What Are You Afraid Of?

“The only two natural fears that humans have are fear of loud noises and fear of stepping off heights. All the other fears are taught to us as we grow up. All of the feelings of hopelessness, frustration, anger, guilt, bitterness, loneliness, have become assumptions we learned and we now live our lives based on. We are creating realities of fear. These fears come from the conviction that our basic hygienic needs are not being fulfilled: the need for safety, the need to feel worthwhile and valued, the need to feel loved and belonging. To calm the fears, we control, our spouses, our children, and ultimately, ourselves. If we lose control, the fears cause us to panic.

But all of these fears and the threats to our basic*hygienic needs are entirely in our minds; they are produced by the assumptions we hold that we learned as children. To grow to have bliss, we must face each of these assumptions and the fears they produce, one at a time, with the realization that we are eternal spiritual beings, unaffected by anything in the material realm.

Our assumptions that we will be unsafe, are unworthy, and are unloved must be replaced by the assumptions that we will never die and the spiritual beings we are can never be harmed. No tragedy can destroy us. No desire we have is important enough to make us frustrated and unhappy. No threat to our job or our health matters because we are simply having the physical part of an eternal existence, and we will learn from the tragedies as well as the triumphs. We can be blissful in the face of any circumstance in which we find ourselves.”

* Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory

We have basic needs (hygiene needs) which, when not met, cause us to be dissatisfied. Meeting these needs does not make us satisfied -- it merely prevents us from becoming dissatisfied. The 'hygiene' word is deliberately medical as it is an analogy of the need to do something that is necessary, but which does contribute towards making the patient well (it only stops them getting sick). These are also called these maintenance needs.

There is a separate set of needs which, when resolved, do make us satisfied. These are called motivators. This theory is also called Herzberg's two-factor theory.