[sparkle9]

Hello, guys! :)



I was wondering what you are afraid of or what you think INFPs are usually afraid of?
I'm also wondering how you overcome your doubts & fears and what you think the best methods to deal with a problem for INFPs are?

I'm really interested in your opinion and feel free to add any other thought that concerns fears, please.

Love, sparkle9

[Steppenwolf2]

Being emotinally hurt.
Trusting and then such trust is often violated.
Not being true to oneself
Not having meaning in life beyond materialistic things.
Afraid of being alone
Afraid of none understanding them or getting them
Afraid of not being able to do what they love and what brings happiness to others and themselves
Afraid of being wrongly judged
Afraid of how they have so many directions to explore, but eventually not be able to stick to one

[Aurum]

I'm afraid of showing my love for someone and facing rejection, so I normally sit back and wait for love to come to me, which means I'm afraid I'll be lonely until I die.

I'm sometimes afraid that I won't be appreciated by people I care about in other ways as well.

In general, I'm not really too afraid of anything else.

[Lunar Eclipse]

It depends on the day, my confidence level, etc. but there is one fear that has ruled my life and I am really working on that because from that stems a lot of unhealthy behaviors:

Fear of Abandonment.

How do I overcome it? Therapy, knowing where it comes from and using my spirituality and "wise mind" to know when I am totally reacting to old tapes. Knowing that emtions don't require action.

Lunar Eclipse.

[ericajoy]

I'm afraid I can't take care of myself let alone two kids. I'm afraid that I will never have the confidence or energy to promote my own business or the temperament to work for someone else. I'm afraid I'll be depressed and desperate again. I'm afraid that shame will always haunt me even if I think I love myself.

To overcome my fears I maintain a personal practice: daily meditation and mantra. Sometimes I even get to do yoga! I can feel fear, be aware of it, without making my decisions only reacting to fear.

[Steppenwolf2]

I am reading this forum often, and I find that many people here have valid insights that could help me to begin working on my anxieties. Therapy could be rather helpful as well, if a therapist and a client understand and accept each other. I am also thinking on doing yoga and mindful meditation among others (got to go back to my stress management and alternative medicine textbooks). One can only convquer their fears if they they begin facing them in a constructive ways and finding environments where they could be happy and friends/mates who share common interests and accept them as they are. But one needs to make a step in such direction. It could be learned, excercised (if you fail, you still get up and do it again but now you will have an experience that will help you to learn how to do it better), and eventually one gets better at it. Some anxieties stay with us in a small amounts, and other vanish - every age it has its own set of crisis.

[rlong007]

I share this fear:

Afraid of being wrongly judged

Im afraid of people being upset with me because of something I did. Usually its a misunderstanding and I kind of freak out if I hear so and so is upset with me and Im not sure why.

Bit of a fear of going to social parties and it being awkward, or to bars and definitely fear dancing! Yikes!

Are we talking classic fears like spiders, death, heights etc?

I get over my fears by avoiding them! lol :(

Good question though! How the heck do we get over our fears? Isnt it supposed to be by facing them? But then do we truly get over fears like abandonment as mentioned above? If you only get over fears by facing them and understanding them, then does that mean you have to be abandoned to get over it? Cause that sounds crazy. Then again maybe not cause you would live through the experience and would possibly no longer fear it. Gotta be a better way. Maybe its the seek knowledge and understanding of our fears to get over them? But I mean if a person understands their fear perfectly well, like they know why they fear being abandoned, how does a guy or gal get over something like that?

Hmmm. I now fear that I dont know how to get over my fears

[Steppenwolf2]

If we find a good friend or a partner, should we fear that we will get abondened? It is previous bad experiences not future ones that could turn to be real and good for us that make us fear abondement. Besides, being abondened by a bad friend who is there when you are happy, but not there when you need her help - is not a bad experience, it is and eye-openning experience. It makes you think twice - how I choose my friends?, why I do this - picking bad ones? What I should avoid in the future so it does not happen again? What way of actions and thinking should I adopt in order to change my fear?

Of course if we fear war situations, we should not engange in a war. Some things could be avoided, others because of the personal happiness have to be faced.

[Lunar Eclipse]

Good question though! How the heck do we get over our fears? Isnt it supposed to be by facing them? But then do we truly get over fears like abandonment as mentioned above? If you only get over fears by facing them and understanding them, then does that mean you have to be abandoned to get over it? Cause that sounds crazy. Then again maybe not cause you would live through the experience and would possibly no longer fear it. Gotta be a better way. Maybe its the seek knowledge and understanding of our fears to get over them? But I mean if a person understands their fear perfectly well, like they know why they fear being abandoned, how does a guy or gal get over something like that?

Hmmm. I now fear that I dont know how to get over my fears

LOL at your last thought.

Fear of Abandonment is primarily caused by events which preciptated in early childhood trauma. Our brains are forming from in utero into our early twenties but the most formative years are 0-5 years of age. The brain makes "memory templates" so that when such a traumatic event happens (any kind of abuse, emotional, sexual, physical) our brain goes down the same lane so to speak. Any type of abandonment is devastating to those of us who have this issue and it just gets worse and reinforced the more this memory template is used.

So it is ingrained in us until we literally change the circuitry in our brain. So people who have experienced this type of trauma in early life will react very differently to people who have never experienced it, or at a later time in their life.

I'm pretty sure I got the gist of this right, I am just now learning about this.

So that is the million dollar question ... how do we change this? I am currently doing a lot of reading into neuroscience and I try not to listen to my brain (sounds funny but true) when something triggers this fear. It also helps me immensely just knowing more about this and how it came about. I also use the skills I recently learned with Dialectal Behavioral Therapy to "work my way out of it."

Lunar Eclipse.

p.s. Bruce Perry, M.D., Ph.D. wrote a fantastic book called The Boy Who Was Raised As a Dog" which addresses the questions of chldhood trauma and how it literally changes our brain.

p.s.s. I also have the fear that I will be charged w/ some crime that I am not guilty of and be sent to prison or mental institution.

[wisdomdreams]

Two of my biggest fears:

- Depression
- That I'm not good enough (this was in particular really, really hurts).