Change 'n Fear or Peanut Butter 'n Jelly

So what is the factor that makes change pleasant or a challenge?  Well it can be Fear. Fear and change can go together like peanut butter and jelly. They don’t need to. Change can be exhilarating and welcome, but often change generates great discomfort and negative feelings.

How is it we fear change when it is inevitable? Remember the Universe is not static but constantly transforms, as do people. 

Imagine a small dark room, there is no light but it is very familiar. You know where all the furniture is, the door, the light switch, even the papers on the floor. It is a room you know like the back of your hand. Now imagine you’re forced to go to a room of blinding light and strange noises, you know where nothing is and your sense you cannot go back to the old familiar room. Such a disorienting thrust can generate fear. 

This can be the nature of change. We go from what we know to what we don’t. It could be that the room we were familiar with was not a healthy place and the change proposed would bring great new health, but the change is startling and not liking to be startled, we can produce a fearful response. This fear is emotionally charged. We are afraid of a concept:

“If I take her out will she reject me?”

“The boss has called me into his office and he sounded upset! “

“I am being transferred to a strange city! Yikes! “

These are events that generate fear of the unknown. We don’t know things will go badly but the picture of negative outcomes can paralyze us. This is the kind of fear that can be defined as “False Evidence Appearing Real." We fear what we imagine and believing that imagination to be fact, when it is not.

Of course there is another response to fear.  It is the response of Fight and Flight but we’ll tackle that next week!