Fighting Fear with Fire (or, “Fuck Fear”)
By Brianna Valleskey

I came incredibly close to turning down an opportunity last month because I was afraid of change. Afraid of the unknown; afraid of failure or — more interestingly — afraid of unbelievable success.
Eventually and after much deliberation, I did accept the offer. But the entire situation has led me to one very important conclusion:
Fuck fear.
No, seriously; fuck fear. It’s what keeps us stagnant — in bad jobs, in crappy relationships, in habits we know are unhealthy and in toxic states of mind.
It wasn’t always this way. Fear and the fight-or-flight stress response were originally designed as mechanisms for keeping us alive. They would get us out of immediate, short-term, life-threatening situations that our ancestors from thousands of years ago dealt with every day.
“Fear is the oldest and strongest emotion known to man, something deeply inscribed in our nervous system and subconscious,” writes Robert Greene in The 50th Law of Power, a book about fearlessness he crafted in collaboration with rapper 50 Cent.
Most modern humans don’t deal with life-or-death situations on a daily basis. But that doesn’t stop us from drumming up limitless things to be stressed about.
In nature, fear is still a practical response to stressful events. As neuroendocrinologist Robert Sapolsky explains in his book, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, the most upsetting thing animals deal with are severe physical crises: A zebra that gets attacked by a lion must use the flight mechanism to escape and evade being eaten. That lion has to sprint after the zebra and fight in order to avoid starving.
Most modern humans don’t deal with life-or-death situations on a daily basis. But that doesn’t stop us from drumming up limitless things to be stressed about: mortgages, public speaking, relationships, jobs, taxes, physical appearance, missing out, failure … the list goes on.
“Instead of a simple, intense fear of something powerful and real, we developed a kind of generalized anxiety,” Greene writes. “It was as if the thousands of years of feeling fear in the fact of nature could not go away — we had to find something at which to direct our anxiety, no matter how small or improbable.”
Wrestling with the F-Word
I can relate. My brain is incredibly adept at stressing over cardio, calories, cuticles, clothes, credit cards, opportunities, deadlines, office politics, pleasing other people, projects, being a good friend, being a great partner, bikinis, bills, not getting enough sleep, not getting out of bed.
Writing essays that actually mean something. Fulfilling my existential purpose on planet Earth.
(That last one is a doozy.) Anyway.
Originally meant to keep us alive, this primal emotion has become deceptive: It disguises itself in a number of cunning ways so that we often don’t even realize we’re experiencing it.
“Stress and fear are basically the same,” explains Mary Poffenroth, university biology lecturer and badass fear scientist, in an episode of the Ologies podcast. “In Western society … we feel confident talking about stress because we can commiserate. But we don’t feel confident talking about the ‘f-word,’ because there’s so much shame associated with fear in our society.”
It’s not just stress. Poffenroth has identified an entire wheel of emotions like panic, terror, rejection, insecurity, and worthlessness that are all just forms of fear.
She also helpfully articulates the difference between factual and fictional fear. Here’s a chart I made about it …

Yep. Fictional fears are the everyday stressors we experience that don’t threaten our survival. All of them. In the podcast episode, Poffenroth explains that while a good fiction book might have a nugget of truth, it’s mostly made up. Fictional fears are the same.
That’s not to say that the emotion you experience isn’t real. Trust me: I’m very familiar with how painful, important and immediate these fictional fears can and do feel. What I am saying is that we can fight them.
“We are all too afraid — of offending people, of stirring up conflict, of standing out from the crowd, of taking bold action,” Greene writes in his book. “We can let go of this fear.”
We can. But more importantly, we must. Our very lives depend on it.
Why We Must Fight
As the research in Sapolsky’s book details, repeatedly activating your stress response (or never turning it off) can become damaging to your physical and emotional health. Not only does stress increase your risk of contracting a disease, but it decreases the risk of your body being able to defend against any you already have.
“And if you experience every day as an emergency, you will pay the price,” Sapolsky writes.
Constant fear also prohibits our cognitive abilities. In the Ologies podcast, Poffenroth describes how when you feel a stress response or fear response, your cerebral cortex (where the higher thinking happens) just shuts down. That explains why you feel like you can’t think effectively during times of frequent or intense anxiety. Or why I spend an hour deciding what to wear before a stressful work event (and I always end up with what I started in any way).
And ultimately, fear denies us the destiny-like desires buried deep within our souls. We all have ambitions and large goals for ourselves, Green explains in his book, but we’re either waiting for some perfect moment in the future to go after them (giving in to fear), or we’re taking action in the present, right now, to bring them to life (fighting fear).
I could have given in to fear, stayed at my current job and coasted in the comfort of familiarity. But this new role brings me closer to my goals and life mission. This is why we must fight.
Fighting Fear with Fire
Fortunately, fear is not as insurmountable as it seems. Poffenroth shares a three-step method for specifically dealing with fear on the podcast…
- Recognize what’s going on in your head. Examine your emotions and acknowledge that something isn’t right with you at this moment.
- Identify what exactly it is that you’re feeling. Doubt? Overwhelm? Alone? Insignificant? Anxious? Name it to claim it.
- Address your fear. Is it something you can control? Then figure out what you need to do to fix it. Is it something out of your control? Then let that fear go. Tell yourself you’re not going to worry about it because worrying doesn’t help. Replace it with another idea, thought or feeling. Take ownership of your mental state.
Another thing I found extremely enlightening in the Ologies episode (thanks Alie Ward!) is when Poffenroth explained that all of our fictional fears come down to two basic concerns:
- I’m not good enough
- I’m not in control
“Holy shit,” I said to no one in particular after hearing that. It makes so much sense. Look at it this way …

Crazy, right? When you drill all of those fictional fears down, they’re really quite simple.
“There is power in naming things. Throughout storytelling and mythology — pop culture, Beetlejuice, Rumpelstiltskin — that if you know the name of the demon, you can control it,” Poffenroth explains. “When you start to name it, sometimes that can short-circuit the fear response, in and of itself. You realize you’re experiencing the psychological effects of something that just set you off.”
Of course, it’s not always that easy. And you’re not going to be able to fend off every single fear, anxiety, and stressor that pops into your head all the time every day.
But Poffenroth’s recommendation is to be choosy about what you’re going to let yourself get worked up about. Each of us has only a certain amount of stress we can handle on any given day, so don’t let the jackass on your morning commute suck up all your reserves when you could be channeling that energy to something with a better return on investment.
And if all else fails, remember this …
Physical Reality < Mental State
What’s actually happening around you matters much less than how you interpret and react to it.
“When you are fearful, force yourself to act in a bolder fashion than usual,” Greene writes, in what has become my favorite piece of advice from his book. “A bold act put people on their heels and eliminate obstacles.”
I read those words and realized that I had to accept this opportunity because it was what I knew in my heart was right for me. That required setting aside my fears that I was moving too quickly, making the wrong decision, letting people down, or missing out on something else.
Because even if any of those fears do turn out to be true, they certainly won’t kill me. And I’m confident that I’ll be able to figure it out.
And that, I think, is the root of fearlessness — recognizing that as long as something won’t kill you, it’s not worth killing yourself over. Or at least that’s what works for me.
So, whatever your method is fellow humans, go forth and be fearless.
Medium is where I muse and brood. Visit www.braveink.co to find my full collection of fearless thoughts.
