Discharging Fear by “Scorning” It
At one workshop I asked each leader, “What is your fear, and what is your best direction against it?” Everybody handed me a reassurance. When I gave each one a real contradiction* instead, the whole group started shaking.
To scorn and discharge our fear, including the fear of death, is currently a crucial task. How? I think all of us must model stepping outside of our fear. The thing you are most afraid of, go do it. Go do it. Ride the roller coaster and shake. Break a hole in the ice next winter and go swimming through it. For safety, your Co-Counselor can tie a rope around your waist or something like that.
I’m not advocating death or danger; I am advocating the scorning of fear of death or of danger. Wherever a consistently scornful attitude is taken to the fear, people discharge all over the place. We are pent up from not getting out of our fear. We need to.
Harvey Jackins
Excerpted from
“The Frontiers of Counseling,”
on page 86 of The Benign Reality
*Contradiction to the fear