Glad I Can Be Afraid
The happiness of feeling fear
In the last Chapter, we looked at the absurdity of someone saying to You things like: “You shouldn’t be Glad of getting a promotion.”
You know how you respond to that sort of thing being said:
Don’t be silly
Mind your own business
You’re just jealous
If you know something I don’t, tell me
I don’t believe you
Basically, you’re replying: I’m the Boss of what I’m Glad for.
I’m certainly not arguing with you. I fundamentally believe that you’re the Boss of Everything You.
What we have shown is that you’re never afraid of being Glad of anything. You just don’t have a Fears Dynamic about anything you’re Glad of.
I don’t need to persuade you that You choose the things You are Glad of. You know it already. Sure, we are all socially and culturally influenced in our choices of what we’re Glad of: which Instagram fashion shop or style; which body look this week; which car is cool; which is the best team. Hopefully, which is the best read in the bookstands this week.
We choose the things we are Glad of. Advertisers and Influencers make their trade trying to get us to exercise our Glad attention in the direction of their clients. If what we choose to be Glad of, wasn’t so utterly free, they would have been out of business a long time ago.
We might consider the wisdom of buying a Cartier over a Rolex. Or the other way around. Or, just having the money in our bank account. We can consider all sorts of things in our Gladness choices. There are whole libraries on “behavioural economics”: what sensible, and stupid, factors influence buying decisions.
Cautionary ideas can enter into this choosing. That’s not Fear Dynamics at work: spooky shadows, nagging at us, even tormenting us. These ideas are rational ideas, which doesn’t stop them being dumb ones (for the person making the choice). We don’t generally go to bed, tossing and turning over whether to go to Sue’s or Sally’s party. We just make a choice of which we are more Glad of. Or a choice to stay home and read a really good book about CBT.
That’s why being Glad of things (and people, and the whole world) is not a Dynamic. We always feel in control of our choices. It’s not something that comes at us. It’s something we put out there, and gladly.
This is what we teach our kids. You know when we teach Albie not to stick his hand in the electrical socket. We’ve taught him to be afraid of lethal electric shocks. Then we smile a mile wide when we see Alfie, a while later, proudly telling someone else (which could be Arnie Schwarzenegger, or Billie from next door): “Don’t put cher fingers in dat electradaddy po, ‘cos you’ll get shocked.”
That’s how advertisers and influences do their naughty tricks. They always want You to feel that you’re in the driving seat of choice. It’s the negative advertising trick: we are telling how clever You are to be cautious about buying a Red company car, instead of this nice Blue one.
You know how they try to engage your Fear Dynamics, they really try, to get you onside. But they know they have to be careful: the second you feel like you’re not in control, that you’re not choosing what to be Glad of, you just shut down and walk away.
We’ll come back to Control, later. This is what we already know about Fears:
You’re never afraid to be Glad. But You can definitely feel Glad of being afraid.
Let’s go to a horror movie. You’ll enjoy choosing to allow yourself feel Fear. CBT science proves that your mind (part of it) and body can’t tell the difference between fear that you make happen, and fear that comes at you without you wanting it. I’ll probably choose to be glad of getting some slightly disturbed sleep. Sorry, I’m a bad date at scream flix.
You always know (in another part of your mind) that you can snap right out of the thriller killer cinematic experience at any time, and go choose to be Glad of the pick ‘n mix counter.
How does this work? Your Soothing waves just acts. Before you’ve even had time to think about it.
That’s proven by brain science. Your Soothing Waves are started in a part of your brain (the Amygdalae), and at a speed of 100Ms. That’s a thousandth of 1 second, times 100.
Just consider how long it can take to process a simple thought: “I’m hungry.” Something around 0.5 of a second to w hole second, or more. That’s ten times slower. And we can turn around a single though for minutes, even days, and longer.
In the last Chapter, we looked at the how the Anxieties Reactor fuels your Anger & Sadness waves. Being Glad of something is clearly not fuelled by Anxieties at all.
So we have to look for some other process to explain why You choose to be Glad of your Want to Love; and why you choose to be Glad of your feelings of Love But…
From: I Want to Love But: Realising the Power of You