Avoiding the Fear Trap (eBook)

Learning to Neutralize and Overcome the Power of Fear

Casalnnie O. Henry (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017 | 1. Auflage
276 Seiten
Yorkshire Publishing (Verlag)
9781947491106 (ISBN)

Infos

Fear. This one small word is responsible for destroying relationships, choking off success, and preventing any number of positive changes. Unfortunately, until the root cause of the fear is addressed, it will continue to control decision-making processes and taint the way we see the world. Dr. Casalnnie Henry confronts this issue head-on in Avoiding the Fear Trap, a book that will teach you how to find relief from the fear that follows you throughout your day. Using brief but comprehensive descriptions of basic psychological concepts, Avoiding the Fear Trap covers all levels of relationships including individual, familial, and much bigger groups such as your place of employment (corporate) and national. Politicians and corporations alike have used fear to manipulate and control the public as a way to affect their decisions and behavior, but you can be free from that. Don't let fear immobilize you!Combining his Christian faith and years of experience, Dr. Henry has developed a healing technique called Spiritual Euphoric Therapy. It is a therapeutic process that teaches individuals and organizations how to overcome fear and delivers hope for the fearful using powerful Christian counseling principles. This new therapy will help you understand yourself better as well as why others behave the way they do. Learn the secret to Neutralizing the Power of Fear and live a more productive life.

Textauszug

Chapter 1:

How Fear and Vitamin Deficiencies Affect the Brain

One morning in the spring of 1964, my classmates and I went on a field trip to a destination in St. Andrew, Jamaica. I believe it was called Black River. It was a beautiful morning, and the sun was in its usual form. Although it was rumored that there were alligators in that area, many of my classmates proceeded to swim in and across the river. I watched as they dove in one by one. Everything seemed okay, so when my turn came, I dove in and swam across.

On my way back, however, I dove in and came up in an almost vertical position, as opposed to a more advantageous horizontal position. The difference between those two positions in a river with undercurrent is that unless you are a very good swimmer, you could find yourself unable to swim while upright; instead, you would only be treading water, which could tire you in a short time. That is what happened to me.

When I realized my predicament, I almost panicked. My brain was telling me that my body was getting tired and that I needed help. However, my emotional response was to not let anyone know of my situation because the guys might laugh or view me as weak, which is a horrendous feeling for a teenager. My feelings dominated my better judgment and would not allow me to call for help while I was literally fighting for my life. My brain was telling me that my arms and legs were getting tired, but I would not listen. Providentially, one of the boys either saw that I was in trouble or just wandered over inadvertently. He pushed me, and I was able to swim to shore. As I regained my bearings, I wondered why I’d allowed my emotion to override what my brain was telling me to do.

In retrospect, I discovered that one fear can trump another. In other words, if a person who is fearful of heights is in a building that is on fire, he may jump out of that building and die from the fall rather than remain inside and die from the fire. In essence, the fear of falling is trumped by the fear of being burned. Our daily life decisions, while complex, are usually nowhere near that extreme. Nevertheless, some of the decisions we make could prove very costly—and even fatal.

At this moment, you may be experiencing some form of fear. This fear may be associated with certain family or social issues or employment issues, such as what the future holds for you or your company. Or you may be fearful about the direction in which your government is taking the country. Perhaps you wonder, How did I become so fearful? Am I the only one having these fearful thoughts? Where did fear originate? It is my hope that as you read through the pages of this book you will find the answers to your questions or at least discover a new approach to resolving such issues.

Interestingly, we cannot resist fear on our own because our thoughts are aided or inspired by one of the two supernatural powers—God or Satan— that exist in the universe. We need an external force to combat the problem. The choice between these two supernatural powers must be made wisely because the problem of fear is a part of a larger problem: sin. The choice we make will lead either to everlasting joy or eternal catastrophe.

What Is Fear?

The word fear, or the concept of being fearful, deserves clarification. Everyone accepts the idea that fear exists. But understanding fear means acknowledging that evil exists. Whatever a person thinks is desirable for the self or for others is what that person considers “good.” But good, whatever we may think it to be, implies the existence of evil, or that which is bad. Evil is a spoiler that denies us the good we desire; therefore, we despise evil and seek the good. We will not explore the question of the origin of evil in this book, but avoidance of evil is connected with fear.

There are three types of fears. The first type pertains to excess worrying over situations that may never occur, the second pertains to a present perceived danger, and the third pertains to future events that will occur. Regardless of the type of fear, they are caused by negative thoughts. Yet positive thoughts about certain dangerous situations, as in the following scenario, may not change the outcome, but neither will negative thoughts unless appropriate action is taken to avoid or minimize the danger.

For example, a man in the forest sees a bear. If he believed that petting the bear is a good thing and he wanted to do so, he would—without hesitating or having any negative thoughts—walk up to the bear and attempt to pet it. He would be devoured by the bear and die having thought all along that walking up to the bear and petting it was good for him. If he could then resurrect himself from the grave and obtain the foreknowledge that he would be killed by the bear—a negative thought but a true one—then that negative thought would motivate him to flee for his life, and he would be saved. In this case, a negative thought about the situation actually reflects a real fear, as opposed to anxiousness about a situation that might never occur.

A counterexample of unnecessary anxiety is an individual in his living room in New York City worrying about a mountain lion breaking into his house and mauling him to death. Let’s say he imagines this scenario after having seen a similar situation in a movie on television. Needless to say, this possibility is very unlikely.

The third type of fear concerns dangers that are real but in the distant future. In Luke 21:26, Jesus speaks of “men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth.” Perhaps Jesus meant that some people who would suffer from heart problems in the last days would suffer because of fearfulness about future events. This fear could include heart attacks caused not only by cholesterol-related situations due to diet or heredity, as some may suggest, but also because of the lifestyle they have chosen, which results in their anticipation of the day of eternal damnation for the wicked. These future events would not actually be witnessed by the individuals but would impact them as though they were occurring. In other words, although the events are real, they are not necessarily imminent. This gives rise to the question: Is the brain playing tricks on us, or is there more to the brain and thought process? Let us explore the brain chemistry and fear and how they play out in the individual.

Brain Chemistry and Fear

Contemporary psychologists such as Dr. Archibald Hart believe that high adrenaline output on a constant basis depletes the brain’s natural tranquilizers and causes anxiety and even panic attacks. Other causes of fear could include heredity, biological conditions, or overreaction to normal bodily sensations (Hart 1999, 55, 143-144). Bipolar depression and schizophrenia may also be factors.

However, some fears are connected with the way messages are transmitted from cell to cell in the brain based on our nutritional intake, which provides vital substances. For example, Dr. Hart says that there are some substances that “aggravate anxiety” and recommends avoidance of those foods and eating of foods that provide your “entire mineral and vitamin needs naturally. [Some foods, he suggests, affect] your brain’s neurotransmitters in a harmful way. [Thus, he goes on to recommend a vegetarian diet].” (Hart 1999, 103-105). A 2005 News-Medical.Net report indicates that the neurotransmitters (chemicals released from one nerve cell that send an impulse to another nerve cell) in the brain move messages from one cell to another. Due to an increase or decrease of vital substances in the brain, the communication provides a condition for different emotional responses, including fear (July 18, 2005, under “Nerve cells can also release neurotransmitters outside of synapses”).

According to Nancy Schimelfening on the Web site About.com: Depression, deficiencies in vitamin B (thiamine) will cause the brain to run out of energy, because the brain uses it to “convert glucose or blood sugar into energy. This can lead to fatigue, depression, irritability, anxiety and even thoughts of suicide. Deficiencies can also cause memory problems, loss of appetite, insomnia, and gastrointestinal disorders.” Schimelfening also notes that deficiency in vitamin B can cause pernicious anemia. “This disorder can cause mood swings, paranoia, irritability, confusion, dementia, hallucinations, or mania, followed by appetite loss, dizziness, weakness, shortage of breath, heart palpitations, diarrhea, and tingling sensations in the extremities” (Schimelfening 2006, under “Vitamin for Depression?”).

These deficiencies inhibit one’s ability to think properly. Women are told by their doctors and various publications that deficiencies in the B-complex vitamins can cause birth defects, cholesterol problems, and even loss of libido, or sex drive. These situations create stresses and various kinds of fears in some women so that they are unable to function at their optimum. Proper nutrition is one of the keys to health and happiness. Other debilitating fears may come from irrational thought patterns that result from stress, prior experiences, or distorted perceptions of life. These irrational thoughts must be countered with a therapy that helps to generate rationally and morally acceptable thought patterns. Thus, fear in people who are not clinically mentally ill may be addressed psychologically, using therapy that includes lifestyle adjustment.

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Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 26.6.2017
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Lebenshilfe / Lebensführung
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Psychologie
• ISBN-13: 9781947491106 / 9781947491106