The Childhood Fear Program

In the ebook, “The Biggest Problem You Don’t Even Know You Have”, I talk about the fear-program you developed as a small boy, how it affects you you now as an adult, and how to solve it. If you’d like a copy of that eBook, click here: https://www.findtruepurpose.com/ebook

This blog post goes into a lot more detail about the boyhood-fear-program — especially how it's developed, with more specifics and examples.

Fear is one of the most misunderstood concepts on the planet (as is the opposite of fear, which is love), and so I’d like to first clarify what I mean by fear.

When I talk about fear, I’m not talking about a man's rational fears, such as his fear of snakes, fear of heights, or your fear of suspicious characters in dark alleys (especially if they’re carrying a snake!). Those fears are trying to keep him safe, and need to be respected.

What I’m talking about here are a man's irrational fears – all the “silly” personal fears such as your fear of change, fear of criticism, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of failure, and so on. It’s a long list, and there is a full list of those fears at the back of the eBook.

You’ve always had those fears, because you developed them in childhood. And I’m only going to focus on the negative aspects of your childhood in this blog post, because focusing on the negative is exactly what you did as a child, and exactly how your fears were formed.

You see, you weren’t born with fear. You were born perfect and pure, full of joy and love, which is why babies have such a “strange divinity” in their eyes.

Consequently, you didn’t focus on the positive stuff in your childhood – the fun, joy, peace, love – because it was just normal to you, and you mostly took it for granted.

Positivity simply meant everything was safe and OK in your world. Your beautiful little default-loving-nature loved it, expected it, needed it.

Negativity on the other hand, was absolutely terrifying to you. It was so foreign to your beautiful little default-loving-nature - so shocking, so unexpected. It meant, everything was NOT OK or safe in your world, and you focused on it intensely.

You focused on every scary sight, sound, or drama in your world. You focused on every negative put-down, problem, or person. You saw all the tears, fears, and failures. You also felt the fears of everyone around you, often perceiving them as your own.

And you eventually developed your own pattern of fearful thought – anxiety, scary dreams, the monster under the bed, etc – which you also over-focused on.

And you didn’t just focus on them; you stored them! Your subconscious mind (fully developed at birth) faithfully recorded and stored every single fearful experience you focused on, at a staggering 20 million bits of information a second!

Those records formed into a series of fearfully-bias belief-systems about the outside world, people, and even yourself. And those beliefs were stored with none to very little conscious reasoning, and so most of them are quite silly and make no sense.

And those beliefs were stored in your child-mind, at the same time your child-brain was developing millions of neurons and neural networks every single day, which meant those beliefs were quite literally burned into your brain and hard-wired into your psyche.

By the time you were seven years old, your mind had already developed the following deeply subconscious, nonsensical, predominant, set of fear programs below.

And the age-brackets below are just a rough guide. In reality, the cycles of fear are a lot more complicated than that, overlapping each other, bleeding into each other, feeding off each other “out of order”, and so on. But you get the idea:

that extends out of a person’s body and into the room, and when everybody else’s fear passed through your little body, you felt it as if it were your own – as far back as when you were in the womb!

You picked up on your parents’ pregnancy and birth fears, their worry you might die in your sleep, their fear of harm, illness, not enough food or love - even their doubts about being good parents. You even felt their frustration, distrust, disgust, and regrets - you felt it all.

And your subconscious mind stored every second of it – not thought, because you were too young to think for yourself - but raw emotions of fear, stored without any conscious rhyme or reason.

If that fear did have any thoughts attached to it, it would be something like: “The world is a scary place, bad things happen, there is not enough, people can’t be trusted, I am unsafe, and could die” - otherwise known as Dread.

The adult version of Dread is still raw fear without thought. That explains why adults can have a sudden panic attack, for no apparent reason, (no thoughts attached to it). That’s infant Dread, raising it’s ugly head.

It makes people feel fearful, anxious, apprehensive, and indecisive. It makes people dread the adventure of life, assume any bad thing could happen at any moment, worry about lack (not enough time, money, support, resources, opportunity), and distrust people - all with a deep-seated fear of death. All of which stops people from making the decision to live their dreams. And they don’t even know why.

This made progress seem terrifying.

At the same time, someone stopped you (against your will), picked you up, and placed you all the way back to where you started crawling or walking from – again and again and again – often to be locked in a cot or playpen (comfort zone), and rewarded for staying put. This made progress seem futile, and the comfort zone seem way more appealing.

All this overwhelm and futility was stored in your subconscious - again as raw emotion without thought. But if it did have thoughts, it would be something like: “There is no point venturing out into the world to make any form of progress. It’s scary, futile and overwhelming. It’s better to stay in my comfort zone, and dread the adventure of life. Then I’ll be safe!” - otherwise known as Stagnation.

The adult version of Stagnation is still raw fear without thought, and it comes in four flavours of emotion. Apathy: “What’s the point?” Overwhelm: “It’s too much.” Laziness: “I can’t be bothered.” Hopelessness: “Why even try?”

This is what makes adults put things off till later, half-do things, skip steps, or rarely complete anything. It stops people from stepping out of their adult comfort zone, and venturing out into the world, to live their dreams, or make consistent progress in their dreams. And they don’t even know why.

You often heard (and felt) criticism, impatience, frustration and anger. Someone often stopped you, or punished you, or did it for you (against your will). You were often told you weren’t big enough, strong enough, old enough. Or you were called a “Naughty Boy”, or a “Bad Girl”; or maybe even useless, stupid, hopeless … or worse. And you were sometimes punished for trying.

All of that was stored in your subconscious, as raw emotion but now with a few very basic “I am” thoughts attached, such as “I can’t!”, “It’s too hard”, “I not good”, “I bad?”, and so on.

The more “sophisticated” adult version of this is something like: “I am not good enough to do things well. It’s all too hard. There is no point trying. I can’t do it myself. I have to rely on others to do things for me.” - otherwise known as Mediocrity.

This belief is what makes adults feel not good enough. And that subconsciously stops people from improving their skills, abilities, and techniques beyond a certain level, because they subconsciously believe they’re not good enough to be any better. That eventually leads to a success plateau, where people just get by with the skills they have, never breaking through their own self-imposed glass ceiling, to achieve greatness in their field.

It makes people feel incapable, worthless, over-reliant, frustrated, and angry. It stops people living their dreams to a level of greatness. And they don’t even know why.

That led to you thinking, “I always get it wrong”, “I’m not good like them”, “I can’t do it”, “I make people angry”, “No one likes me”, and so on. And so for the first time, you began to disapprove of self, dislike self, not love self – and that made you unhappy (sullen, moody, weird).

And you didn’t like being unhappy, so you sought the attention and approval of others, hoping they’d make you happy again. And they did (mostly).

Others either responded to your neediness with more love and attention, and sometimes toys, gifts, snacks, television (things), and that made you happy again. Or they ignored you, which made you seek even more love, attention, and things, which eventually made you happy again.

Seek external happiness, be “happy”. Seek even more external happiness, be “happier”.

That stored the first “proper” thought-based belief system in your subconscious - still with a lot of emotion, but now with a twisted childlike viewpoint. The more “sophisticated” adult version of that belief would be something like: “I don’t like myself as much anymore, and that makes me unhappy, and I don’t like being unhappy. But when I seek happiness outside of myself, from people and things, it makes me happy again, so other people and their things, must be the better form of happiness” – and this fake happiness is otherwise known as Unhappiness.

True lasting happiness can only come from within – within the mind, and in this case, a mindset of Adventure, Progress, and Talent which leads to exciting, accomplished, successful action. That’s how you truly enjoy yourself to be permanently happy.

But the fear-program’s Dread, Stagnation, and Mediocrity, kills that joy and makes people permanently unhappy - sullen, needy, moody. And so people go seek happiness outside of themselves, from people and things (money, possessions, food, TV, drugs, alcohol, etc).

And just like childhood, it works, for a while. But external happiness always fades. And when it does, the individual returns back to how they felt prior – unhappy with self – which makes them seek even more external happiness, from even more people and things.

It’s a roller-coaster ride of fake external-happiness highs, back to true internal-unhappiness lows, up and down, up and down. It’s what makes people feel moody, discontent, disappointed, insecure, “greedy” (more things), and needy. It stops people from being truly happy in their dreams. And they don’t even know why.

corrected, dismissed, or often ridiculed or even punished for being yourself.

And already being hard on yourself, and seeking happiness from others, it didn’t take long for your mind to make up the idea that being yourself seemed to upset people, but if you behaved the way others expected, they seemed to be happier towards you, and they made you happy again.

Just in time for preschool/lower school, where you were taught to sit/stand/nap/talk/paint like everyone else did – and if you didn’t, you were shamed or punished. This all led to a deep subconscious belief, the more “sophisticated” adult version of which is something like: “I must do, be, and express myself in whatever ways keep other people happy. Then I’ll fit in, be liked more, and avoid conflict, so everyone is happier with me, and that makes me happy again” - otherwise known as Conformity.

The adult version of Conformity is what makes people do what others expect them to do, rather than doing what they really want to do, and then secretly resenting those people for “making them” do it, even though they allowed it to happen. It’s what makes people feel depressed, resentful, unfulfilled, jealous, and unimportant. It stops people from living their dreams in their own unique way. And they don’t even know why.

already devoted to external happiness, planning your life around keeping others happy was a no-brainer.

But in order to imagine future plans that avoided upsetting people, and remember past ways you did upset people - you had to leave the present moment and go into the mind to think - because that’s the only place you can access the future and the past.

But you can’t be in two places at once. You are either in the moment, present and aware of life, because you're not thinking; or out of the moment, distracted and unaware of life, because you're in the mind thinking. In order to worry and regret, you had to go into the mind a lot more often, which meant you slowly withdrew from life now, to lose your focus and direction (which you had, even at 5-6 years old).

And withdrawing from life was easy, almost a relief, since the world already felt a bit scary, difficult, and unhappy to you. Plus, while you were in the mind, you could fantasise about a better life – often in ways that made other people happy, or yourself happy - imagining how things like toys, games, a gold star, cartoons, or getting a puppy could make you happy.

That led to the deep subconscious belief, the more “sophisticated” adult version of which would be something like: “I cannot risk focusing all my attention on enjoying life now, without thought. I need to devote a good deal of time thinking about ways to not upset people in the future (worry, stress, doubt); whilst never forgetting the ways I did upset people in the past (regret, guilt, resentment); so I live a life that keeps everyone happy, because I need their happiness and their things, to keep me happy” - otherwise known as Distraction.

It’s this constant presence in the mind, thinking about such stuff, that turns people into zombies - totally out of the moment, distracted by thought, as they nervously plan or sorrowfully remember. And you can see it in their faces – that worried kinda sad look, as they stare into the distance, with a blank look in their eyes.

They’re gone, “off with the fairies”, in another world (literally). They're either frantically planning the future, remembering past regret, daydreaming about a better life, or thinking about all the new things they can buy – all in an attempt to keep others or themselves happy, to overcompensate for the lack of Adventure, Progress, Talent, and Happiness in their own lives. If they’d just live their dreams, they wouldn’t need any of that external stuff.

But alas, they do, and it’s that distracted unawareness that makes them absent-minded, oblivious, or inconsiderate. It’s why so many people have trouble letting go of the past, or worry way too much about the future. It’s why people think too much – overthinking things, over-complicating things, worrying about about what others think, continuously changing their mind, and so on. And the absent-mindedness is what causes so many failures, problems, and accidents.

It makes people feel worried, stressed, doubtful, confused, and hopeless [Future]; as well as feel regret, guilt, loss, resentment, remorse, and unforgiveness [Past]. It's what makes people lose the unique direction and focus of their dreams. And they don’t even know why.

people around you. Everyone just seems to accept it, be it, live it. Except you still have enough innate joy and love inside you to know deep down, that it’s not normal, nor is it right. You don’t believe it. You want to question it. You have the ability to question it (as this age). But you don’t, because nobody around you does, so you stop questioning it as well.

Just in time for lower school where you are “taught” to do as you’re told, learn what others dictate is important, and believe what you are told to believe - and question none of it. You can’t! You wouldn’t dare! You’re 6 years old! Your teachers are your authority figures, and they've already drummed into you that "you don't know", and "they know better”, which is why they are "teachers". If you push back, you’re corrected, graded down, or even punished.

That all adds a final layer of ignorance to the fear-program - a deep subconscious belief, the adult version of which would be something like: “I believe this must be the way to live life, because my experience has proven it to be “true” for me, and "true" for everyone around me. I’m not willing to question that, because I don't know any better; and ‘They’ don’t seem to question it, and they do know better. Therefore I believe it to be true” - otherwise known as Ignorance.

It’s that same ignorance that allows the entire fear-program to run amok in the background of the adult mind, without question. This is why fear is the biggest problem everyone has, yet no one seems to know they have it. No one seems to question the constant yet subtle nagging dissatisfaction they have with the unhappy lifestyle their fear-program has created for them. They just assume it’s normal life.

But it aint normal and it aint living. It’s fear based self-limited and self-suppressed unhappiness, and there is a better life waiting for everyone, if they were to just live their dreams, to overcome the challenge of fear. That’s why I chose to use the word “ignorance”. It’s not a judgement – it simply means, “I don’t know … any better (way)”.

Ignorance is still what stops adults questioning things, especially the status quo of life. If anyone does question it, they are immediately mocked, ostracised, or labelled a crazy conspiracy theorist. That's the fear-program within others, desperately trying to shut down any opinion that exposes fear.

Fear relies on ignorance to run, and it doesn't want people to know its tricks, and it uses ignorance to keep it that way. It makes people close-minded, unteachable, and arrogant, so they never question things enough to know. It makes people feel pessimistic, lost, and purposeless, so they never live their dreams to find out. And it keeps people ignorant, so they don’t even know why, they don’t know why.

“I can’t do what I really want to do in life because: The world is an unsafe place of bad things, lack, and untrustworthy people (Dread); so it’s too overwhelming to venture out into the world and make any form of progress (Stagnation); and I’m not good enough to do things well anyway (Mediocrity). Consequently, I can’t really enjoy myself, nor do I like myself as much anymore, and that makes me unhappy. So I may as well seek the happiness (and things) of others, to make myself happy again (Unhappiness). And I’ll achieve that by doing what others expect me to do, to keep them happy (Conformity); planning my life around them, to avoid upsetting them (Distraction); and never questioning any of it, because it’s ‘true’, and I don’t know any better (Ignorance).”

No wonder people don’t live their dreams!