Hello and welcome to being well I'm Forrest Hanson. If you're new to the podcast, this is where we explore the practical science of lasting well-being. And if you've listened before, welcome back.

I'm joined today, as usual by Dr. Rick Hanson, So Dad, how are you doing today?

I'm good.

I'm really happy to be talking with you as usual.

Yeah, same.

And I'm actually really particularly excited

for this episode today, which I've been looking forward to actually for a little while here.

Today I want to explore an idea that's had actually a really big impact on the way that I personally think about both psychology and personal development altogether.

We all have things in life that scare us.

Some of us are scared of spiders or earthquakes or the dark, as I was as a kid. Most of these things we can kind of push back against or at least do our best to avoid.

We can squish a spider, although I'm generally an advocate for trying to rescue them when possible, or we can turn on a nightlight.

But then there are other deeper, more personal fears, maybe a fear of vulnerable open connection with another person, a fear that we aren't worthy, a fear

of putting ourselves out there asking for what we really want, being seen by other people,

of shame or anger or even having things just be still and calm

inside ourselves. Some of these fears can become so core to who we are that we start to organize our lives around not having to experience

them. These are our dreaded experiences and they exert a quiet power over how we live our lives.

So today we're going to talk about those dreaded experiences.

What are they?

Where do they come from?

And what can we do to work with them or maybe free ourselves from them altogether.

So I'd like to start by saying that there's a lot of material related to fundamental

fears of different kinds out there in psychology, and a lot of material also on the ways that

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