Free Yourself from Fears (25 page)

The very value that motivates him (together with his hormones) to approach her is the one that is threatened if he is rejected. This is what makes the risk seem a large one.

Self-esteem

Loss of self-esteem underlies a lot of fear. Self-esteem is an abstraction that is much used in psychology. Everyone has some intuitive idea about what it means. It is not something tangible we possess or put on, like a suit of clothes, but something we create from moment to moment. It is our valuation of our self-concept.

There are two important ideas here: values and self-concept. Your self-concept is how you think of yourself based on what you do, and what you do is influenced by your self-concept.

When you act in an honest way, you will have a self-concept of yourself as an honest person. If you value honesty, then every time you act in an honest way, you build your self-esteem. Every time you act dishonestly, you will lose some of your self-esteem, unless you can justify this with another value that is equally important in that moment. You are the one who decides what is honest and dishonest, 199

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and your valuation of honest and dishonest acts depends on your culture, your experiences, and your upbringing.

Values act as a system: there is no overriding “top-dog” value that always wins when you make a decision. Your actions are determined by the interaction of your values depending on the context.

What erodes self-esteem is the gap between what you aspire to and what you do. Self-esteem is not fixed. It is how much you value yourself right now. When you do not act in accordance with your values, you lose self-esteem. When you act in harmony with your values, you build self-esteem. The values you incorporate in your self-concept are learned from your culture, environment, significant experiences, and significant adults, including your parents. Self-concept is also a social construct. It is difficult to be in a culture or an environment that defines as bad something that you value.

Suppose a man were brought up in a brutal environment where survival depended on being strong and exploiting others before they exploited you. He would value dishonesty and competitiveness and every time he behaved so, he would increase his self-esteem. He would feel good about being bad (“bad” as defined by others from other cultures with different values). Imagine this man having a Pygmalion-like conversion to a more civilized environment. The behavior that brought him self-esteem in the other environment would not be approved in the new environment and he would have a problem—those around him no longer respect his values. Either he would start to question his values and change them (which would be no bad thing), or he could stick to his guns and keep doing what he did before. He might be ostra-cized and lose his new friends, but he would be true to what he knows.

Self-esteem does not depend on being good; it depends on living your values, whatever they are. And I am not arguing that all values are equal, I do believe that some values are better than others.

The teenager wanting to meet the girl in our example values himself as a man and values his ability to attract women. He wants to talk to the woman, but he is in a difficult situation. His self-esteem may also depend on having the courage to approach her. Yet even if he summons up the courage to approach her, he may be rejected.

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Rejection would shake those values, so rejection makes him afraid.

The greatest loss is the loss of self—life, or self-concept. Remember that most people are loss averse. If the teenager is successful, then this maintains his self-esteem. It may not boost it very much, but rejection would definitely be a loss of self-esteem. He stands to lose more than he would gain. He does not know if he will be accepted. His friend may have no such qualms if his self-esteem is not injured by rejection.

The value of respect

Here is another example. I have a friend who values respect. She values respect from other people and she values respecting other people.

Her self-esteem is increased when she gives respect to others and when others give her respect. A few months ago, we were both staying at a hotel in Rio de Janeiro and she went to ask for something from the hotel porter at the front desk. The porter was as rude as he could be without actually being downright insulting. He rolled his eyes, he turned away, and he sighed. He gave the Brazilian equivalent of a Gallic shrug that eloquently said how he felt: “Quit bothering me with your questions, you’re a nuisance. If only this hotel did not have any customers to serve, everything would be OK.” My friend gave up.

She became angry, turned her back, and walked away. This porter did not respect her as either a person or a customer.

The next day, she wanted something else from the front desk, and the same porter was on duty. She confessed to me that she was afraid to go and ask. This was not because she was afraid of the porter as a person: he had simply been boorish, he was not an ogre, or likely to attack anyone. She was afraid that the porter would not respect her again, and this would make her feel more angry and upset. She could not help it, because respect was such an important value for her.

Another person might have responded by getting angry. They would complain to the management and try to get the porter reprimanded.

At the extreme case, in the culture of Los Angeles street gangs, 201

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“dissing” (disrespecting) someone can get you killed. Some people deal with this sort of situation by dividing themselves in two. They feel disrespected as a customer, but not as a person.

For my friend it was very important to be respected, not in a servile way, but with a modicum of common courtesy. To put herself in a situation where that value might not be respected made her afraid.

Fear of looking stupid

I have a personal example about values. Portuguese is the language of Brazil and living here, it is essential to speak Portuguese. I was learning Portuguese all the time in different ways: in formal lessons, from my own book study, and of course by listening and talking. It was very important to learn and speaking is the quickest way to learn. Yet, I found that I was reluctant to speak Portuguese. Why? I was afraid of looking stupid. I have always valued language and the ability to express myself well in words, and I was frightened of situations where I could not. I was afraid of other people thinking that I could not express myself, or of the embarrassment of saying something completely wrong.

Two values were causing the fear. The first was the value of being able to express myself. I did not want that to be questioned. Secondly, I did not want to appear stupid. Of course, there are many good reasons why these fears do not make sense. I can hardly expect to express myself well in a language I am learning. And people were not making fun of me when I made a mistake, but helping me. They did not think I was stupid.

To overcome this fear I did three things.

The first was to concentrate on the positive value of learning Portuguese.

The second was to change my value of not appearing stupid. This is an away-from value. It was important for me not to feel stupid. I changed this to the value of being intelligent. Trying out and learning a foreign language is intelligent.

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Thirdly, I reframed mistakes as fun, and learning a language gave me carte blanche to say stupid things with little responsibility.

The next exercise will clarify how fear and values work together.

Skill for freedom

Transforming fear through values

1 Think of some situation in your life now where you want to do something but you feel afraid to act, although there is no physical danger to you or anyone else.

2 What is the value that is making you want to act? This is your
action
value
.These questions can help to find it: J Why do you want to act?

J What is important about acting in this way?

J What will acting in this way get for you?

Make sure you express this as a positive value, not as something you do not want.

3 How would going ahead express that value regardless of the result?

4 What is the value behind the fear? This is your
fear value
.The following questions can help to get to this value: J What could you lose in that situation?

J What does that loss mean to you?

J If you feel you would lose self-respect or the respect of others, why would that be, what does it seem you would lack?

J What value would you not be living up to in your own eyes if you failed?

5 The fear value is often negative. If your answer is a negative value (i.e., it is important for you to avoid something), then what is the opposite positive value? For example, if it is important to you that you do not look weak and you are afraid of looking weak, then 203

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strength is the opposite positive value. How would going ahead express strength regardless of the result?

6 Would failure to achieve what you want affect your action value, which is behind you wanting to act in the first place?

Fear of commitment

No book on fear would be complete without exploring fear of commitment. Many men and women want to commit themselves to another person, maybe by living with them, maybe through mar-riage, yet they are afraid. Often they procrastinate until their partner gets tired of waiting and leaves. Sometimes they flee as soon as the relationship starts to get more intense. Sometimes they keep the relationship cooler, knowing that they are missing something, but not knowing how to get over the fear.

The word “commitment” has three definitions in my dictionary: J The state or quality of being dedicated to a cause or policy.

J A pledge or undertaking.

J An obligation that restricts freedom of action.

It is the third meaning that sparks the fear. We are afraid of losing freedom: freedom to do what we want, to please ourselves and not someone else.

Different words about commitment also have many negative meanings. For example, “committal” is used to describe sending someone to prison or mental hospital. We take about “committing a crime.” The word group has many bad anchors.

Commitment is an abstract noun. No one is afraid of an abstraction. What they are afraid of is committing themselves, of taking action that they think might lose them something of value.

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Skill for freedom

What does commitment mean to you?

Think of yourself committing to another person.

What feelings do you get?

What picture do you see in your imagination?

What sounds do you hear?

Is there an internal voice?

Is committing an all-or-nothing state or do you have various levels of committing?

What previous experiences do you have of committing yourself to another person and what happened?

Many social factors reinforce fear of commitment. There is a culture of individualism in the United States and Europe—the “sovereign individual.” We are proud to be the masters of our own lives. This is especially true for women, who for most of history have been told what to do by men. Fear of commitment has been traditionally a man’s province, but this is no longer true. It affects both men and women.

Films and television have given us many unrealistic expectations about love and commitment. Love is often portrayed as an irresistible force that sweeps you away, so people expect to be swept away. If they are not, they question what is happening. Maybe they are not in love?

Love is shown as something that happens to us, instead of something that we work on, something that grows when we make an effort to understand and trust the other person. Outside of soap operas, committing is as much an act of will as an emotion.

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People often see commitment as an all-or-nothing state. Either they are completely committed, or they are not. It has to be one or the other. Commitment is not like that, we can commit ourselves gradually; it is a journey rather than a fixed point of arrival.

Commitment has a lot in common with trust.

Freedom has become a very important value in society, and when we commit, it seems like we lose our freedom. This is the loss-averse way of looking at it. We also gain much more, but these gains do not seem as real as the loss.

Commitment is a risk. We need to trust our partner, because we are making available the most precious thing we have—ourselves.

What is the value behind this fear?

The value is being liked or loved for ourselves. When we commit to someone we open ourselves out to them. We let them see us without a mask. Suppose they do not like what they see? Does this make us unlikeable? No. If one person does not like us, that does not mean that we are unlikeable. It means that
they
do not like us. Another person may.

The fear of being unlovable can make people afraid of committing themselves. It is too big a risk, and they may not like themselves, so how could anyone else like them? However, by not committing themselves, they do not open up to anyone else, no other person can see them and so they can never get an answer to the question “Am I loveable?” They can never lay the question to rest. Also, by not committing they do not get to know themselves deeply through another person’s eyes.

This is not a book about relationships and commitment, but here is a skill that can help you explore fear of commitment.

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Skill for freedom

Exploring commitment

To deal with a fear of commitment, you need to explore these questions: What are you afraid will happen?

What is the value behind the fear?

What are you afraid of losing if you committed yourself?

Do you feel you have to commit yourself all at once?

What would you gain if you committed yourself?