Part 4: The Five Faces of Fear
What's with the Attitude?! — 4-Part Series
Now that we've covered what attitudes are, let's talk about each one individually and how they are each a different facet of FEAR.
Mary Burmeister defined fear as False Evidence Appearing Real. Mary was a genius, because that really simplifies the understanding of fear.
Now if a very real bear is chasing you in the woods, that is clearly real evidence that you should be scared! In this case, Fear can save your life! But in this post, we're talking about fear as an attitude, a way you approach life — a maladaptive response to the stuck emotion of fear (usually stemming from past experiences).
With Mary's definition of fear in mind, we can define the 5 attitudes as follows:
WORRY is fear about the future — a mental rumination about a potential future threat or uncertain outcome.
ANGER is fear that others won't do what you want, or won't make you happy. Whereas fear is usually the flight or freeze part of the flight/fight/freeze response, anger tends to be about the fight.
SADNESS is the fear that you won't ever be happy again
PRETENSE is the fear that you are not enough, just as you are
And the big fear, the over arching theme of fear, is the belief in lack or limitation:
"I am not enough"
"I don't have enough"
Have fear? Anyone? I know I do! Let's get rid of worry fast and hold our fingers!
Read the Entire 4-Part Series on the Finger-Attitude Connection:
Each finger has a relationship with an element, organ function energy, and an emotion/attitude. There are other relationships as well, but for this post, I'm going to focus on the finger-attitude relationship.