Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Makes Sense Mondays - FEAR MANAGEMENT - Episode 50

Starting point is 00:00:02 Hmm. Makes sense. Morning humans. Great morning world. This is Dr. J.C. Dornick. Welcome to another edition of the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. Dornick podcast. And welcome to Make Sense Mondays. Today we're going to talk about something really, really cool. Depends on how you look at it.

Starting point is 00:00:22 And that would be fear. It's a fun little twist on a very comfortable topic of anger management. So rather than anger management, we're going to look at this concept of fear management. Just a little bit of a disclaimer and a one. warning for those that need disclaimers and warnings, this is going to maybe ruffle some feathers because this is one of those episodes where we make sense of something that sits in this realm of things that you probably don't want to make sense of because it would uncover that some of the things that you think are right and normal might not be. We like to use the word

Starting point is 00:00:55 maybe in this realm. If you have a tendency of listening to my podcast or my lives and getting pissed off and getting pissed off doesn't serve you. This might be an episode you'd want to just bypass. If you want to, a funny way to look at it is if you want to continue and maintain the illusion that everything that you think is, is, then you would want to remove yourself from the episode that says maybe you're wrong. Today is Labor Day. In the makes sense Mondays, we do a live stream that goes on YouTube. I have no idea who would be here. And that's what's interesting about holidays, the Labor Day holiday in particular. There's always this interesting thing about how we've constructed our program and our structure

Starting point is 00:01:39 that we live in as humans. And there's this concept of holidays, you know, holidays are very interesting. They're one of these things that unconsciously have programmed us with entitlement. Just have fun with that. What I mean by entitlement is, let's say, because I'm a health transformation coach and I help a lot of people get their nutrition right and their, you know, deal with weight. loss and things like that. And they're wired very often to think that like going on vacation means that how could I eat healthy on vacation or road trip or something like that. You know,

Starting point is 00:02:10 McDonald's companies like that sell more of their stuff and alcohol as well when people are on road trips and vacations. So there's an example of it. So here we are and it's Labor Day. And Labor Day is an interesting vacation that brings an interesting level of entitlement. Now remember what I'm I'm not pointing something out and saying this is bad. I just like to look at things. The whole act of changing the way you look at things so that the things that you look at change is probably in some way, shape, or form

Starting point is 00:02:42 what you're looking to do in your life, whether you know it or not. I'm not in any way, shape, or form threatening what you think about Labor Day. But I'm just showing you something that you might not have noticed. Fair? What's interesting about Labor Day

Starting point is 00:02:57 is that there's an emotional component to it where we're not supposed to work on Labor Day and we're supposed to, you know, honor certain components of, you know, our history and all of that stuff and say you don't work on Labor Day. But I just wonder, like, who made that up? Like, whose idea was that? I was talking to my daughter this morning and I said, just as easily somebody could have, like, looked at Labor Day and said, hey, on Labor Day, just like Memorial Day, right?

Starting point is 00:03:27 on Labor Day, we are going to work harder to honor. Isn't that an interesting way to say it? And if whoever made up Labor Day and said that there's a day off from it, if that same person or those same people made up this idea a long time ago that Labor Day means everybody works harder, well, everybody would just be doing that. Some of you would be like, oh, crap, it's Labor Day. We've got to work so hard today. Isn't that fun to look at that?

Starting point is 00:03:53 It would be like on Memorial Day rather than just honor. soldiers that lost their lives, we would all have to go fight for our country or something like that. Things that make you go, hmm, it's all an interesting illusion that we've created, I think. What my wife, Chicken said to me, she said, I bet nobody's going to show up this morning. And I said, you might be right. I said, but that's not why I do it. It's not why I do it. I do it, no matter what. The only thing that pulls me away from this is, is family stuff because of my core values. Today is about fear management. You're going to love this. My intention. It's my intention. We're going to get into this one, and I just want to share with you a couple of things.

Starting point is 00:04:31 So Chicken and I, my wife, Mika, very excited. We've talked about this before. We created this relationship retreat called the Sati Experience, which is kind of now another one of our sponsors. We've got Make Sense Academy, our private academy, where people can come in and rise up with us live every day and interact and learn all of our tools, our interface response system. And now we're teaching people about sales and communication and all of that stuff. using the same technology that I teach and I use on this podcast.

Starting point is 00:05:00 So we've got that private community, $24 a month. That's going to go up to $48 a month, by the way. And the reason why is it really should be like $1,000 a month for what we give people in there. So if anybody's interested in checking that out, risk free, $24 a month, money back guarantee, let us know. But then the Sati experience is this new thing, this relationship approach to taking people that love each other that just want to renew and reacquaint their love and reignite. and things. You know, we're going to have this awesome vows renewal. You know, people are going to get married again and all that stuff. So our first one sold out in Costa Rica at this beautiful villa, and we're getting ready to announce the next, but I can tell you that it's going to be on Valentine's Day.

Starting point is 00:05:39 And we're going to have this amazing opportunity for couples to come out there and do some work, have an amazing experience, but also renew their vows in a very, very special way in paradise. So all you got to do is get on the list. We only typically take six couples on these trips. That's why they sell out so fast. Fear management. Funny twist. I think I was thinking about anger management at the same time, because anger is a funny thing. Anger is something that is a side effect and a symptom of you trying to control things in your life that are out of your control and you get angry. So that's a reactive thing to be angry. And, you know, anger also is a gift. You know, anger helps you in some situations. Somehow it came to me this idea of acknowledging and observing fear management instead of anger.

Starting point is 00:06:25 anger management. And if you think about it, what management means is to take this thing, in this case, it would be fear and look at your system of managing it. And if you have an ineffective or inefficient or faulty fear management system, well, then fear would be managing you rather than you managing fear. So that's why I think this is an interesting topic. So I said it was a funny twist that ran through my mind when looking at the astoundingly challenging game of anger management and all that comes with that. I'm not the kind of person that only sees things in others. I'm first typically looking at it and myself. I teach this interface response system to help people have more efficient and effective and logical and rational responses to whatever we're interfacing with in life. And the value of

Starting point is 00:07:10 that is less distraction, more follow through, more clarity, more radical acceptance of responsibilities in life, easier letting go of things and things like that. So I always look at myself and my fear management system. I also observe others because I'm into human behavior. Although they are very closely correlated anger management, fear management, they have some fascinating differences. And I just thought it would be fun to point these out. So the goal of this episode today would be to offer you the opportunity, take it or leave it, accept it or reject it, to just look at something that's going on in your life and make a conscious assessment of whether or not it serves you. And that would be your fear. management system. So first of all, I find it interesting how one seems to be more widely accepted than

Starting point is 00:07:58 the other. Anger management versus fear management. So think about it. If somebody says that they're angry, somebody comes at you and says, I'm angry. In some way, shape, or form, don't you recognize that as something that must be dealt with swiftly? Like, you might come in and try to say, oh, no, don't be angry, you know, and teach them how to let it go. Or say, I got to get away from this person. Anger is not something that we as a society think is a good idea. So you must either get the hell away from that person or help them turn it around before something bad happens. But fear is different. We're allowed to be afraid. We even have a lot of books that teach you that fear is necessary and it's an ingredient. When somebody says that they're afraid, there seems to be much more empathy and understanding around it.

Starting point is 00:08:47 I know that if I'm afraid of something and somebody steps in and says, me too, oh boy, doesn't that feel good? In fact, that could be a fear management system in itself is to hang around with people that are afraid. If you're afraid and you hang around with people that are afraid, you feel better about it. As well as the sharing of how normal it is to be afraid. We say it's normal. It's totally normal to be afraid. Perhaps share commonality with one another. The worst part about being scared is to, in that comparative reality, to think that you're like some sort of a loser or some sort of a wimp. So right off the bat, fear management poses a great challenge because it's so widely accepted. It's so normal. That's why it poses a challenge. When something is accepted and somewhat, as I said,

Starting point is 00:09:32 normalized, it's normal to be afraid. The brain and the body have less urgency to take an aggressive approach and put a focus on it and address it. The only time we really, really address fear and our fear management system is when it's showing up as something that's holding us back in life. Take something like anxiety. Anxiety was controlling me and my public speaking and I wanted to be a public speaker. So, I had to do something about it. So the only time we really address our fear management system with urgency is when it's getting in the way of something and you've somehow consciously identified it. So society, very interesting how society is, pays forward and sells us on some great fear management strategies. Now, I don't think society really

Starting point is 00:10:14 knows this. And I don't think that there's any ill will, but let's face it, society, you see it on social media, is taking full advantage of fear and our inability to manage it well and giving us some fear management systems. And I want to point some of those out. And this is where the feathers get ruffled. Fear management strategies that are also socially accepted, when I create a a strategy and it becomes socially accepted, that's because it came from some sort of an authority, like a religious authority or a political authority. And I had enough people tethered to it and believe in it that it becomes what we call socially acceptable. Once something becomes socially acceptable, that's a good thing for you, could be a bad thing, because then you start to practice

Starting point is 00:11:00 it and say everybody else is doing it. So society pays it forward and sells us on some great fear management strategies that are also socially acceptable. normalize, and I find it funny that these strategies can often fly very, very low under the radar of our being conscious in them being fear management strategies. What I'm saying is, is you might be doing some things right now that I'm about to help you see our fear management strategies without knowing that they're fear management strategies. That's what's fun about this. Look at your comfort zone right now and look at whatever it is that you think is a normal and just way of living and see how you say, well, any, everybody or at least anybody that's normal does this.

Starting point is 00:11:45 That's not true, you know? Somebody else thinks that what you're doing is abnormal. They think people always think that what they're doing is normal, right? Even if it's crazy. So rather than seeing them as just normal things that people do. So a few interesting examples are seen in people that take cover. Think about what it means to take cover. That's one strategy that we have when we're afraid. So we learn to retreat under our desks as kids, curl up and place our hands over our heads in a bomb drill or even an airplane crash scenario. Isn't that an interesting fear management strategy? I mean, what is that really going to do? If there's a bomb, I mean, I get it. The desk might protect you a little bit or that's the proper way to crash in a plane. But

Starting point is 00:12:31 it's really a fear management strategy. It's like, well, this is what I do when I'm afraid of this. So that's a kind of a surface way. Interesting, interesting to look at that. So are the typical run and hide strategy, right? That's a fear management strategy. Run and hide. F everything and run. Then we see humans at times reacting to fear by impulsively buying more stuff. This is an interesting fear management strategy. There's FOMO, fear of missing out. And look how people take advantage of that. we see people buying more stuff for fear that there will be no more stuff. This is an important one to acknowledge because people are taking advantage of this. I remember when my kids were young and they wanted some sort of a gaming system and I bought it because I heard through the grapevine,

Starting point is 00:13:17 which was not the grapevine. It was probably some sort of algorithm and strategy that there was only a certain amount left. If you didn't get it by this time, then your kids would have to wait like three more months and God forbid that. So I went right the hell out and got that. We saw this during COVID, by the way. I'm not going to get it deep into the COVID thing, but there's a lot of things that we probably need to look at that happened during then. And we also see it during Black Friday sales and things like that as well, where there's some sort of a fear of things running out.

Starting point is 00:13:46 I remember the first time that I looked and I heard, right? You don't just see things happening. You also hear about them as well. And they're also pumped in and advertised to us. And I always wonder who's making those decisions. And if there's a little bit of a strategy going on behind that. But do you remember when you first noticed that the toilet paper was running out or the paper towels? What did you do?

Starting point is 00:14:05 Almost in a post-apocalyptic strategy, pushing people out of the way. You started buying hand sanitizer and all that stuff. So there's an interesting fear management strategy. Never consciously acknowledging, like, who triggered this? How did this all happen? Now, I'm not saying don't buy the toilet paper when you see it running out, but do you ever stop and smell the roses and say, what's going on here? What role am I playing in?

Starting point is 00:14:30 What is the physiology attached to this? That type of fear has spawned multi-billion dollar industries and businesses from Fortune 500 companies and sales trainers, in fact. There's people that teach sales training, you know, find the pain point. You're selling into the fear and scarcity and urgency strategies to exploit this thing where we have this fear of missing out. I mean, I teach this as well in my communication breakdown strategies. You know, it's the law of scarcity, right?

Starting point is 00:15:00 The law of urgency. Sales, always look at sales strategies and see how they say, if you don't do something by this time, or there's a deal running, but it ends at this time. Supplies are running out and things like that. I can see several of them right now. Actually, I used one on you this morning without even knowing it. I said, our Make Sense Academy monthly membership is $24, and it's going up to $48. but I didn't tell you if I said by this afternoon, I would be playing into your fear of missing out.

Starting point is 00:15:34 This is an important one. In fact, the fear of death actually creeps in, doesn't it? So when you wake up and you see the unpredictable and limited nature of your mortality, we call it a mortality mentality mentality. It's a very, very big stoic principle. It's also a strategy for success to say, I'm going to die. But it's based on fear. So if I go into full on action to make this day count, that's a fear management strategy,

Starting point is 00:16:00 potentially a positive one. Nonetheless, can you see that it's a fear management strategy? Really, really fascinating stuff. That fear prompts people to either seize the day and make their time count. That's kind of like where I'm at. But it also prompts people to say, fuck it and allow themselves to experience as much pleasure and indulgence that they can before they die. That's an interesting one when somebody does something that.

Starting point is 00:16:24 That's not good for them. This plays a huge role in the obesity crisis, by the way. There's this idea of saying, like, you only live once. So there's the fear management strategy of, I'm going to die sometimes, so who cares? But completely forgetting about what's required to live. Isn't that interesting? The most popular fear management strategy that is so powerful that most wouldn't allow themselves to admit is a fear management strategy.

Starting point is 00:16:53 and that would be the idea of aligning yourself, feather ruffling coming if you're afraid of what you think being wrong, that being the idea of aligning yourself with the forces of goodness. Think about that. We align ourselves with some sort of force of goodness. Now, yes, this is religion, but it also is politics as well. If you've aligned yourself with some strategy or vehicle that aligns with the forces of goodness, and what that means is if you follow this path and this regimen and this, this indoctrination, you are on the path of righteousness and goodness. But that also means that

Starting point is 00:17:29 everything else is wrong. I'm going to get into that in a second. This being the idea that aligning yourself with the forces of goodness will eliminate or alleviate your exposure to the things that are bad or the things that you fear. Fear not. So-and-so will show you the way. Right? That's how cults start, by the way. And that might process through somebody's brain and say, saying I'm in a cult? I'm saying, yeah, we're all in a cult. If you've been at a crossroads in your life and found something that became your savior of some sort, your savior is not the only savior. A lot of people have different saviors. And the one that you think is normal is the one that you believe in and everybody else is out of their minds, right? The notion carries this idea based on

Starting point is 00:18:14 the good versus evil theory. We're afraid of evil. So there's the fear. And it teaches us that by being one of the good guys, you will somehow be protected from the bad guys. That's a really cool thing. If you think that you're one of the good guys or the good girls or the good human today, what is that in opposition to? Who's the bad guy? Could you be the good guy if not for the bad guy? You see you need the bad guy? The next time you see the bad guy, give the bad guy a hug because you wouldn't be able to be a good guy without the bad guy. Isn't that interesting? Obviously showing up in various religions and even in the notion of being a good human. What does it mean to be a good human? It means to be different from a bad human. So you would have to define first what a bad human is in order for you to know what it means to be a good

Starting point is 00:19:03 human. And also, if you want to take a step back and be conscious for a second, who taught you that? Serve God and humanity and the forces of the universe will protect you. So that's an idea that I was exposed to. Interesting to experience this moment right now as I write the word God and mistakenly, which I guess would be a sin, forgot to make the G capitalized. And my computer, which is where I type my rise-ups, underscored it and said, hey, he gets a capital G. Isn't that an interesting thing? If I write your name out, do you get a capital G? So, yes, sir, I'm so sorry to forget that. And I was thinking to myself while I was writing. So what's interesting about this fear management strategy, and I'm talking about religion,

Starting point is 00:19:46 is to notice that in order for us to feel that we're in the right, we must all, convince ourselves that others are in the wrong. Isn't that the biggest challenge with religion? You think that what you're saying is that you're right. But in another way, especially if it's being heard from somebody that doesn't think like you, you have to acknowledge what is wrong. So at some point, people started to teach us what's wrong, which means that the opposite is right. So if you look at your religion and your belief system, and it doesn't have to be religion. It could be your core values. They require some conscious understanding and embracement of what's wrong.

Starting point is 00:20:25 So this goes far past creating the vast incongruency of religions and their unique beliefs, right? I mean, like, and when I say incongruencies, I know that what you say about God and everything, I know that that's right. Because you think it's right. It's incongruent in the fact that somebody else is 100% sure that what they say is right. And if it's different than you, then there's an incongruency there. but it's all based on the fear of being one of the bad guys. And there's all sorts of different ways.

Starting point is 00:20:55 So that's what I wanted to point out. Your fear management system might be God. It might be religion. And that's fine if it's working for you. And when people are prompted to follow a leader or a movement motivated by being convinced that the others are evil or abnormal. This is a really dangerous part of fear management strategy where we're at a crossroads and we're looking for some sort of a leader or system to follow, that person, and this shows up

Starting point is 00:21:24 in dictatorships and things like that, and cults, that person is going to teach you that the way that they're showing you is away from the bad guys. So if you look at any of those terrible things that have happened in our history, you see these dictators spending a lot of time making somebody the bad guy and then showing you, here's how you be the good guy. can also take note that the only person in that instance that sees the wrong as a wrong is the person that thinks that they're right. So the person that you perceive is wrong perceives themselves as right. Did you know that? In fact, making them right. If somebody tells me that they're right or they project that they are, I have this fun game that I play and I see,

Starting point is 00:22:08 right. I acknowledge that they are in fact right. It just might be different than my right, but it doesn't make them wrong because they think they're right. What I like, like to do with people as I say, I'm going to make you a deal. And it's fun to converse with people like that. I'm going to make a pact with you. I'm going to let you think that you're right, but you have to in turn allow me to think that I'm right. And we could both be right. Deal. Also a fun observation in fear management is to look at the great saints and gurus that we hear about, even Buddha and all of these great saints and gurus and gods and acknowledge the fact that they've reached some sort of sainthood or enlightenment. And all of the

Starting point is 00:22:46 all-knowing power, just acknowledge that they share the same types and fear and neuroses as we do. Have you ever thought about that? These people that we look at as saints and gurus, they have the same amount of neuroses and fear that we do. But what makes them saints and gurus, which means that maybe you can become a saint and guru one day, is how they have just stopped identifying themselves with those things. They don't look at themselves as their thoughts and their fears and their neuroses like we do very often, which require us to take a path away from that. So they look at their fears and neuroses,

Starting point is 00:23:21 and I came up with this analogy, as just simply ripples in a vast ocean. Also being aware at the same time, this is what saints and gurus have the ability to do, that right behind those ripples that look like fear and neuroses are waves of things like confidence, clarity, and peaceful joy, all part of the same ocean,

Starting point is 00:23:38 just like clouds are the part of the same sky. Perhaps this is the way to fully radically accept everything. If you see a bad guy, recognize he's necessary and there's a good guy right next to them and they balance one another out this is a game folks and believe me I'm the farthest thing from a guru I'm just like this crazy guy that likes to look at all situations and I use the word maybe maybe the game here is just saying are you going to allow yourself to step back and see different channels and stations or are you going to use like the old TV that just has one station right are you going to get cable

Starting point is 00:24:15 and allow yourself to see up stations and give yourself the opportunity and potential to say, what station do I like the best? What station serves me best resonates with me most? But then understand that you might see another station the next day. That would be you living life. But if you're living in a place of fear, you might find yourself thinking that what I just said is crazy and say, I'm going to do this. And never allow yourself to check out the entire amusement park. So it's a hard pill to swallow for someone that is listening to this, if their version of this is that idea of serving a specific path or God or something like that. But also consider that this pill is as difficult to swallow to that young German boy that had bought into a dictator's vision of the

Starting point is 00:25:04 world one day and thought it was the way. No different. So guess what their strategy was for handling the fear and management of their fear and adversity? It was, anger, right? They got angry, but don't worry about that. If you get angry about something, like maybe this podcast, and sometimes people get angry at me, that's what anger management classes would be for. And you could just continue to just keep on climbing the same ladder that goes to the same place. So it's only the open, curious, and conscious individual that can identify their own fear management on that level, right? Can step back and go, aha, I never looked at it that way. You'd have to allow yourself to do that.

Starting point is 00:25:44 It makes me wonder about the soul of a human sometimes. Not the human, not the body, but the soul. Humans can get caught up in a good versus evil body thing. You know, and this is an interesting potential feather ruffler as well. But I believe this is just a belief and it's at this time. I would be open to hearing another belief and playing with that one. But I believe the soul of the human is neither good nor evil. They're both.

Starting point is 00:26:12 They're neither this nor that. I believe the soul just is, the part of you that just is, which means that the human, the body, if allowed, can coexist, if allowed, can coexist as both good and evil and be okay with that. But it takes the will. We have to want to do that and the desire to do so and then do the work naturally. So when looking at the work that we do, and we do this in our Make Sense Academy, and this is what's going to be in my book, We teach this interface response system. And if you want to learn that, go back to the beginning of my podcast and you'll hear the

Starting point is 00:26:46 four steps of it. If you want to do the work, learn and earn, that's what the Make Sense Academy is for. But this poses a worthy challenge in the third phase of the four step phase and the assessment phase where we determine how we're going to label someone or something as good or evil and determine who gets in or who doesn't. So according to Ram Dass, who I'm reading right now, and I just love it, Polishing the Mirror is a great, great book. A lot of fun stuff on YouTube on him too.

Starting point is 00:27:15 Ram Dass. According to him, the challenge and art is to be able to see actions as evil, but not the person, not the being. Think about what that means, because that could be a big game changer for you. That's how we say, I forgive them for they know not what they do. When you see somebody doing something wrong, remember, that's just something opposite that what you thought was right. but if you see somebody doing something wrong,

Starting point is 00:27:41 can you see that it's the action of the body but not the being? You'd have to first allow yourself to entertain the idea of the soul that they're not evil or good. But it's a fun way to live life because you won't get caught up and stuff. This is that space, if you allow yourself to do it, that allows us to love everyone and forgive those that do evil things knowing that they know not what they do. but their being is inherently good.

Starting point is 00:28:09 Are you at a place right now that you can entertain? You don't have to believe it, but can you entertain the fact that all beings are good and evil? And sometimes it's the action of the body and the human. Because the body and the human is like the computer that's been programmed by other people. But the being, the soul, neither good nor bad. They're both. So what about you?

Starting point is 00:28:33 Can you step away and untether yourself, from the program that you're comfortably running right now. It's a program, just like a computer. Unless you step away and look at it, you won't look at it. You'll say, I'm never listening to this guy again. And identify your fear management strategies. Can you identify your fear management strategies? If so, and you are a highly conscious, open and curious being,

Starting point is 00:28:57 from that vantage point, though, you'll be able to see all the other channels, if you had cable, all the other channels that offer all. the other ideas that you needed to be wrong so that you could be right. You'll see that that's what your strategy might be is needing certain things to be wrong so you could be right. Perhaps you can take the huge step of allowing yourself to consider which ones of those channels best suit you and best suit your core values. And that might be what you're doing right now. And if that is, then that is the right thing for you to do. But are you allowing yourself to have options?

Starting point is 00:29:36 of different fear management strategies and different channels. You know, it's kind of like moving from TV, as I said, where there's only one station to getting cable, surfing the channels, and seeing what show you like the best. Perhaps you can also see that without the perception of fear, you would actually have nothing to manage. That's another interesting insight.

Starting point is 00:29:59 Without fear, I would have nothing. Without fear and anger, I would have nothing to manage. Heck, without fear, you might not even get out of bed today. Make sense? That's it for today. Love and appreciate you all. I look at life as just a fascinating experience in game. Full respect for everybody. If somebody has an opinion, I honor it. And I honor and appreciate everybody. And I just hope everybody has an amazing day, list of their potential. It comes from a place in their heart of gratitude for what you have. celebrate what already is rather than getting caught up and always needing and

Starting point is 00:30:38 desiring more. Come check out our community. I hope you'll like, follow, and share the podcast and the YouTube channel and all of that stuff. Have an amazing day, everyone. Bye, bye now. Makes sense.

Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Makes Sense Mondays - FEAR MANAGEMENT - Episode 50

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