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 in childhood, and took with you into adulthood. In this blog post, I explain exactly how that fear program was developed, and how it effects you now as an adult. If you’ve already read the eBook, then you can skip the next bite and go straight to the individual aspects of fear below (Dread, Regression, Mediocrity, etc) if you like.

If you’d like a copy of that eBook, click here: https://www.findtruepurpose.com/ebook

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 your rational fears, such as your fear of snakes, fear of heights, fear of aggression, or your fear of suspicious characters in dark alleys (especially if they’re aggressive and carrying a snake!). Those fears are trying to keep you safe, and need to be respected.

What I’m talking about here are your 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 this 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:

You were born into this first stage of life (0-9 months) as a totally helpless infant, completely reliant on everyone for everything (which is why you cried a lot). And as a baby, you were very in the moment. You had no concept of the future, and no past experience to recall. Everything in your life was very now – right now, this very second!

So, when you cried out for attention, and your parents didn’t come to your aid in that very second, you felt you’d be abandoned (fear of abandonment). You had no idea your parents were on their way to feed you, hold you, change your nappies, etc. As far as you were concerned, no one showed up in your moment of desperation, and being a helpless infant, that meant you might die (fear of death), or starve (fear of not enough), or be terribly uncomfortable (fear of being uncomfortable), or never be held again (fear of abandonment).

If that wasn’t terrifying enough, you also felt the fears of everyone around you! Not because you were some sort of psychic genius (although you probably were - babies can sense many things beyond normal adult-range of perception), but because fear is an emotional vibration, and when the vibration of other people’s fears passed through your little body, you felt it all, often as if it was your own fear (which is why you cried a lot, for no “apparent” reason)

So when your parents did show up to feed you, hold you, change your nappies, etc, you felt all the fear they brought with them. And they brought a lot of it. As every parent knows, having a baby is a very worrisome time. And no matter how hard your parents tried to hide their worries and fears from you, you still felt it all, as far back as when you were in the womb!

Before you were born, you felt your parents pregnancy and birth fears. After you were born, you felt their terrible worries that you might die in your sleep (fear of death), become ill, or be hurt (fear of harm). You felt their fear that you might fall off the change table, or be dropped (fear of heights). You felt their constant worry that you weren’t feeding enough, or getting enough sleep, or putting on enough weight, or getting enough love (fear of not enough).

You felt their frustration, impatience, and self doubt as parents (fear of trusting others). You felt their suspicions and distrust of others around you (fear of trusting strangers). You felt their disgust when they changed your nappies (fear of being “dirty or unclean” = OCD or anal retentiveness). You felt their worries about your future as an adult. You even felt their “secret” resentments, guilt, and regrets. You felt it all.

You basically inherited the fears of everyone around you, before you were even 12 months old! Except you didn’t think about those fears or ponder them, like you would as an adult, because you couldn’t think for yourself at this stage. You just felt it all as raw emotion, without any thoughts to back it up or make sense of it.

That’s how you stored that fear in your subconscious mind – raw emotion with no conscious reasoning. And what a lot of people don’t know is that a baby gets a fully developed subconscious mind the moment its Soul enters the foetus in the womb. That subconscious then stores every fearful experience (and the good stuff, but we’re not focusing on that here), at a staggering 20-million bits of information a second, from as far back as when you were an embryo in the womb. By the time you were born, your subconscious mind had already stored 9-months of fear. You were born into this world with a fear program, and it just got worse from there!

Anyway, as an adult, the base of your fear program is all that raw fear stored in your subconscious mind, from conception to about 12 months old. That includes your own fears and all the fears of those around you. And again, it was all stored as raw emotion without any thoughts.

You took that base-fear with you into adulthood - still as raw emotion without thought – and it now affects you as Dread. Dread is where you dread your outside world, people, and life, just like you did as an infant. And because it's raw fear (fear, fright, panic, terror), with no thoughts attached to it, you dread all this stuff for no apparent reason. You just feel it’s variants of anxiety, apprehension, hesitation, indecision, panic (panic attacks), or terror; and have no idea why! That’s infant Dread, raising it’s ugly head!

But if Dread did have a thought pattern attached to it, it would be something like, “The world is a scary place, bad things happen, there is not enough, people cannot be trusted, I am unsafe, and could die!”.

It’s this deep subconscious belief (or in this case, emotional agreement) that gives adults a deep-seated fear of adventure, of the future, of lack (not enough time, money, support, resources, love, etc), trusting people, and death/harm – and yet most people aren’t even aware they feel it, or if they do, they have no idea why.

The next stage of life is being a toddler, where you learn to crawl, toddle, and walk. This is how you explore your world, which was a big deal for you, because you came into this stage of life already dreading your world, people, and life. But being such a pure and curious little soul, you decided to push on (literally) regardless, and venture out to explore your world. You just did it very cautiously and hesitantly.

And to see what was “out there”, you learned how to roll over and lick the floor, or roll off the change table the second your parents took their eyes off you! You learned how to reach out and grab anything and everything dirty and dusty and put it in your mouth. You learned how to crawl towards the edge of the stair case. You stood up and learned how to fall, stumble, toddle towards the pool deck, or open fire place. You learned to walk fast and eventually run badly towards the busy road, or angry dogs in the park.

This worried the shit out of your parents, and consequently, you encountered a frightening level of resistance. It seemed that every time you ventured out to explore your world, you felt your parents fears, and heard them gasp in horror, as they yelled at you, “No! Yucky! Get away from there! Naughty! Bad! Leave that alone! Stop! Look out!” And you were possibly smacked or punished! This made progress seem quite terrifying, before you even got to where you wanted to go.

At the same time – it seemed – you felt your parents fears as they forced there fingers into your mouth (stop you from choking), or “abruptly” picked you up (get you away from there spider you were trying to pat), or “violently” smacked your hand (trying to stop you reaching Grandmas crystal-ware), or “aggressively” grabbed your arm (to get you away from the edge of the balcony). This made progress seem quite frightening, even if you did get to where you wanted to go. 

And when you did finally manage to get to where you wanted to go, which was often a huge effort, someone picked you up, and placed you all the way back to where you started crawling or walking from … over and over and over again. Often to be locked in a “cage” (crib, play pen, baby-fenced room, etc) and rewarded if you stayed inside that cage (= comfort zone). That made progress seem quite futile after you got there (if you did), and it also made the comfort zone seem a lot more attractive.

Your subconscious mind stored it all – again as raw emotion without any thought - adding fright and futility to your pile of Dread. You took all this raw emotion with you into adulthood, as the deep subconscious belief (emotional agreement) of Regression.

Which, if it did have any thought pattern associated with 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!”

But as an adult, it still exists as raw emotion without thought, which includes the feelings of apathy, overwhelm, laziness, and hopelessness. Apathy is the feeling of “What’s the point of doing it now?”. Overwhelm is the feeling of, “There is too much to do, it’s too big, I can’t do it!”. Laziness is the feeling of, “I can’t be bothered doing it now”. Hopelessness is the feeling of self-disappointment created by a lack of progress or hindered progress.

And when people feel like that, instead of progressing, they regress. They either never get around to doing it; or they put things off till later, half-do things, limit what they do, skip steps, miss steps, show up late, break agreements, let people down, continuously change their mind, or never finish anything – and they don’t even know why!

The next stage of life was trying to do things yourself as a small child (2 - 3½ years). This was a very frustrating time for you. You were only little and everything was a challenge.

You weren’t tall enough to open the drawers and play with mummies knives! You weren’t strong enough to fight off your big sister and push her in the pool. Toilet training was awkward and smelly. You couldn’t tie your own shoe laces, or brush your hair, or make your own explosives! You seemed to fall off or stumble into everything. You often didn’t have the words to express your frustration or ask for help. It was very overwhelming and often made you cranky (The Terrible 2’s onwards).

And the Dread and Regression you brought with you into this stage of life didn’t help much either. You feared so many things, and were already very wary of progress. So for example, instead of climbing the swing set in the playground with fearless confidence and a capable focus, you climbed fearfully, hesitantly, and timidly, which often made you falter, fail, and fall. In short, you made a lot more mistakes than you ever needed to – and that made everything worse.

At the same time – it seemed (and we’re only focusing on the negative here) – every time you tried to do something yourself, your parents corrected you, pushed you aside to do it for you, yelled at you, made “fun of you”, or punished you. You often heard them say you weren’t old enough, big enough, strong enough (not good enough). And you often heard them call you a bad boy, naughty girl, useless, hopeless, no good, stupid, etc. And you also felt your parents worry, frustration, impatience, scorn, and anger … as if it was your own.

All those experiences got burned into your brain, still as raw emotion, but now with a tiny bit of basic thought, such as “I am bad, naughty, it’s too hard, I can’t do it”. That eventually developed into a deep subconscious belief, the adult version of which would be 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. I am not worthy of success”.

It’s this deep subconscious belief that makes adults feel not good enough, and that leads to self-doubt, self-criticism, low self-esteem, and even self-hate.

It’s the reason why adults are so hard on themselves – put themselves down, impatient with self, frustrated with self, and even angry at self. It’s why adults are so quick to reject compliments, and so good at sarcasm (criticism’s ugly little sister).

It’s why adults resist learning new skills and techniques, or practising their existing skills into talent, or pushing past their limits to be the best they can be. It’s why adults become over reliant on others to do things for them, so they can avoid doing things well themselves.

This lack of self-improvement eventually leads to a success plateau, where people get to a certain level of skill, and stay there. They just get by with the skills they have, never breaking through their own self-imposed glass ceiling, to achieve greatness in their field.

And to subconsciously keep themselves below that glass ceiling, they’ll often confuse activity with accomplishment, keeping themselves “busy” over-doing or re-doing the same things over and over, at the same level of ability, without getting anywhere (relates back to Regression).

Or they’ll try and make everything perfect before sharing it with others, but never sharing it with others because it’s never “perfect” (the impossible goal that will always make you feel not good enough).

Or they’ll subconsciously create unnecessary problems and issues for themselves, and make everything too hard. Or they’ll over-focus on failure, allowing it to stop them, rather than seeing it as a valuable learning lesson.

Or they’ll get to a certain level of skill, and walk away, because they’re “not good enough to do it any better” - often to start a new project, so they can get “half good at that”, and then quit that as well.

The end result: Adults often give up on the dream before they’ve given themselves a chance to be great at it - and they don't even know why

The next stage of your childhood is what I call the heart stage, which from about 3 ½ to 4 ½ years of age, your own thoughts made you feel bad about yourself for the first time.

And again, I’m only focusing on the negative here.

You came into this stage of life fearing so many things (Dread), you couldn’t seem to do what you wanted to do (Regression), and now you had this new belief system where you thought you weren’t good enough, which made you impatient with self, frustrated with self, and even angry with self - with others seemingly expressing the same frustration and disdain towards you to “back it up”.

And so you basically turned on yourself. You couldn’t enjoy yourself, you were hard on yourself, and others also seemed to disapprove of you, and so for the first time you began to dislike your self, which made you very unhappy. And so to fill the void in your heart, you sought the attention and approval of others, hoping they’d make you happy again, and they did.

Every parent knows this stage, when their little 3-4 year-old becomes sullen, moody, and needy - almost "overnight”. And when you did that, your parents loved it (mostly)! You see, from your parents point of view, you used to be a “cranky lil cracker” (Terrible Twos), but then suddenly you’ve became more clingy, needing more hugs and love, and your parents loved it, and they loved you up. And you loved it!

Great, right? Arrr nope! Your weird little child-mind twisted it around into the following belief, which the adult version would be something like: “I can’t enjoy myself, nor do I like myself as much anymore, and that makes me unhappy (Unhappiness). But if I seek the attention and approval from others, I get loved back, and that makes me happy again. Therefore, other people must be the better source of happiness; not myself”.

You gave yourself a “heart condition”. You depleted your own self love, and sought external love to fill the void. Your parents either loved you up, enforcing the above belief; or they ignored your constant need for attention, which just made you seek it more, reinforcing the above belief.

It’s that same belief that makes adults dislike themselves, which is to love self less. With less self-love, they seek the self in others (other people’s direction, opinion, or expectations) and the love of others (other people’s attention, approval, or acceptance).

In other words, they’re still hard on themselves, and hence love themselves less; and so they’re still trying to fill that void in their heart by seeking the love and approval of others - just like they did when they were 3-4 years old. In fact, they've probably turned their whole life around to be about others.

As they should. Except, they’re supposed to do that in a way that still supports what they want to do in life, in the way they want to do it, and then use that purpose to help others in some way. That’s the premise of enjoyable loving service. Unfortunately, the fear program turns that around, so they kinda end up doing what they want to do in life, but they often end up doing it in ways to keep other people happy, and that’s the premise of unhappy resentful servitude!

You enter this next stage of life seeking the approval of others. But you also enter this stage of life with a new sense of identity – increased self-awareness, independent thought, better conversational skills, and the need to express yourself as a little individual!

And so you tried to be yourself and express yourself, but you very quickly realised that wasn’t such a great idea, and it was probably better to stick to approval instead.

You see, your need to express yourself and your need for approval, meant you expressed yourself a lot! Some of it was for more attention, and some of it was just to express your new found individuality, but you basically didn’t shut the f*** up from 4-5 years old.

You constantly talked, sang, chanted, squealed, and yelled all sorts of gibberish. You asked a billion questions about everything (Why? Why? Why?!), many of which were almost impossible to explain to you. You pointed out the obvious, or were brutally honest, without any hesitation or “adult consideration”. You constantly told people what you wanted to do, and who you wanted to be, and excepted them all to follow suit. You shared your creative “talents” and told bizarre stories. And you expressed every independent thought or new idea that popped in your head - no matter how weird or inappropriate.

Consequently, a lot of people around you told you to be quiet, keep it down, use your inside voice, shut up, stop being silly, that’s none of your business, that’s not how you say that, that’s not how you talk to adults, that’s not how you draw horses, no you can’t do that, no you can’t have that, no you can’t be that, you have to do this, you have no choice, you’re not so special, you have to do as you’re told, you have to follow the rules, you have to do it the same way as everybody else does, you’re not allowed … and so on.

All this resistance to your individual expressions, combined with your need for approval, very quickly developed into the deep subconscious belief of, “I tried to be myself and express myself but that seemed to make other people unhappy. Therefore, I cannot be myself. I must be and express myself in whatever way keeps other people happy. Then they’ll like me more, and be happy with me, and that makes me happy. Other people do indeed seem to be the better form of happiness.”

And you developed this belief just in time to blindly accept the extreme conformity imposed on you in pre-school or lower school - without question or rebellion. Because that’s were you were “forced” to do and be what other’s expected you to do and be. You had to colour in-between the lines, stand up and sit down when everybody else did, follow a set of strange new rules, and behave like everybody else. And if you didn’t, you were chastised or punished! All of which simply reinforced the above belief.

As an adult, it’s that same belief that makes people do what others expect them to do, in ways others expect them to do it. And I’m not talking about a person following the normal rules and responsibilities of society. I am talking about people living their dreams in ways that keep other people happy - rather than doing what they really want to do in life.

This is when a person worries to much about what other people think of their dream. Or they alter their dream to gain more approval, or fit in, or be liked more, or avoid conflict. Or they live their dream in the same ways everybody else does, neglecting their own creative expression and innovation.

In short, they end up doing what they don't want to do, or being someone they don't want to be, just to keep others happy, and it’s the cause of all resentment (the sad-anger of secretly resenting others for making you do things you didn’t want to do, even thought you let them do that to you), depression (I cannot be myself, or express myself, or share myself, so I don’t feel like myself), ego (being someone you are not, to please others), Unhappiness (I’ve been someone else for so long, I don’t know who I am anymore), and vulnerability (unable to stipulate or enforce clear personal boundaries).

The next stage of childhood (focusing only on the negative) is where you learn to plan your life around the needs of others (5-6 years of age).

Because at this stage in your “life”, you pretty much start to give up and give in. You have five years of fear program running in the background of the mind now, and it starts to change you permanently. The biggest change is withdrawing from the present moment.

Prior to this stage, you were very much in the moment, living life moment to moment. But now you feel that the world is a scary place of bad things, lack, and untrustworthy people; and there is no point doing things now; and you believe you’re not good enough to do things well now; and the enjoyment of life is gone now; and you can’t do what you want to do now.

The now seems too scary, too futile, too hard, and too unhappy, so you may as well withdraw from life now, and go where everyone goes when they’re not happy in the moment; and that’s in the mind to daydream about a happier life.

Which is a great escape and we all do it. Except the mind is also where the fear program lives, and it doesn’t take long for the fear program to turn your positive imagination into worry and regret. The dream turns into the nightmare.

And when you really think about why you worry or regret things, you’ll find it mostly has to do with upsetting people. It’s mostly worrying about what you do that might upset people in the future, or what you’ve done that has upset people in the past.

And that's what you start doing in more off from 5-6 years old - worrying and regretting to avoid upsetting. And to do that, you have to spend a lot more time in the mind, which means a lot less time present in the moment, enjoying your life. You basically withdraw from life.

At the same time, you notice so many of your mentors (parents, older siblings, teachers, etc) worrying about the future, or bringing up some regretful past, and it often seemed to be all about keeping others happy, or to avoid upsetting people.

They seemed to constantly go on about what we need to do to keep this person happy, or not upset that person (future). Or they keep telling stories about what such and such did that made everyone happy, or what such and such did that upset everyone (past).

None of it was very now, nor did anyone seem to enjoy the now. It seemed everyone around you was always saying, “Not now! Now is not a good time, maybe later, we’ll do it next year, not until you’re older, you can have it when …[Future]; no, because of what happened last time, you’ve already had that before, you did that so now you can’t do this, I’ll never forgive you for what you did, you were such a naughty boy back then [Past]”,

And everyone seemed to be frantically planning, booking, or preparing for some future event – often to keep others happy or avoid conflict. And there seemed to be a never ending stream of stories about the past – often scary stories involving drama, regret, and guilt (even nursery rhymes and kids books).

And so you very quickly learned that to fit in (already made worse by Conformity) you need to avoid life now, and instead plan your life around keeping others happy. That eventually developed into the deep subconscious belief of, “Life is not to be lived now. I must instead go into the mind to frantically plan my future in ways that avoid upsetting people (worry, stress, panic), and remember my regretful past so I never forget what I did in the past that upset people (regret, guilt, remorse). That way I can insure I always keep others happy, and never upset them again, so they'll be happier with me, and that keeps me happy.”

As an adult, it’s that same belief that makes people lose track of their own presence and focus in life. They instead spend the majority of their time in their mind, distracted from the now, busily planning their future, or remembering their past, to make sure they don’t upset anyone.

And it’s that constant presence in the mind, which turns people into zombies. Because you cannot be in two places at once. You are either here now, focused in the present moment, aware of what’s going on around you, without thought (Present Focus); or you're not here and not now, because you focus has left the present moment, and is now in the mind thinking about stuff, completely disconnected from and unaware of what’s going on around you (Absent Zombie).

It’s the latter that causes people to be “off with the fairies” or unaware (distracted, absent-minded, oblivious, inconsiderate, thoughtless, careless). It’s why so many people have trouble letting go of the past (their mind is constantly reliving past arguments, drama, and trauma, and disappointments, to re-mind themselves how people get upset). It’s why people worry way too much about the future (their mind stressing about what to do, or what not to do, to avoid upsetting people). It’s why so many people think way too many thoughts – overthinking things, over-complicating things, or worry too much about what others think. And it’s that absent mindedness that causes so many failures, problems, and accidents.

And finally, the last stage of childhood is where you prove all your fears to be “true” in real life (6 - 7 years of age). Because, at this age, you start forming your own beliefs and perspectives from your own experiences. You’re very influenced by your peers and social environment. And you have a heightened level of self-awareness and observation.

Therefore you see yourself displaying all this Dreadful, Regressive, Mediocre, Unhappy, Conformist, and Distracted behaviour. You see the same behaviour in the kids around you. You see hours and hours of it on television and in the movies. You notice it in your parents, older siblings, teachers, and mentors.

It seems, everywhere you look, everyone is doing it, so you start to believe, "This must be the way to live life!"And even though you still have enough innate joy and love within you at this age to know, deep down, that’s such negativity is just not right ... nobody seems to question it, so it must be true!

Just in time for lower school (6-7 years of age) where you were taught to do as you are told, obey the rules regardless, learn what others decide is important, and believe what others tell you to believe, without question, opinion, or rebellion. If you didn't bow down to this academic pressure, you were given a red cross on your work, a lower grade, punished, or even threatened to be kept back a year. So you very quickly learned never to question the teachings, beliefs, or rules of authority figures.

That eventually developed the deep subconscious belief, "Living a Dreadful, Regressive, Mediocre, Unhappy, Conformist, Distracted, Ignorant life must be the truth; because I seem to be living it; everybody else seems to be living it; nobody else seems to be questioning it, and I'm sure as Hell not going to question it, because others will ostracise me for being wrong, and authority figures told me I don't know any better. So, I will just keep my head in the sand and my mouth shut, and live the same life as everybody else, without question, opinion, or rebellion”

And believe it or not, adults still do the exact same thing. No one seems to question anything – least of all the subtle yet constant nagging dissatisfaction most people have with their Dreadful, Regressive, Mediocre, Unhappy, Conformist, Distracted, Ignorant life choices.

Everyone just keeps on doing it, and nobody seems to question why, which is how the fear program and it's subsequent limitation and suppression, often manages to go unnoticed for decades until death.

By the age of seven years old, you've already squired to foundations of a fully developed fear program. That fear program is strengthened and individualised further from 7-14 years, and then lived into existence as "truth" from 14-21 years of age. By age 21, your fear-program finishes its development (polished to imperfection), and stays with you into adulthood, getting progressively more powerful as you get older.

The average fear program running in the background of the adult mind, could be summarised as:

I can’t do what I want to do in life, or be who I want to be as a person because ...

“The world is a scary place of bad things, lack, and untrustworthy people (Dread); so there is no point venturing out into the world to make any progress (Stagnation); and I’m not good enough to do things well anyway (Mediocrity). Consequently, I can’t enjoy myself, nor do I like myself as much anymore, and that makes me unhappy, so I will seek the approval of others, so they make me happy again (Unhappiness); by doing what others expect me to do, to keep them happy (Conformity); planning my life around them, to avoid upsetting them (Distraction); and believing what they tell me to believe, without question (Ignorance).”

No wonder people don’t live their dreams!