Are You Being Manipulated by Fear More Than You Realize?

Unless you’re being actively mindful, the answer is probably yes.Photo by Guilherme Stecanella on Unsplash

The world is not the giant, insurmountable ball of negativity you read about in the news.

Before you disregard that statement, pause a moment the next time you’re in a grocery store, public park, or anywhere else with lots of people. What do you see? Is everyone being terrible to everyone around them? Is it a war zone of people taking, pushing, shoving, and doing naught but harm? Or is it people doing fairly mundane things together or keeping to themselves?

Sure, there might be exceptions, of course. But I suspect the majority are either neutral or positive. They are just like you, living life and doing things.

Again, I’m not saying bad things aren’t happening out there. Of course they are. What I am saying is that how they’re being presented to you, and more specifically to your subconscious mind, is the real issue.

Weaponized fear

As standards and ethics in reporting have been eroded to make way for greater corporate profit, the presentation of news has gotten increasingly misleading.

In some cases, you get outright propaganda and “entertainment” over legit news. In other instances, it’s a question of slant and angle. Let’s present everything as worst-case scenarios to get more people to pay attention.

In other words, feed the fear.

Fear is a powerful device that, in the distant past, served humankind and kept our ancestors alive. When fear was tangible and helped you avoid predators and other things that would kill you, it was helpful.

Now, more intangible than tangible, fear has become easily manipulated and weaponized. Do you really think someone like Trump could have the so-called power that he does if he and his handlers weren’t experts at fear manipulation?

Because ours is an increasingly fear-based society, the subtle manipulation is incredibly easy to miss. Almost all advertising, for example, plays off fears. Buy this, use that service, or else you will be less attractive/happy/acceptable to your neighbors than him, her, them, etc.

As we rely more on technology and interact less in person, manipulation by fear increases exponentially. I can’t play a “free” game on my phone without being interrupted by advertising. Unless I consciously, mindfully ignore it, my subconscious receives an unfiltered message that might be manipulating me.

The good news is, there’s a way to resist the manipulation.

Mindfulness: Active conscious awareness

When you allow yourself to run on rote, routine, and habit, via your subconscious mind, you’re like a sponge. You absorb information without any checks or balances to interpret or understand it.

Hence, you might find yourself feeling lost, uncertain, angry, scared, confused, and otherwise afraid. It’s often incredibly subtle and presents itself as underlying dread. You probably can’t explain it because it’s in your subconscious and you haven’t consciously paused to reflect on it.

This is how you find yourself manipulated. Before you know it, you and I have created values, beliefs, morals, and judgments about things. Often, it’s about things so far removed from you and your everyday life that you lose sight of the mundane, nearby things.

[image error]Photo by Ignacio Brosa on Unsplash

Again, let’s go back to the park, the store, the airport. When you pause and look around, for the most part, you’ll see people simply living, being, and doing. Some will look sad; most will be unreadable. Some might even be joyful.

Couples holding hands. Families sharing a laugh. That person on the bench alone, laughing out loud at a video on their phone. When you stop living subconsciously and apply active conscious awareness – mindfulness – you start to see that the “world” might suck, but in this place and this moment, it’s okay.

When fear is weaponized as it is today, manipulating people is easy. Unless you choose to be more mindful and resist the forces that are manipulating you. But there’s a very important caveat we must consider here:

Your fear is the only fear you can control

One of the most infuriating things to accept is that you can’t fix anyone else’s fear. I can’t make them see that what they’re afraid of is a phantom that can’t and won’t actually harm them.

You can only be mindful and actively consciously aware of and for yourself. When all is said and done, you can only control how you avoid being manipulated by fear by news media, politicians, religious leaders, business moguls, friends, family, and so on.

However, when you apply reason via mindfulness and resist being manipulated by fear, that can present to those around you an example they can also apply. In many ways, reason has become bravery, which most people associate with the opposite of fear. When you employ this for yourself and your life experience, it turns you into a beacon that can guide others to do the same.

Just remember, please, that you can only help yourself. It’s not selfish to practice self-care, resist being manipulated by fear, and choose and decide things from there. When you’re empowered, you become more capable of helping others find empowerment, too.

Resisting being manipulated by fear isn’t hard

It’s all about practicing active conscious awareness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and the positivity or negativity of your approach to direct your actions.

When you recognize and acknowledge that fear is being frequently weaponized to manipulate you, you can practice active conscious awareness to resist it. Knowing that mindfulness, via choices and decisions, puts you in control, you can take back the wheel from your subconscious and genuinely resist weaponized fear.

This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.

Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity — from the vast cylinder that exists between them — shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. From that dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.

Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself opens the way for a positive approach and attitude via your actions. This can lead to realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, that can spread to those around you for their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the six-hundred-fourth (604) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, reblog, and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all my published fiction and non-fiction.

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