If you've ever been told that fear underlies all your other negative mental and emotional states, you may have been tempted to then look for fear when disturbed. You may even have asked yourself, "What is it that I'm fearing underneath this anger/discomfort/reactivity/irritability/jealousy/lust/depression/etc?"
While this may be helpful at times to some (although I'm not sure why), I want to suggest that this is mostly a form of psychological bypassing, or a way of going into one's head. Or we could even call it, mental masturbation.
Allow me to elaborate: Suppose you're angry and feeling reactive toward another.
Instead of attempting to analyze and deduce (i.e., guess at) the fear that might be the supposed cause of this anger, one can instead deal with the anger as is. A good start to that would be *to be with* the anger, and from there, explore the contours, texture, and overall experience of anger is it's presented itself.
There's no need to engage in psychological speculation that fear must underlie all anger, and in turn, go on a fishing expedition for the unnamed fear when anger already presents itself as is.
If upon careful examination and abiding close to one's anger, one touches into fear, then great. One can then do the same with fear--come close it and get to know it as well. And if fear isn't close by, then that's great also.
This approach of reducing everything "negative" down to fear is exactly that--a reductionist approach. It misses the substance, richness, and liveliness inherent in any mental or emotional disturbance. There's a "fix it" mentality inherent in such reductionist attitudes that misses the meaning. And by missing the meaning, one *misses the mark*... of living. 😉🤨😜
