Are We Security Addicts?

by Mariana Bozesan

The latest neuro-scientific research performed by Princeton professor Kahneman and the late Stanford professor Tversky indicates that at our core we are irrationally risk averse. The fear of losing something feels twice as bad as gaining the same thing feels good.

However, our security wounds are nothing else but fear and with brain imaging technology, we can show physiologically that our pain avoidance tendency is deeply ingrained in the seat of our emotions, the limbic circuit in the brain (Kolb & Whishaw, 2003). Not only that, but according to Shiv & Knutson of Stanford University we have only now begun to understand how emotions are influencing our decision making process.
Meanwhile, what can give us an ultimate sense of security? How can we avoid being manipulated by the fear-based products and services that overwhelm us every day?
What makes us feel more secure is probably different for everybody. However, I believe that we can only heal what we are aware of and that our security wounds can best be made visible through our relationship with money. In general, it would be fair to assume that for most people, financial abundance would give them the feeling of more security through power, a heightened sense of protection, more insurances, firewalls, homeland security, and so on. Yet, the subject of money is an emotionally charged subject in our society. While we believe that money would make us feel more secure, talking about money brings one of two reactions in people: (a) either it is very positive and they get really excited about it wanting to discuss ways to improve their financial situation, or (b) the opposite is the case and they would rather talk about their sexual lives than their finances. Many people hate it, find money evil, suspect, and want to avoid the topic at all cost. The result often shows up in these people’s lives as poverty, addictions to food, alcohol or drugs, lack of meaning, wars, and, of course, as security wounds.
This could be the reason why money has become one of the most treasured, if not the most important, driving force in human life, the world economy, and politics. We have forgotten that money is a human invention made to serve us. Instead, we have arrived at a point in human history where we are enslaved by it. Because we misunderstand it, we mistake money as a source of absolute power, security, and authority., Money has become the measure for our competence and worth as people, which according to Lynne Twist, the author of The Soul of Money, money rarely provides a “place of genuine freedom, joy, or clarity.” Through our collective unconscious behavior, we have elevated money to an almost divine-like status that seems to make us sometimes lose our most sacred values, up to the point of self-destruction.

Why is money emotionally loaded?
Money is an emotionally loaded issue for most of us, because we link it to a greater sense of security. The reasons for that are manifold and can be social, cultural, psychological, spiritual, and evolutionary, as indicated by brain research. However, the truth is that money, like time, is a human invention and does not really have any meaning other than the one we attach to it. Money is a means to exchange value between people and we all know that the value of things can be very flexible. In the desert, for instance, water can be more valuable than diamonds and during war or natural calamities food is more valuable than gold. Knowing all this, we can begin to relax and become more creative about our sense of security and financial matters in general. In his book Your Money & Your Brain, Jason Zweig argued, “You will never maximize your wealth unless you can optimize your mind.” This analysis is backed up not only by the latest neuro scientific research but also by the wisdom traditions of the past four thousand years. In fact, neuro-scientist Beauregard from the University of Montreal confirmed in his book The Spiritual Brain that true security is an illusion because the feeling associated with it comes from learning how to optimize our minds and by moving to higher levels of consciousness through meditation, contemplation, and prayer.
They key to heal our security wounds is only one conscious decision away. It is the decision to free ourselves from the manipulation by the media, collective fear, our peer group, and the financial gain of a few. How can we do that?
In explaining how it is possible for the human body to orchestrate the perfect coordination of the 100 trillion cells in our bodies, cellular biologist and author of The Biology of Belief, Bruce Lipton, asserts that our subconscious mind is about 500.000 times more powerful than the conscious mind. The subconscious mind is able to processes about 20 Million stimuli per second compared to only 40 stimuli acted upon by our conscious mind during the same second.
It is true that our desire for security is driven by our desire to avoid pain, which is deeply ingrained in our subconscious mind. However, as we have seen the subconscious mind is greatly influenced by our conscious mind. This becomes obvious when we look at how we learn how to drive a car, speak a new language, master an instrument, or become proficient in any sport. In the beginning, we struggle at a conscious level, but through practice, the much more powerful subconscious mind takes over and everything becomes automatic so we can focus on learning something new. Understanding how we can intentionally influence our emotions through the mind is the key to our ultimate freedom.
A survey of 800 people with a net worth of more than $500,000 revealed that 19% of them worry about money. What was more fascinating is that among the people with a net worth of more than $10 million, 33% percent worried about money. Moreover, we would suspect that more abundance would make us feel not only more secure but also happier. However, a research performed by the General Social Survey in the Unites States in the early 1970s indicates that 34% of people perceived themselves as “very happy.” By the late 1990s, the figure had dropped to 30% although the income nearly tripled after inflation adjustment in the same period.
What we learn from this is that most people live in fear when it comes to a sense of security or money. The reason for that must be searched in the way we think because only human beings have a notion of security that can be acquired withy money. No other sentient being on this planet lacks either one nor the other.
How Can We Leave this Trap?
Many of us think that there is not enough for everybody to go around on this planet. The opposite is true. There is an extraordinary amount of money and wealth available on this planet, but only a few people have it. We could all be financially secure, if we only wanted it bad enough and deep down at the level of our souls. In her book, The Soul of Money, Lynne Twist argued, “scarcity is a lie” because if it wasn’t, Twist said, then wealthy people would not live in fear of losing their wealth, but they do. Emotionally, there is no difference between wealthy people and poor people, because both of them suffer from the same fear, namely that of being poor. If we live in fear and lack a sense of security, we lack deeper values in life. We mistake the symbol of security, for instance money, for reality. Money is money and not security. How is it possible that we assign pieces of paper with diseased people on them a higher meaning than our own ability to create an abundance of everything we desire including joy and happiness?
When we buy anything that promises us security, we must become aware that in truth what we are actually buying is a feeling, the feeling of security. This is a trap in which we must not fall.
Security is an Illusion
Remember a time when you were deeply in love, did you worry about security, firewalls, or theft? Deep down, we all know that our feelings are not connected to any security nor wealth for that matter. We create these feelings by the way we think and the associations we make in our heads. Thus, feeling secure is only one decision away. The decision to trust ourselves and to have faith in life. If you didn’t trust that the roof over your head is secure, you would not read these lines, let alone think about the meaning of life. Thus allowing others to manipulate us through their own fear is entirely under our own control.
Based on our upbringing, peer group and social conditioning, we often don’t see ourselves as rich and wealthy, but poor and financially struggling. In order to change our identity around wealth we need to realize that those of us who are fortunate enough to live in the free world, are already wealthy.
The gift of life and the gratitude for it could be enough for all of us to feel secure, wealthy, and abundant already. One of the richest men on the planet, Sir John Templeton, told us the secret to investing is asset allocation, however, the secret to absolute wealth is gratitude for what we already have. That is the premise for building absolute wealth beyond our wildest dreams. Interestingly enough, the word desire comes from the Latin desidere, which means of the star. In other words, our wishes are initiated on a different plane of reality and the plan for their fulfillment comes already delivered with the wish itself.
Thus, security is an illusion. True security is a state of mind. My dear friend and mentor of more than two decades, Tony Robbins, drives this point home succinctly when he says, “If you want security, go to prison, but if you want to be free, step up.”

Download the German article co-authored with Patricia von Papstein PDF file here.