This is the next post in our “Basics of Happiness” series.  This series allows me to explain my take on happiness and what I believe to be useful steps on the journey to happiness as a state of being.  The content in this series is also the foundation of my book-in-progress.

This is Fred. Everybody say, “Hi Fred!”

Fred is my friend. He’s been with me since I was very little. He does everything he can to protect me. When something happens to me that makes me feel icky, scared, hurt, afraid or any other myriad of negative emotions, Fred makes note of it. Then, whenever a situation (or even the mere thought of the possibility of a situation) arises, Fred takes over my thoughts, feelings and actions. He does this to keep me from getting into icky situations. He does this to keep me safe.

When there is an actual threat, this can be alright. It’s nice to be safe. The trouble is, an actual threat exists only about 5% of the time (did you know 87% of people make up their own statistics?). Fred can’t seem to tell the difference between an actual threat and, as I said earlier, the mere thought of the possibility of a threat. The other problem is that when there is an actual threat, Fred’s reactions might keep me safe, but they don’t allow me to grow and handle the threat in better ways than I have previously. As it turns out, these are pretty big problems, and they affect my life.

You have a Fred, too. Everyone does. Once we become aware of our “Freds,” the world changes completely. Are you ready? Let me show you.

We’ll begin with an exercise. The first part is to imagine one of your greatest fears. It doesn’t matter which one, just use the one that comes to mind first. Really imagine it. Feel what it does to you. How does it make your body react? What emotions does it create?

One of my greatest fears is speaking in front of people. Even one-on-one conversations are hard if the conversation is with a person I don’t already know and trust. Yesterday, a dear friend came to me, very excited about an idea she had for the Revolution. When we go visit her, she wants to get a group of people together so I can tell them about the Revolution and talk with them about being authentically happy. She suggested that, in the meantime, I start a group locally to do the same thing. I’ll be the first to admit, it’s a really stellar idea. Can you imagine how that could grow? No longer relagated to the confines of the internet, groups of Revolutionaries around the world meet to discuss happiness. That would be incredible! Of course, that wasn’t my initial reaction. Dear old Fred stepped in. At the mere thought of the possibility of this threat, my stomach clenched and doubled over on itself. My heartbeat quickened and I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath. I felt anxious and terrified. Total panic mode!

Did imagining your fear make you feel that way? Here is where it gets interesting — part two is to trace the path of your fear back in your mind. Where did it originate? It generally only takes one incident for Fred to sit up and take notice. Sometimes there are a chain of incidences. Can you pinpoint where your fear began? Better yet, can you remember exactly what happened?

I can. For this particular fear, Fred had many iterations to notice, which served to strengthen his resolve about it. When I was little, I talked a lot. I mean, non-stop. Everything was interesting and I was interested in everything and everyone and I wanted to talk about it all. I remember receiving report card after report card that said something to the affect of, “She’s really smart, but she talks so much she disrupts class. She could do really well if she just applied herself.” This affected me deeply. My talking was apparently so prolific that it also extended into my family relationships. In my family, there was a running joke for most of my youth that I was ditzy. I’ll admit I was rather clumsy and sometimes missed the most obvious things. It happens. There was also an unfortunate span of time where I remember talking about something or another with my family as a group (usually at our family dinners), to which the favored response was, “Her lips are moving again.” I remember how it broke my heart, at 15 years old, to hear my five-year-old brother say that. He said it because he knew it would get a laugh — he was too young to understand the hurt involved in that statement. Add to that serious self-esteem issues picked up from being mercilessly teased throughout my school years for being the teacher’s pet or for having bad skin, bad hair and braces, and I’ve got one seriously freaked out Fred.

See, the thing is this. When we dissect our fears — when we trace them back to their roots — we find that they are not actually authentic. The good people at The Ministry of Inspiration in England have coined the term “script.” Instead of saying we all have Freds, they say we all have script. I rather like the word in this application. Whether you want to visualize it as script or Fred or Bob or Gladys or something else entirely, there are two vital points to understand:

• Fred (or script or Bob or Gladys, etc.) is an external entity. It is not YOU. It is not AUTHENTIC. It is only REACTION and never action.
• Fred (or script or Bob or Gladys, etc.) was and continues to be created by other people. It is, in a nutshell, other people putting their “shoulds” and “ought tos” and expectations on you. By continuing to allow Fred to affect your life unchecked, you are allowing other people to limit who and what you are.

Take some time to really think about this. This is a large chunk of the work involved in learning to be happy. Everything else that we talk about with regard to letting go is truly about minimizing Fred and taking back control of your life. Can you begin to identify the things Fred is running in your life?

Next post: Learning to manage Fred.