So I'm reading...IN A PIT WITH A LION ON A SNOWY DAY...and I just got through a section on fear and it had me thinking..."Thinking what, Jon?"
The author, Mark Batterson, says that "psychiatrists posit that we're born with only two innate fears: the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises."
That is crazy to think that every other fear (fear of the dark, fear of failing, fear of spiders, etc...) are all learned! The author goes on to say that if a fear is learned, it can be unlearned, and that is our goal if we want to lead fearless lives...we have to unlearn our irrational fears.
I'm interested to see what other people think about this...Can we "unlearn" our fears?
I definitely think this theory makes sense...by facing our fears and seeing that they can't hurt or kill us, we shouldn't be afraid of that specific thing anymore. For me personally I fear what people think of me and this is a constant struggle for me in my outreach for God...In order to face this fear and conquer it, I need to put myself out there for people to "judge" me.
ReplyDeleteI also have a fear of spiders, but I don't think I want to go looking for many one-on-one matches with spiders...so that is a fear I can live with!
Basically, I believe we do have to face our fears head on, possibly over and over again, to get rid of certain fears...it may take one time, or it may take 20 times (or more), but I do believe we can "unlearn" our fears...the real question is...are we willing to unlearn our fears?