WAYS TO LESSEN THE THREAT

People are looking for a less threatening environment, or at least for a way to better endure the environment they live in.

The concept of the dangerous environment will be understandable to the individual no matter how crudely it is put to him. Just the concept that he considers the environment dangerous and overwhelming and he doesn’t quite know where that danger or overwhelm is coming from is an enormous piece of wisdom.

Shrinking back from a very threatening environment that may overwhelm him at any moment, unable to progress forward into greater endurance or power to handle that threatening environment — this is his life.

An individual’s health level, sanity level, activity level and ambition level are all monitored by his concept of the dangerousness of the environment.

There are real areas of danger in the environment, but there are also areas being made to seem more dangerous than they really are.

Thus, if a person is marched forward into these sectors of his environment and gotten to inspect them, he can perceive for himself that the environment is not as dangerous as it is being made to seem. And with increased confidence in his ability to handle at least those sectors of his environment, his health, well-being, sanity and activity levels will rise as well.

A number of simple procedures can help a person increase his command over his environment. The master question of all these techniques is “What part of the environment isn’t threatening?” If one can get him to differentiate and find out there are some parts of the environment that aren’t threatening, he will make considerable gain.

What is the individual’s expectancy at this level? It may be this low — that he just won’t be so frightened when the doorbell rings. This sounds like a tiny improvement; nevertheless, it would be quite real to him.

He might just want to handle it so that when he wakes up in the morning he doesn’t have an agonizing feeling that something horrible is going to happen if he gets out of bed — and maybe he doesn’t even expect that feeling to completely disappear, but hopes it will diminish.

These would be real gains to him, and he would be very happy with them. The funny thing is, the gains he will actually experience will, in most cases, greatly exceed expectations.

Here are the procedures you can use to accomplish this:

1. Find Something That Isn’t Being a Threat

When a person gets too upset or confused, one can have him look around his environment and find something that isn’t being a threat to him. Carry on doing this until the person is very happy or relieved and has had a realization about himself, the environment or life in general.

A person can also use this technique directly on himself. For example, an individual can be in his office and very worried about something. He may be sitting at his desk with papers piling up. Everything seems to be in a high uproar, and he feels completely overwhelmed. The person himself ought to be able to look at the papers on his desk (the source of the threat) and find something about them that is not a threat. By making such a discovery, the threat will balance out.

2. Don’t Read the Newspaper

This is very simple. Tell the person, “Don’t read the newspapers for two weeks and see if you don’t feel better.”

If he doesn’t read the newspapers for two weeks, of course he will feel better.

Then tell him, “Now read the newspaper for a week, and at the end of that week you will find you feel worse. Then make up your mind whether or not you ought to pay any attention to the newspapers.”

This could be proposed to the person as a simple experiment. It isn’t even an expensive experiment — as a matter of fact, it is cheaper not to buy newspapers than to buy them.

This is a simple action, but a very effective one which can markedly change a person’s outlook on life.

3. Take a Walk

Another way of having a person look at the environment and discover that it isn’t so threatening is a technique called “Take a Walk.” If a person feels bad, have him take a walk and look at things as he walks.

The effort here is just to get the individual to inspect the environment and find out that there is some slightly greater security in it. One just wants the person to look and find out if the environment is as threatening as it appears to be.

“Take a walk and look at things” is the mildest advice that you could possibly give anybody, and is almost certain to produce a result if the person will do it. It is quite effective.