...

What we fear most is the worst of what we've ALREADY been through. Nightmares get triggered when something in our contemporary life reminds us of a horrendous experience we've ALREADY HAD.

In other words, despite the fact that very bad things may be happening in the present, the present triggers old tapes, and, in my experience with literally hundreds of patients, coaching clients, and students ... it's the old tapes which do the damage.

I know you didn't sign up for this list to get my psychological insights ... but here's why this is critical important for you as a marketer, entrepreneur, and citizen.

First of all, we all know it's a frightening time.

As I write this today the news is littered with headlines forecasting the worst recession in 30 years, maybe even a depression.

But here are some things you may not know:

1) Frightening news always gets exaggerated by the media.

There was once a study which compared the likelihood of death from very common vs. very rare events (e.g. being poisoned by botulism and/or struck by lightening vs. slipping in the bath tub and hitting your head) with the amount of news coverage for the same events.

Turns out that the media gives a ridiculously disproportionate emphasis to rare events ... something on the order of a 100 times exaggeration. (I'm trying to track down the exact study).

The result is that everyone is 100 times more frightened of stupid stuff than they should be, and 100 times less attentive to the real things they should be concerned about. (Like, uh, you should put those foot grips in the bathtub before you start worrying about going on welfare due to the coming economic storm)

2) Fear is a means of persuasion and enslavement.

Radical political changes aren't accepted by the populace when everyone is content. So before you start quivering in your boots and swallow the need for sweeping changes, pause to consider "whose agenda does this fear serve best?" (Because I guarantee you, there ARE people asking themselves this question in your country's capital)

3) Dramatic changes in the economics of your business MIGHT make things BETTER, not worse.

Most entrepreneurs have some event they're terrified of. Maybe Google will engage in another intense slap (or PUNCH) and they'll lose their primary advertising channel. But what if there were another, more profitable channel they could have been using if they hadn't grown fat on the land? What if the ease of business from Google had made them fat, dumb, and stupid ... and the shake up was exactly what they needed to succeed beyond their current limits? (Or, what if Google's changes, however difficult they were to understand, actually created more profits for the advertisers who decided to comply?)

Dan Kennedy puts it like this ... most people are afraid "What if X happens?" But they don't realize that underneath X might be Y, and they might be a whole lot happier with Y ... but they never would have seen it if X never happened.

...

So WHY don't we SEE this in the middle of a crisis?

Because the nightmare we fear is the one we've already lived through.

We've all had bad experiences, before we had the ability to reason with the logic of an adult mind, ... and traumas in the present tend to bring those experiences back, along with the associated panic.

Then the panic makes us feel like we've got to "do something quickly", ... and we screw up our lives and our businesses with rash action.

Now ... I'm not getting all psychoanalytic on you. I'm NOT saying you should go and wallow in the past to figure out what this all reminds you of. (I tend to think of looking at the past the same way I think of looking in the rear view mirror when I'm driving ... it's worth keeping your eye on and you wouldn't want to drive without one, ... but 90% of the time it's much better to be looking where you want to steer the car)

What I am saying is ... pause, breathe, and realize that there's much more to what's going on than meets the eye.

It might be worth asking yourself what the worst case scenario is, and what that reminds you of. Then look carefully at the facts ... you'll almost always see major differences and feel much calmer.

All my best,

Glenn :-)

Glenn Livingston, Ph.D.
CEO Psy Tech Inc.

I hope you can see why I think what Glenn said is important.
Fear not!
In Oneness,
Rob