Fear

Sunday Service Discussion Notes for July 29, 2012

During this discussion we talked about the topic of Fear.

Fear is universal. It is something we all experience from time to time.

We can be fearful that we do not measure up: that we are not thin enough, good enough, or pretty enough. We can be afraid of pain, rejection, or loneliness. Many of these fears can move us to act.

Fear is lack of knowledge.

F.E.A.R. stands for False Energies Appearing Real. Fear is not knowing; ignorance.

Package designed to create fear that will prompt a purchase.

In our culture we are manipulated through the use of fear. Advertisements and marketing use fear as a tool to compel us to purchase products, or cast our votes a certain way. Many of the implications in such fear-based suggestions can be unreal. The idea of buying insurance was one example given of this method of mass persuasion. Advertisements for insurance are often designed to make the consumer feel fearful of what will happen if they fail to purchase this service.

Motivation through fear.

Some of our fears come from our environment. We can learn a variety of fears, great and small from our families, teachings that we absorb during our formative years, from politics, and even religion. We can observe others being fearful, and if those others are people who we trust or respect, we may decide that we, too, should be fearful of the same things, assuming that these people know best.

We can even program ourselves to be fearful based on our own experiences. Perhaps we have a personal interaction or relationship that goes awry. We may now assume that all such interactions in the future will be the same poor experience, and become fearful of involving ourselves in anything similar again. The truth is, we cannot know for sure that each future experience will turn out in the same way as previous situations.

We asked : How can we conquer fear? Many of us agreed that we must be courageous and face our fears head-on. When we do this, we will find that the experience is much less frightening than we expected. We should logically think of the probability of a bad outcome, as we will many times realize that it is actually quite unlikely that anything bad will happen.

Hold Love first in your heart, and not Fear.