Matt's Audio Letter of the Week

Hey everyone, welcome to this edition of the FBL, or the Feel Better Letter.

This is Matt.

Today, I want to talk about a unique phenomenon or a belief that I've noticed really stands in the way of people getting better when it comes to fear.

Once you've really acknowledged to yourself that fear is something that can be overcome—not managed, not coped with, and not something you have to live with, but actually overcome and transcended—you can learn how to live from states of peace and trust. You can learn how to bring that into your life.

But just because it is a reality you can obtain doesn't mean that it will automatically come into your life, especially if you keep doing all of the compulsions, resisting, and engaging in all the things that keep this loop going.

Obviously, I've dedicated a long portion of my life to helping people navigate that path. I've had thousands of conversations with people over the years, and I think this week I was able to put something into words that I wanted to share with everyone.

There's this phenomenon in psychology called loss aversion.

Basically, human beings are more motivated by the fear of loss than they are by the potential for gain.

For instance, if we did something where I flipped a coin and, if it landed on tails, you gave me $100, but if it landed on heads, I gave you $100, the pain of giving away $100 would be greater than the pleasure of winning $100.

They've found that you need roughly double the reward to counteract the pain of loss. Meaning, a person would have to win $200 to feel the same positive emotion as the negative emotion they'd experience from losing $100.

They've also studied this with PGA golfers. They've found that golfers miss more putts for birdie from the same distance than they do for par. This indicates that when they're trying to gain a stroke in a tournament, they actually perform worse than when they're trying to avoid losing a stroke or getting a bogey.

When it comes to fear, I think what happens is that so many people have lived in fear for so long—because it's been embedded in part of their existence, oftentimes since childhood—that they don't really believe they can get better.

That's one thing I've noticed. They think that intellectually they understand the idea. They think, "Okay, yeah, you do ERP, and you kind of just manage and cope with this. This is what it is."

So they don't believe in a real positive outcome that can occur. They never really pursue it. They do things to mitigate and manage their fear, and they give half-hearted attempts. The pursuit of real recovery is not something I think everyone shares, based on what I've learned.

I think part of it is that maybe you've tried things and haven't gotten the results you wanted. You've read things, people have told you things, and you've adopted beliefs that other people have had.

I don't know exactly what it is, but I know there's a shared belief among the masses that recovery isn't actually about living in peace and trust. It's about managing and coping. And because you're managing and coping, this is the best that's available.

And I just want to say, my gosh, is that not true?

I want to debunk that idea really quickly.

There is, when you understand the levels of consciousness and the planes of existence, an option and an opportunity in life available to you. If you're willing to do the work of letting go of whatever needs to be let go of for you to obtain it, there's something available that is nothing like your mind could imagine, especially in a state of fear.

That's the first thing I want to say today.

The second thing is loss aversion. What I've found is that the mind convinces you that investing or getting help in any way is a bigger risk than not getting it.

Because if you try something and it doesn't work, then you lost. And that loss aversion toward the investment, the money, or whatever it might be becomes more painful than the potential gain.

The loss aversion phenomenon is very real. It doesn't mean it's true by any means. It just means that's some kind of inner wiring.

Now, what I've found is that most people don't use the loss aversion phenomenon in their favor. They use it specifically with financial resources.

So if I pay for a therapy session with somebody, all of a sudden it's like, "If it doesn't go exactly how I want, then I lost."

And it's like, no. In order to work on yourself, grow, and heal, you're going to need to put forth time, energy, and resources into yourself.

If you were going to do it on your own, you would have to figure all of that out yourself. You're going to need guidance from people. It's just what it is.

You can't objectively see yourself because your emotions, your beliefs, and all of that stuff block you from really seeing yourself.

Now, you can obviously learn how to do things. You can learn how to release, and you can learn how to do these things on your own. Of course. A big part of this work is everything you do outside of these sessions.

But to think that you're just going to figure it all out on your own is, in my experience, just not right.

To use the loss aversion phenomenon in your favor, the reality is that what you really need to look at is time. You need to understand time as the most valuable asset that you have in this world because it is truly the most finite resource you have.

Every second and every day that goes by, the amount of time you have moving forward lessens.

So it's a diminishing asset.

Now, when you understand the idea that time is something you invest in things, and more importantly, when you're living in fear, fear is taking your present awareness out of the moment, right?

Because you're either ruminating about the past or the future.

When you're in fear, you go into your mind. And when you're in your mind, you're not really there in your life. You're not really present.

That's what I'm talking about. Presence is actually something you can achieve. And presence is actually what living life is. It's being fully there.

Like, if Christmas morning is coming up and you have kids or family, and you're ruminating while they're doing something, you aren't really present, right?

People used to say this to me when I would ruminate. They'd say, "Well, where are you? What's going on?"

And I wasn't there. I was in my mind. My body was physically there, but my attention and energy—the best things I could give to people—were not there.

When fear hijacks your mind, you're not really there because you're in fear, worrying about something other than what's really going on.

To use loss aversion in your favor, in a way that's actually going to help you get help, it's important to take the loss aversion phenomenon and look at time and time loss.

Because once you look at how much time you've given to fear, how much time you've spent ruminating, how much time you've spent doing compulsions, and how much time fear has taken from you, you begin to see the value of confronting fear very clearly.

I can't even add up the amount of time I've lost to fear in my life, which is why I have such a strong allergy and aversion to giving it any space in my life.

I just want to present that idea because if you've been dealing with fear, rumination, panic, fear of fear, intrusive thoughts, or any of this stuff for any length of time, I want you to look at that time and understand its value.

The time-loss aversion versus looking at loss aversion and using it in your favor to help yourself, rather than using it as a block, is an amazing asset that will really help you if you embrace what I'm saying.

Now, obviously, this may trigger you. You may think that I'm saying, "Look, get whatever guidance you want in life."

I'm not saying that you need to work with me or our team.

Do I think we're an amazing option? Absolutely. Have we walked enough people through this that we know the path very well, understand how to do this, and understand how to help people overcome this? Absolutely.

But do whatever feels good for you. Not addressing this and making the decision not to decide because of a fear of loss isn't actually helping you because you're still engaging in time loss.

And that's just something I really want to emphasize and point out today, in the hopes that you see it and take action in whatever way feels good.

If you want to work with us, great. I have the links down in the notes. If you want to pursue something else, all good too.

But pursue something that's going to help you.

You can't keep doing what you're doing and expect something is just going to change.

So this is all about using loss aversion to your advantage, as opposed to letting it become a block.