Spiritual Coaching And Our Four Great Modern Fears

Some time ago, the American Psychiatric Association outlined the following principal sources of fear. At first, I found a few of them surprising, and yet with further self reflection, I could understand how and why they were included.

The Four Great Fears Are:

1) Too Much Leisure       2) Loneliness;         3) Silence         4) Death

I had to ask myself: Why are they so prevalent that those most directly involved with the mental health of our society would include them as being the most compelling or as having the most psychological impact on us as humans? Furthermore, must these four fears compel us in such a way that we are anxious or afraid during much of our lives?

Let’s briefly look at each of these fears, and then consider how life coaching could assist any of us with “taking it down a notch” or make such concerns more manageable and how engaging in a coaching dialogue will encourage us to look at such difficulties as teachers, as wisdom paths, and as sources for deeper meaning for our lives.

Leisure: It has been listed because to stands as a troublesome symbol for our feelings of vast emptiness that we try to fill up with lots of superficial and meaningless activities! Modern technology, and the complexity of our lives has, as an unintended by product, the loss of many of our previously essential daily challenges, such as gathering food, wood, etc.. The absence of these healthy challenges or constructive tensions that used to hold our families and our social realities together makes us more isolated, distant, and compels us to fill the additional time that technology has made possible with lots of substitute activities that we can call recreation, creativity, relaxation, and yes, some mindless escapism!

Loneliness: The opposite side of the rise in self concern, the alienation from others, the fear of the stranger (xenophobia) and the wholesale abandonment of our social and civic concern for others. We find it troubling to feel lonely in a sea of society; cut off from meaningful connections that were once amply provide by family, neighbors, and close friends.

Silence: Many people cannot endure silence, or live in quietude. They find the lack of stimuli from sound to be disturbing, rather than comforting. We have lost what the poets would call” the music of our own souls.” Instead we have replaced it, and actually overwhelmed it by inventing mass media, endless sources of chatter; or the willingness and the value of spending time with our interior selves- with our thoughts, feelings, ideas and ideals that often are starved for the need for our respectful attention.

Death: The fear of the nothingness that lies beyond our rational grasp, and that cannot be filled by our achievement of status, acclaim, or worldly gains. The fear of annihilation, not just in the sense of a war, but in the sense of being lost in the memories of others. Reason cannot provide answers, and science blushes at its inability to resolve our fears. We have to learn to surrender our need for answers, and live in the questions… to develop a soulful trust, a willingness to let go, and not to cling to anything that robs us of hope, compassion, and love.

While these topics can easily fill many library shelves, and will stubbornly elude simple, reductionist answers, what we can do to counter the fears, worries, and anxieties that these fears can create within and among us, is to learn how to cultivate our awareness, to become more contemplative and introspective, and to develop amore resilient faith and a more tensile hope that can counter these fearful claims on our hearts and minds.

Spiritual life coaching can assist you in your search for greater understanding, and for developing a more pointed awareness of the issues and challenges you face. Spiritual life coaching can encourage the development of those values and virtues you find to be most valuable, constructive, and effective for maintaining a larger sense of purpose and meaning in your lives…