Ruled by Fearthought?

What happens when someone feels torn by their own competing demands? We all have different social selves or identities: we may be parents, children, spouses, co-workers, friends, etc. Each of these selves or identities comes with a host of demands and expectations, not all of which can be met. Even though each demand may be legitimate and capable of being met in principle, they cannot all be met in practice.

Even as we understand the impossibility of meeting them all, some people will continue to try to do so. While others may place demands on us, we place them most heavily on ourselves.

Let’s imagine Ryan, who is a parent of young kids, a dutiful child to their own parents, a good friend, and a hardworking and loyal employee. They’ve always been an optimist, but they’re feeling more and more exhausted; their body aches every day. They can’t really engage in any of their interests anymore. Those interests seem more like luxuries. They feel their spiritual self shrinking a bit; they’re losing interest in a few of their hobbies and can’t justify putting the effort into them.

Their optimism might start to dim, which may feel utterly alien to them. Ryan’s the sort who will just work harder. In the process, they’re more stressed and starting to feel less like themself. Ryan doesn’t recognize the tired and angry face in the mirror. Ryan, like millions of others, may look to alcohol, other drugs, or addictive behaviors to soothe, calm, escape, or provide a temporary reprieve from parts of their self and reality. Ryan may dull the edges of their own knives of fear, disappointment, and resentment.

Forethought versus fearthought

Horace Fletcher (1849-1919), a writer in the American mind-cure movement in the late 1800s, would claim fear is an important catalyst in Ryan’s changing life. While fear serves important roles for each of us individually and for us as a species collectively, it tends to spread. The line between legitimate and illegitimate fears becomes far too porous. Our forethought is our ability to be planful and deliberate about justified fears in particular and the future in general.

People start to suffer when they start anticipating and planning around fears that are remote, imaginary, or over-blown. Our forethought, Fletcher claims, becomes fearthought. When fearthought governs our lives, we are susceptible to high degrees of self-inflicted suffering. Fear affects our bodies in a whole host of ways to the point of wreaking havoc.

In heightened states of fear, more fear takes root. Fear has a way of widening cracks between social selves and hardening our spiritual selves. This tends to breed more fear, creating a cycle that can be difficult to identify and then transform.

What is the flavor of Ryan’s fearthought? They’re afraid of being found out by others that they aren’t what they appear to be. Others might see that they are not the dedicated employee, the good parent, and the attentive child of elderly parents. The fear is that others will see they just can’t keep it all together.

Ryan’s perhaps equally or even more afraid of finding out their own self. Their self-assessment is already colored by their own fears. Fears are tricksters; they take on a variety of shapes. They are powerful motivators often short-circuiting rational thought and deliberation.

This means Ryan may start to take actions that not only are not helpful but are counterproductive. Ryan may physically push themself too far and end up incapacitated. What they formerly saw as positive opportunities are now chances to make more mistakes and disappoint more people. Ryan becomes adept at projecting their fears about possible outcomes and then acting as if they are realities. Even optimism becomes a generator of fear. What if they get their hopes up and things do not work out well?

Ryan may be terrified that if others discover that they aren’t perfect and can’t do it all, not only will they lose respect, but they’ll see their worthlessness. Ryan decides they should start working harder, longer, and better, and doing better so that no one, including themself, could reach the conclusion they are a failure.

Ryan’s spiritual self starts focusing attention on others or what they imagine others are saying about them. They also start to harbor all sorts of resentments towards others, which feels foreign to them. Ryan really can’t seem to get a handle on their own life, and they’re loath to admit this to anyone. They hate feeling this way, but they’re feeling it more frequently and with greater intensity.

Containing fearthought

Fear presses against Ryan’s optimism. How can they restore that optimism that has been the keynote of their life? Fletcher’s diagnosis about fearthought comes with a recommendation common to many of those writing in the mind-cure movement. Relax, let go, stop assuming so much responsibility that isn’t properly yours, and take responsibility for what is yours.

Mind-cure writers tended to recommend people change their starting points in thinking. Instead of fearing something bad is going to happen or that you will be exposed or found out as a fraud or whatever, begin with a positive thought. Cultivate even a tiny bit of optimism.

Fletcher believed that fear and optimism are opposing forces. Where fear reigns, optimism is nearly extinct. Where optimism reigns, fears are kept in appropriate check and fearthought can’t take root. When a person starts to understand how fearthought is governing more of their life, they have the ability and willingness to bridle that fear. They can fend off a full-blown crisis.