Whilst driving my car I often listen to a podcast or a book on audible. This particular day, I was driving to the railway station to catch a train into our nearest big city, Birmingham UK, I had some meetings planned with business owners and a networking event in the evening.
“It’s because of human suffering”, says the book’s narrator. All audible books are narrated of course and this particular book was being narrated by an english speaking voice, the voice of Kris Dyer. He was obviously chosen by the authors, who are the famous Dalai Lama and the not so famous Howard C. Cutler. In the summary of this book it says and I quote, “In this unique and important book, one of the world’s great spiritual leaders offer his practical wisdom and advice on how we can overcome everyday human problems and achieve lasting happiness.”
‘Fear and Doubt’ are potentially the two words that sum up all suffering by humans on this planet. Although they are two different words, they are in fact the same for me. Doubt indeed can create fear and fear causes doubt. But together they make an interesting couple or are they two different sides of the same coin?
Just think about anything that you have ever encountered in your current life that has been a challenge for you, whether in business, your personal life, in relationships and you will come to realise that ‘Fear and Doubt’ will have featured heavily.
‘Fear and Doubt is used by governments to keep control over their citizens and stop them from creating revolutions against those governments in charge, no matter how badly they are performing. Just consider the dictatorships that exist and have existed around the world through the ages. They have all used ‘Fear and Doubt’ to exert control over their citizens. Only when the people of nations decide to over come the fear and doubt that has been bestowed upon them, are they able to create meaningful change, which has happened for example during the Arab Spring some years ago.
Apart from governments, teachers use the same techniques to exert control over their students to prevent any bad behaviour in school, usually very unsuccessfully.
In all areas of society, the workplace, society, medicine, homelessness, relationships, the already mentioned governments and many other areas, ‘Fear and Doubt’ is used to control us and more importantly even our own attention on these means we exert control over ourselves.
It is all part of what Tony Robbins calls, conditioning. In fact he calls it ‘Neuro Associative Conditioning’ or NAC.
We condition ourselves and we have been conditioned to stay in ‘Fear and Doubt’.
This all adds up to what the Buddhists call ‘suffering’. The human condition and our biggest task on this planet, how to overcome suffering and find happiness.
So I developed this ‘Happiness Formula’, which if you have read the above will make perfect sense, I hope.
Happiness does not equal suffering and suffering is a function of ‘Fear and Doubt’. See image below. 👇
Now knowing that this is true, and you will have to put it to the test to prove it to yourself, is one thing but to reverse it is another. Those years of conditioning are tough to undo.
But have no fear I am giving you something to ponder. My wife, Clair and I were mulling this over one day and we jointly arrived at a beautiful statement to counter ‘Fear and Doubt’.
‘Courage and Clarity’.
So the real answer to happiness is ‘Courage and Clarity’.
Hope you like it, now go and test it out and I would love to hear how you get on.
I watched a video the other day recorded by Nic Askew, one of his soul biographies, during the last days of Kay Denise Cannon’s life. Kay was amongst other roles the President of the International Coaching Federation. I’ve included a link to video below and really advise you to watch it.
One of the overwhelming messages I took away from her very moving account of her realisation that she had to prepare for death, is the fact that we spend most of our time in ‘Fear and Doubt’.
Thank you Kay for this message, which I will treasure for the rest of my life, because it’s such a truth and so obvious that this is indeed the case.
I had the realisation a few months ago that most of us walking on planet earth are in suffering. Some you will have heard that saying from Buddhist teachings. And that suffering is clear to me now, it’s ‘Fear and Doubt’.
It inspired me to create the Graffiti image above.
Stay away from ‘Fear and Doubt’ as much as you can please?
Thankfully his older brother and friends who were much older and stronger were nearby outside the school to protect him from any danger that could have been nearby. Just as well because Michael was not as strong and tall as his peers, which meant that he was very vulnerable to being chased down and beaten up.
It was probably one of the first fearful moments in his young life and an event that will unlikely ever be forgotten by him.
It was lunchtime in Amsterdam outside the Moreelse Mavo School where Michael attended with his older brother and his twin sister. The school was very close to the Vincent van Gogh museum and the main cultural area in the centre of Amsterdam, including the Rijksmuseum and the Concertgebouw.
The man looked vicious, angry and on a mission to harm Michael. All Michael could do was to run to his older brother at full speed, whilst being chased by a much older man, who was now running at full speed and catching Michael metre by metre.
JIMMY, HELP!!!!
Jimmy heard him and immediately came to the rescue with his friends who stood together like a solid wall of muscle and strength. Michael quickly hid behind them and the man walked in the other direction whilst keeping his arm and index finger outstretched pointing at Michael whilst muttering the words, I WILL GET YOU! (Ik krijg je wel).
To this day young Michael had no idea who this man was and why he wanted to beat him up. He never saw the man again, but the memory stayed with him forever and the fear of meeting him again haunted him daily for a number of years afterwards.
Doubt is by far our biggest thought process. We doubt ourselves the most. Will we make it, will we make enough money, will we be loved, will we get the right work? All this doubting gets us further away from our dreams and wishes. We literally attract our doubts.
You must have heard the saying ‘What you focus on grows’, so our focus on our doubts will literally grow out of nowhere. Instead of believing our doubts, what if we believed that the doubts are just lies and fears.
Through listening to a number of podcasts, meditations and examples, I have become to realise that almost anything can be solved by just being curious.
When a thought comes up and you are lucky to notice it, become curious about it. When you pick up that drink or food, before you consume it, become curious about it. Become more aware about your surroundings and the addictions that are manifesting through you. Curiosity is self-enquiry and self-enquiry allows you to question everything about your own behaviour and actions.
It takes some practise at the start, but once you start you will not be able to stop. Become addicted to curiosity and self-enquiry to rid yourself of behaviours and habits that are not serving you including the habit of self-doubt.
All of our lives are rooted in fear at some level. We wouldn’t be so obsessed and addicted if we weren’t in fear so much.
Fear is a good thing isn’t? We often don’t think it is but actually if we didn’t have fear we would be jumping of a bridge believing we can fly and that wouldn’t get us very far.
As humans we have an operating system already programmed to keep us alive at every single step of the way. If we didn’t have fear as part of that operating system we’d be at death’s door much more often.
Sure we have an operating system to keep us alive but we also continue to program that operating system with our thoughts and feelings as soon as we arrive here on planet earth. We also get help from the lovely folks around us. Bless them!
I believe we focus a disproportionate amount of time on just 7 major fears that govern our actions, our emotions and keep our operating system from releasing a new and better version. It’s like being stuck with the first IBM computer and never upgrading the computer chips.
She here they are, fear of;
1. Getting Hurt 2. Not being loved 3. Being abandoned 4. Not being successful 5. What they will think 6. Not having enough money 7. Getting sick
Can you relate to any of those, maybe you can think of a brand new category I missed?
