Smallsteps and I spend a lot of time talking about things as we do other activities, whether playing eating, or just driving along. Sometimes she wants me to come up with the topics, sometimes she has something on her mind and wants to lead the discussion. Last night we were preparing her evening snack and she wanted to talk about feelings but wanted me to start. So we were talking about where feelings might come from, and how some feelings might not be valid, as they are based on our imagination.
Her example was fear
So then we discussed what might be a good strategy to evaluate whether it was an emotional fear based on nothing, or a rational fear based on something. Essentially, we came to the "conclusion" that we would have to pay attention to what the source of our fear is, and whether it is something that is happening to us now and could affect us physically, or whether it is something that we are adding into the environment, that isn't actually there - like monsters in the dark.
For the record, Smallsteps doesn't mind care about monsters, she wants to dream about dragons and dinosaurs.
However, it was what she said next that surprised me, because she has apparently decided that if she is scared, and there is nothing that she "should" be scared about, the best strategy is (with hand actions to demonstrate) is to, "put one foot in front of the other, left foot, right foot, left foot".
Just keep going.
It is good advice, but how many adults can do this? When we are faced with the fears of our lives, even when we know they are irrational, do we push through? Or, do we make excuses, finding ways to justify avoiding the situation altogether?
Fear is formed in the oldest parts of our brain and is obviously a useful mechanism to keep us safe, but life has changed considerably since we developed those regions. We have also built up newer parts of the brain, like the prefrontal cortex that performs complex reasoning, which allows us to do what we do and advance things like our technological evolution. However, this is also where our personality seems to lay, and our imagination. So, what ends up happening is that our fear mechanisms get layered over our ego and imagination, to create a sense that we are under threat or attack, even if there is no actual danger at all.
Teasing apart what we should and shouldn't be afraid of can be a difficult task, because when we fell something, it always feels real, otherwise we wouldn't be feeling it. One of the justifications for these kinds of fear is it is our "intuition" telling us that something is wrong, so fear is justified. But most of us don't consider that intuition is just another feeling based on experience, and if we don't have experience in a particular area, it is likely to present as a fear.
Uncertainty and the unknown are areas where we have no experience.
So our intuition raises our fear levels, until we shine a light and get to know with a little more certainty what lays there. But in order to do this, we have to spend some time understanding the situation, which is hard to do, because our intuition has already told us our feelings are correct, so we generally just move on. Unless we have a process to reflect, we are likely to miss all the times that we "invalidly" felt something, because our judgement has told us we are right, without investigating if true or not.
I was talking to a friend about this the other day too, where we make thousands of judgements a day, but the vast majority of them go unverified. Though, because we have the feeling we are right, we think our judgements are good. When we are caught out as wrong, it feels like an exception, but is it?
We don't know.
Smallsteps is very attentive and careful, which makes her conservative in many ways. She doesn't take risks, everything is calculated. This makes her very good at some activities, but also holds her back from others that might be beneficial for her development. She doesn't make too many mistakes, and this limits her learning. Perhaps talking about these things will help her build a calculated approach to risk taking, where she can more objectively way up the pros and cons, and jump.
Or take small steps.
One foot in front of the other...
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Sometimes intuition doesn't make sense in the slightest, but you logic your way through to detriment. I have been learning this over a period of time but a bad case happened recently (last few years) where I ignored literal years of very powerful gut feel/intuition that made literally no logical sense whatsoever and everything blew up a few steps short of the worst.
and it doesn't matter how it's justified, the fact is that despite the fact it made literally no logical sense and "nobody could have seen it coming", I knew and didn't follow up
And other times brains are definitely just stupid and stupidly literally scared stupid over the stupidest of stupid things XD
Smallsteps sounds a bit like a friend's kid. In friend's kid's case it didn't get better and they didn't grow out of it, they're just having to learn to work around it as they realise that they're severely limited if they'll only ever do things that they are sure they'll get perfectly correct the first time without ever making any mistakes at all (and academically they even know that this is stupid but sometimes even knowing doesn't help in the slightest). Hopefully Smallsteps is able to use the discussions and things to formulate her own little lifehacks :D
I am not very emotional. In fact, my wife thinks that I do not feel enough emotions (but she has made peace with that for more than 10 years).
So, I am not often afraid. I am like Smallsteps: careful and calculating.
While investing, I always risk money that I could lose completely.
As for physical danger, I think I know my limits pretty well and try not to put myself where I would be injured.
This in itself is comforting, isn't it?
A couple years ago, life was disrupted and now we are still trying to find a new normal. It is hard. My wife had made peace with me being less emotional, but now I am unfortunately more so in strange ways. A small piece of the brain dies, and the impacts can be enormous.
I am the same. These days, I see most purchases as an investment of some kind. A little momentary pleasure is rarely worth a large amount.
You gave smallsteps the best solution on how to conquer fear. My greatest fear is darkness but ever since I began to seriously tackle it, things have been different
I’m still quite scared but not as serious as before
I have always felt that the scary thing about the dark, is the unknown. The dark itself is not scary, it is what our mind thinks might be there.
It seems she is like me. Everything in life does not go as we calculate or plan, she will learn it after 20s ;)
This is another lesson I am trying to teach - that things don't go to plan, so learning to pivot is necessary.
Fear is our brain's tool to protect us and to be cautious, it is practically what motivates us to look for solutions, it has not preserved subsistence over time. But also, fear has not inhibited us from doing things, it is only those daring people who have overcome their fears who have achieved great things in life. Little Smallsteps is at that stage of questions and answers, she is eager to discover the world and is therefore afraid of the new. The important thing is that she has parents who have managed to handle the situation and are giving her the necessary guidance to survive the concrete jungle.
Fear is a builder in this sense too - where it makes us prepare for an unknown future. Fear is felt in the moment, but it is based on what could happen. Even if a hungry tiger is chasing, the fear is of being caught and eaten in the future - though it isn't very far in the future.
I always check out things we are defending or protecting, that's often where the fear is coming from. A lot of times we can be irrational. But we end up defending something we find close.
Often defending things in culture, that perhaps we should actually let go of. Culture changes naturally, regardless of whether there are external influences or not, because the environment changes. Defending what might no longer be relevant, is silliness.
It can definitely be hard to move past some of those things that are inherent in us from the days when we were just trying to survive. Those were pretty rational fears back then of course. What a great conversation to have and what a intuitive and mature response from your daughter!
In some ways, I guess our fears are rational, in the sense that they protect us socially. For instance, you have said that you aren't overly social, but is it out of a hidden fear of some kind of judgement? In Finland, people don't commit to much publicly, even though they have strong feelings, because they don't want to be seen as living too far outside the group.
That could be I guess. I have never been very confident.
I feel we have faced our fears and to know the source of our fears and also to know how it affects us physically,emotionally and also our environment.
Like you said,we have to understand our situations.
This is a nice write up👍
I feel that we aren't as sensitive in our observations, but overly sensitive in our feelings.
That is a nice approach to facing fear.
I wonder if she will put it into practice next time she faces it, it will be nice to know. Maybe she tells you to do it first :)
But just being willing to talk about it and trying to come up with a strategy to face it, shows how she is working towards a way to overcome it, which is nice for someone her age.
I found out today that as she walks to school, she plays a "detective" game, where she looks around at marks on the ground and tries to guess what has caused them - like "someone bending down to pick up their dog". If she pays enough attention, I hope she will realize there is not much to be afraid of in daily life.
It is constantly in us , it's like an innate ability that propels us to react when things isn't right or go as forecasted I love how small steps does get thing ...it is been careful enough not to jump into hot waters and come crying to mummy and daddy,I think you should rather keep a keen eyes on her such gifted child usually have high IQ tests n. Reasoning.
About fears I was going to talk about it soon enough but you just gave a hint ...so thanks @tarazkp , it's a motivation
We are all gifted, aren't we? Most of us just never find out what we are good at, nor spend the time being better.
Very true, do have a great day
!PIZZA
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@aurikan(2/10) tipped @tarazkp
Wow, I think your daughter is very advanced and mature for her age. Being able to think and discuss about these types of matters early on is very cool. I think her cautious approach to things needs work. I think when people are young is when they should experience a lot of their mistakes and failures. Especially because they have their parents to support them, help them get back up, and guide them. It is difficult if they grow up without encountering much hardships.
You just gave us a hint on how to tackle fear. You didn't know that most of us are fearful?😀 I'm one of them. Especially in the dark, my husband must be with.
What's that saying Rome was not built in a day. We live in a day and age were you need to take calculated risks so there is a time to move slowly and other times were you should not. Finding that balance is trick with all the pressure we currently have.
As I always said to some people who call me lucky, if you do something long enough, you eventually get good at it, sooner or later. I have a formula, where x+a = r, where x is work 1-10 and genius is a 1 to 10.
A hard working 8 who has average inteligence 5 is 40, while a lazy 2 genius 9 is 18. As you see, hard work always trumps lazy geniuses, so sometimes just by being average and hard working you can achieve a lot.
Am I rambling again? Yes. I do.