Allow Me To Introduce My Friend Fear
But he’s not exactly my friend anymore
I grew up understanding that fear is different from me. It was something I had, like a disease. I was told it was something to overcome or get over. I learned that emotions and feelings like this are separate from me. It took a while, but I now know this perception is garbage.
When I was young, up to about five years old, I did not talk. This was confirmed in my conversation with my mother some time ago. I remember going to a Psychologist around that period, and my mother told me the reasons for it. The reason came down to fear.
This fear was specific as it revolved around my father. My father was young himself at the time. He was known as being an angry and frustrated person. His demonstration method was yelling and peppering his language with unique and colourful words. At that age, a child’s brain is not developed enough to judge real threats; all threats at that age are equal and bad. That environment was enough for my brain to figure out some defence against the onslaught of yelling and negativity. My mind’s primary choice was to shut down emotionally and go silent running. This is a freeze response: if you are quiet enough and do not move, you may not be noticed and not subject to that kind of foul energy directed at you.
Essentially, I ended up being fear-trained. My mind and body responded accordingly, doing their best to protect me. I am very grateful for how my mind learned, changed, and adapted to its environment, even in an unhealthy and stressful environment. What was not apparent then was the actual damage it caused within myself.
Fear became the locus point around which my life grew. Even today, the magnitude of that fear and how it permeated everything is mind-blowing. Not only did it drive positive actions, but it also negatively affected other things. A double-edged sword I had to learn to wield.
A significant example of that is that I carried with me a horrible sense of intimidation. Fear of being intimidated and being seen as weak drove my behaviours of personal achievement and my fear of others. My mind would not allow myself to suffer as a victim and would use all the great ego defensive mechanisms to keep those feelings away from my core. My mind did that for me seamlessly. I grew up fully embracing my mind; it was my defence and weapon that protected me at all costs. That was my dragon and my best friend.
My journey from that experience took me further into the world of fear. With that long journey, I can now narrow down and define fear as deeply embedded in the human psyche. It arises from our mind’s conditioning, or trauma, and its tendency to project itself into the future to stay in prediction/protection mode. Fear is a product of thought buried in our collection of past experiences, memories, and knowledge. This fear comes alive when our mind foresees potential threats or dangers, often based on past experiences and conditioning. This may seem like a dry definition, but it is my best logical answer.
Fear is an integral part of human existence, often deciding our actions, thoughts, and overall way of being. It is a powerful emotion that shapes our experiences and world perception. The only way to understand it is to walk that long, dark tunnel and confront it face-to-face.
Where Does Fear Come From?
Fear comes from the mind’s tendency to project itself into the future, anticipating potential threats or dangers. This outward projection results from our conditioning, accumulated experiences, memories, and knowledge that help shape our responses. When faced with uncertainty, our mind, drawing from these past experiences, creates scenarios that evoke fear.
The question is, why? Those experiences and memories make up what we call the ‘Self’. This ‘Self’ is a construct of many different pieces, all working together in a complex way. This interaction is consciousness, and this action gives rise to our sense of identity. The ego, the ‘Self’, has a job to help us survive, but that process can go into overdrive.
When operating smoothly, the ego alerts us to danger. This reaction is a type of fear that results in full attention to the mind. This means all your senses are fully active, and your monkey mind is quiet. This allows you to judge threats and determine the appropriate action to avoid them. It keeps us safe.
The real problem arises because the mind cannot know the unknown. Our mind is only made up of memories. Knowledge and language are also a part of this, both being memories. Because the future has not happened yet, the mind cannot process something unknown yet and thus starts to create stories, particularly if the mind feels heavily insecure. It is this projection of the unknown that causes serious psychological issues beyond the routine keeping safe process. Look into yourselves and see how this process permeates unknown things.
Observing Fear
Seeing your fear is difficult and painful at times; to run from it only makes it chase you harder, and going fear-hunting in the mind is just as painful. To see the entirety of fear, it has to be looked at with no motive from you. It must be seen for what it is with absolutely no judgements. It must be seen with no intention to move away from it.
I am not describing some method to do this by any means, but only stating that I should be fully attentive to the nature of fear. That necessitates a quiet mind, no monkey mind chattering in the background. It means we must be open to understanding our conditioning and triggers. It means we need to realise that this fear is not something separate from ourselves but is us. We must accept that we are fear; it is a part of us, not some object or thing we can hold or drop. It is not ‘I have fear’ but ‘I am fear’.
I will not say this process is easy because it is not. For example, it is not called ‘fear’ when fear first arises. I am slowing this process down, so bear with me. When fear arises, it is without label and exists in its pure emotional energy state. It gets to specific points in the mind where the mind looks at it and starts to identify and compare it to its memory base; this happens quickly. But there is a pause, a moment that is an opening. That opening means we can promptly process the energy for what it is, which means it can flow through the body efficiently. Otherwise, we end up labelling it, making up a story, or starting some whole new process that may be unhealthy.
I hope I am being clear about this. We can either make up stories and follow our default network reactions, which are a result of our fear-learning, or we can take a new path and create new mind connections to deal with it. A mind that can be attentive and realise that the future cannot be known would be in a great position to see fear for what it is. Still, others may need more help, as the damage caused by fear-learning can sometimes be very difficult to deal with alone.
Fear Needs Security
Over time, I have noticed that fear is a desire for security and safety. I see the need for stability, certainty, and comfort, and when these are somehow threatened, fear pops right up. Pursuing this security often leads to greater insecurity, as the future is inherently unknowable. Absolute security can only be found in the present moment by accepting what is rather than pursuing what might be.
I see this idea and belief in myself as being secure and safe. It is natural and normal to want that, but I must ask why. Is not the idea of security some hope that is nothing more than a thought? The concepts of wanting and hoping are functions of the ego, and our minds create illusions of something unreal. It is possible to make those illusions become our reality, but with closer examination, it is still nothing but thought, which is not authentic by any means.
I do not pursue security, as I am learning to accept ‘what is’ more and more. I see this pursuit in others, though. One thing I see is that everything changes, and everything is impermanent. That thought, which is fact, is very profound if we let it sink in. One point I am reminded of with this is that we all will perish and lose everything we know at that time. Life was going on before we appeared and will continue after we are gone, with no tears. Think about that.
That fact alone should keep us grounded in the now and help us appreciate life and the ones we love even more. It’s temporary.
The Problem of the ‘Self’ and Fear
Another thing I see about fear is this attachment to ‘self’, the ego. The fear of losing one’s identity, status, or possessions is rooted in this attachment and is so profoundly anchored it is hard to see the truth in it. It took me a long time to see that the ‘self’ is nothing more than a construct of thought, constantly changing and evolving. By seeing that movement and understanding it, the grip of fear starts to be released. The ‘self’ is not a static entity, as many may think, but is a highly dynamic process, and recognising this extraordinary fluidity can go a long way to alleviate fears of loss.
This ‘self’ constantly seeks continuity and security. The problem is that this entity we call ‘self’ is fully rooted in the past with all its memories and experiences. It cannot predict any such future events. After all, the mind only knows what it knows, no matter how complicated or sophisticated the mind thinks it is. It is stuck in a box, our skull, and cannot predict or see the future. It does nothing but use past images and then create stories about what may happen. Does that not sound odd to you?
Fear Fears Death
Fear is closely related to the fear of death. Death, as we know it, is certain, and that end of what is known creates this profound sense of fear within us. I need to be very clear, though, that the fear of death has nothing to do with the unknown. Our minds are incapable of knowing the unknown, so the fear of losing what is known is the issue here. If we do not accept that there is nothing in life that is permanent and that the cycle of birth and death is entirely natural, then fear will continue to haunt our being.
The ego, or the ‘self’, is terrified of not existing, even though it is a construct of many pieces. This entity in our heads has coalesced into thinking it is a single and permanent thing that will continue forever, even being reincarnated. The thought of losing our identity, which is security, scares many, but we must understand that this ‘self’ is purely thought and nothing more.
I think about death myself, and I fully understand that it will be the end of thought, period. I also know that I am part of the interconnectedness of things, and to maintain some egotistical thought that I am individually important on some planet that is more insignificant than a grain of sand on the beach is absurd to me.
Falling Back Into Awareness
When I think about it, to be free from fear, we need to create a state of inner silence and awareness within ourselves. Once our minds are quiet, this state of being will let us observe fear without becoming stuck in it, to see it as it is without the fog of past conditioning. It’s when we allow ourselves to fall back into awareness that this fear can be seen, understood, and diminished, if not dissolved.
There is no other way to deal with fear. Running from it will not work, as it does nothing but reinforce it, and it just makes us weaker. Going after it probably will not work either, as that would be like charging a sleeping dragon, where you may get more than you bargained for.
Be kind to yourself, and really sit with it and understand how it was constructed and where it originated from. This could take time, but it is really worth it.
There Is a Way Out
Fear, no matter how we feel about it, is nothing but thought; it is a construct of our learned conditioning. Investing time in yourself to observe this process without any judgments allows us to live a fuller life. Listening to the fear and following it back to its roots will allow us to transcend this feeling.
The process of entering fear is not easy. It requires patience, dedicated self-inquiry, and an honest commitment to understanding the nature of the mind and how it influences our daily lives.
We do not have to live in fear at all.
