Free Yourself from Fears (24 page)

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Athletes who use this type of vision call it “soft eyes.” When you use peripheral vision, you engage the other type of cell in the eye, called rods. These are concentrated at the edges of the retina. They are sensitive to shades of light, speed, and movement. (If you want to cross the road, it is much easier to judge the speed and distance of approaching cars by looking out of the corner of your eye than by staring straight at them.)

Peripheral vision takes in information without trying. You cannot analyze it all, so you select unconsciously and this opens the door to intuition.

People who live in dangerous cities are more aware of their environment than most people. They see possible danger signals. They sometimes seem to have “eyes in the back of their head,” like Andrea did when she noticed the two men who were following us in Rio.

Skill for freedom

Developing peripheral vision

Here is a short exercise to develop peripheral vision.

Stare intently at something in front of you. Look at it in detail.

Notice how the focus of your eyes affects the way you think.

Now, without moving your head, let your field of vision expand.

Be aware of what lies outside your central focus. Notice how opening your vision also seems to open your mind—there is space all around you, but you won’t get anything from it unless you are aware of it.

Now focus back on the object in front of you, while keeping the sense of awareness of what lies on either side of it.

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The
auditory
enemy of intuition is internal dialogue. When you are talking to yourself, you cannot hear sounds on the outside. Nearly everyone talks to themselves to some extent, it is a useful aspect of thinking, but because it uses words, it can block intuitions coming into consciousness in the form of words or sounds.

The antidote is simple. Just listen to what is going on in the outside world. Don’t name it or try to understand it, simply listen. Listen to the sound of someone’s voice as well as what they are saying. Also opening the peripheral vision quiets the internal dialogue and helps to relax the muscles of the face.

The
kinesthetic
enemy of intuition is unnecessary muscle tension.

The antidote is relaxation. Because intuition comes from the ability to unconsciously take second position, to engage in motor mimicry, you need to have your own muscles relaxed to get these fleeting signals. The face is the most expressive part of the body This is where you get the most intuition about the other person’s intentions through unconscious micro muscle movements that mimic the other person. A lot of tension can build up in the muscles around your jaw and your neck; begin by relaxing here. This will also help you to quiet your internal dialogue, because the inner voices usually synchronize with muscle movement in the throat and jaw.

Five ways to develop your intuition

There are many ways to develop intuition once you are aware of its enemies:

J First, people watching. From an early age, I had a low boredom threshold and found it impossible merely to sit somewhere without doing something to amuse myself. I would look at the people around me and make up a story about their lives. Who was the man sitting at the table next to mine? He could be an office worker having a clandestine lunch with his secretary. Arthur Conan Doyle made his detective Sherlock Holmes able to tell an enormous amount of information about someone’s life and work just by 190

TRUST AND INTUITION

observing them for a few seconds, to the amazement of his sidekick Dr. Watson. Sherlock Holmes was a fictional character, but the sort of information he picked up is available to everyone. So the next time you are in a restaurant or airport, indulge in a little people watching. What can you tell about them? Make up a story about their lives, where they were born and what sort of life they have.

This is fun to do and will sharpen your powers of observation.

J Secondly, talk to children. Children are usually more open in what they say and body language than adults. As we grow older we learn to hide our feelings more expertly. It is easier to catch children’s moods.

J The third way to develop intuition is to do more listening than talking. When you are talking you are attending to what you are saying; you are not open to how the other person is feeling and responding. When they are talking, concentrate on what they are saying and how they are saying it, rather than on what you are going to say next. The best way to listen deeply is to quiet your internal dialogue. When your inner voice is running, commenting on what is being said, judging yourself and the other person, getting ready with your reply before the other person has finished their sentence, there can be no real listening. Also, if your intuition manifests itself through an inner voice, it will not have a chance to get through with all the chatter going on.

J The fourth way is through your dreams. Dreams are a wonderful source of intuition because they are messages from your unconscious. Record your dreams for a week. Have a notebook beside your bed and as soon as you wake up, write down as much as you can remember. So many times we have interesting dreams and vow to remember them, only to discover that they disappear like early morning dew after waking with all the cares of the day pressing in for attention. When you have recorded your dreams, look at them later in the day at a quiet time. Do not leave it too long, because dreams reflect the preoccupations of the day, and may not be so relevant the next day. What could your dream mean?

Guess; let your mind wander into all the things, people, and 191

FREE YOURSELF FROM FEARS

events that it reminds you of. A variant of this is before you go to sleep each night, have a question in mind. In the morning, think how your dreams during that night could be an answer to your question.

J A fifth way is to write “morning pages.” Immediately after you get up, write a page of whatever comes into your mind. Write about how you feel, what you want to do that day, your hopes, dreams, regrets, and fears. You can write about anything. Do not censor (and it is usually not a good idea to show your morning pages to anyone else). Many professional writers do this to open their mind. First, your mind will be clearest in the morning after you wake, before the cares and responsibilities of the day have had a chance to get their claws into you. Secondly, if you write with no fixed agenda, the fleeting thoughts and intuitions have a chance to come to the surface. Your unconscious is like a friend, who will open up if you listen. Even good friends will not tell you what they think if you continually argue or ignore them. Morning writing builds rapport with your unconscious. It helps to balance your thinking. Morning pages are best written in longhand, to engage your kinesthetic sense. Also your handwriting is the unique way you have of expressing yourself and intuitions flow more readily to the paper than to the wordprocessor.

In everyday life, we often disregard intuition because we are afraid that it is wrong. We dismiss it, or want logical justifications. Never be afraid of your intuition being wrong. It is better to look a little stupid than to put yourself in danger by not paying attention to what your intuition is trying to tell you.

Here is a final skill to put together all the ideas on intuition.

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Skill for freedom

Developing intuition

Pick a conversation that is not important. Maybe strike up a conversation with an acquaintance (safely!).

As you talk to the person, open your peripheral vision. Keep looking at them, but let your vision expand to take in as much as possible.You are not looking for something, you are just looking at the surroundings. It will not make you look vacant or stupid, don’t worry.

Quieten your internal dialogue and just listen to what the person is saying.

Listen to the sound of their voice. Listen to the silence behind their words.

Often the most interesting things about conversations are not what people say, but what they do not say—what they leave out or skip over.

As you do this, just relax the muscles in your forehead and jaw and around your eyes.

J What intuitions do you get about that person?

J What sort of mood are they in?

J What emotions do you pick up?

J What do you think they are interested in?

J Are they worried?

J What do you think their relationships are like?

J What are they afraid of?

J What work do they do and what do they enjoy about it?

If it is appropriate, you can check some of these intuitions by asking a few questions.

This skill will develop your intuition—you will be safer, and a more responsive and sensitive person.

193

Finding Freedom—

Techniques to Overcome

Your Fears

The Value Behind the Fear

The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude to any given set
of circumstances.

VIKTOR E. FRANKL

THIS FINAL PART IS ABOUT FREEDOM. Freedom has two different meanings.

The first is freedom
from
. That has been the emphasis of this book so far—freedom from fears. The second is freedom
for
. When you free yourself from unreal fear, what will you do? How will life be different?

We value our freedom and we have fought for it for many years: the freedom not to be restrained by others, the freedom to live our lives as we wish, the freedom to travel, to meet who we want, to enjoy life. Freedom is the opposite of slavery, where we have to obey other people for no reason except that they are stronger than us. We think that the enemies of freedom are other people, coercing us to do things we do not want to do. But what about internal coercions?

What about the fears that hold us captive, the fears that restrict our lives? It is hard to locate the enemy, because they are part of us, but they can restrict us more than an external enemy. This book will help you beat the enemies of freedom that have set themselves up inside you.

Every fear has a positive intention, in other words it is powered by a value, something we treasure. There is always a value underlying our fear. The value can be such things as status, self-respect, honesty, reputation, safety, or freedom. When we have a possible loss, we are afraid. We cannot lose something we do not have, so it must be something that we have already and that is important to us—it has value.

This chapter will explore how you can use these values to free yourself from fears. We are adopting a martial arts approach to FREE YOURSELF FROM FEARS

freeing yourself from fears—using the adversary’s own strength to beat them.

The value under the fear

Here is a simple example of how a value and a fear interact. Imagine this scenario. A teenage boy gets his first job. He works in an office and often goes to the staff restaurant for lunch. One day he is there with his mates and he sees a beautiful woman sitting at another table chatting with her friends. He likes what he sees. He makes a few dis-creet enquiries and finds out her name and the department where she works. It seems that she has just joined the firm and works in an office quite close to his. She is a little older than him.

The next day at lunch, she is there. He steals glances across to her table; she does not seem to notice and is having an animated discussion with her friends. The next day he resolves to go early to lunch and try to get to know her. His male hormones and 35,000 years of evolution are impelling him in her direction.

He spends the morning unable to concentrate on his work, wondering how to make the first move. Why? He feels a little afraid. He argues with himself that there is no risk, but the butterflies in his stomach tell him otherwise. Reason does not disperse them.

Suppose she has a boyfriend? Suppose she ignores him? What if she laughs at him? And her friends join in? Suppose everyone in the canteen suddenly stops talking and looks at him? Suppose it gets onto the office grapevine and everybody knows? Suppose… Suppose…

Suppose…

What is he afraid of? Rejection. Looking like a fool. Failure. But why is this so frightening? If it was not frightening, he would get up his courage, read some dating books, and go and say hello. The thought of rejection is enough to make his heart beat faster and the butterflies run amok in his stomach. The fear might stop him from trying to talk to her. If he has been rejected before in this situation, then it will be more difficult for him.

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He may talk with a (male) friend and get some support and advice so that he feels better. The next day if he steps across the canteen floor toward her table, he will be in transition. He can’t go back without loss of face, he is committed, and there she is in front of him, he needs to say something better than “Uh… Can I use your tomato sauce?”

Rejection is loss of self-esteem and self-esteem is very important.