Face your fears from a safe base
Live your life fully
We all crave different levels of safety. This is a basic human need. The little infant we all were at some point only wanted the proximity of our mother’s and father’s bosom to help us calm down and feel safe.
In the safe bosom of our parents we could grow and their love for us would stick in our bodies forever. Sometimes I hug my daughters so much and tell them that I will only stop when they feel my love throughout their bodies. It always makes them smile. It always leaves them feel good.
Safety is good. From a position of safety we can truly learn how to create. We can truly learn to explore the world. This is the foundation of attachment theory.
I remember when my oldest daughter Sophia went to preschool. Part of the process is that you as a parent are with the child for at least three days. You must also be available for up to two weeks should the child need you. The idea behind the process is that the child will get adjusted and attach to the teachers in the safe space and proximity of the parent.
Sophia was curious of the other kids and the teachers. She’d play while I was sitting in a corner or in her proximity - not too close nor too far away. Once in a while she’d come to me and sit in my lap to fill up some of that energy she needed before she would continue her exploration.
If something dangerous happened or something she didn’t understand, I’d be there to tell her that the danger is not real. It is scary but truly not dangerous. Simply by describing what I see and being present with her helped her understand and manage her world.
More than anything I’ve come to learn that children can be very scared of their own emotions. These days my youngest who is five shows resistance in the mornings when I drive her to preschool. She holds on to me and wants to be with me she says. I know she will have a good time after a short time. Her emotions are scary to her.
The other day I asked her:
“Is it scary when I leave you at school?”
“I want to be with you, I miss you when you leave me.”
“I know baby. And I always come back, no? It’s okay to miss and it’s okay to want to be with me. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s not dangerous.”
By telling her this, I teach my child two things:
It’s okay to have difficult emotions. They are valid and nobody can take away from you that you are feeling what you feel. You have the right to your own emotional life.
Don’t be afraid of your emotions. It may feel scary and dangerous, but it’s not. It’s not dangerous to have difficult emotions.
I help her reflect on her own experience after I leave and ask her if she’s having a difficult time when I leave. She’s able to remember her own emotional state after I leave and can tell me that she’s happy and she plays with her friends and that she actually enjoys being there. It’s not scary.
In a word, by helping her through the difficult situation I am teaching her to regulate her emotions and not be afraid of them.
This lesson applies to adults as well. Many of us are afraid of our own emotional life. Many of us are afraid and scared to explore the unknown.
In a recent book called Transcend - The New Science of Self-Actualization
explores the tenets of humanistic psychology. He argues, and I think rightly so, that safety, connection and self-esteem are the basic human needs we need to live a life of self-actualization.He quotes the founder of attachment theory John Bowlby who states:
“Life is best organized as a series of daring ventures from a secure base.”
In an ideal situation, our childhood has been such that the secure base, our primary care takers, have left security and safety stuck in our bodies.
From that safe position, we will be able to explore the unknown. This is what my daughter Sophia did when she first started preschool.
As adults we may be not so daring to explore the unknown and fear might even stifle us. This can be due to childhood experiences. Sometimes fear is actually good and keeps us from making stupid mistakes.
Fear can also keep us from living life fully.
If fear keeps you from living life fully, that is, to explore yourself and the world, then ask yourself why you are afraid.
Perhaps you need to train yourself to face fear. This can be done in a step-by-step process where you take small steps at first. Expose yourself to unknown situations that you are uncomfortable with and then reflect on how it felt during and after. Chances are you’ll be able to see that fear is a sign you’re stepping into previously unknown situations. It’s not dangerous.
The more you face your fears, the bigger your life will get. The fuller it will get. The more nuances you’ll gain.
Life is good my friend. Life is good. Even with the suffering it contains and the self-doubt, fear and all types of discomfort, life can be good.
One of the inspiring thoughts I’ve encountered in some of the Holocaust survivors Viktor Frankl and Edith Eger is this idea that even if you’re in prison camp and are subject to torture - which is horrible in and of itself - there is one thing that nobody can take away from you: your mind.
In her book Gift: 12 Lessons to Save Your Life, Eger writes that "no one can take from you what you’ve put in your mind.” Amazing. But I wonder if Eger would be of the same opinion today in our age of information overload and the bombardment of messages that nudge us in all kinds of directions. It’s easy to hijack the mind today. I think she would have been more nuanced in her advice and perhaps added the need for solitude and quiet - something
beautifully shows us in her books and many writings and newsletters.Finally, perhaps one of my favorite psychologists Viktor Frankl could add something to this whole topic and that is his use and insight into one of Nietzsche’s quotes:
“Any how can be endured if there is a why.”
That’s it. Keep exploring but be grounded in your why, in your purpose.
I highly recommend the newsletter of
. Her podcast and writing are just amazingly beautiful.