Fear
What is it? How does it affect us? How do we deal with it?
Fear can have a very major negative effect and control on our lives. Our society conditions us to hide from or avoid our fear. Instead of feeling the pain and attempting to identify its causes, we bury our fears deep and avoid dealing with them.
Fear in our society
Fear can be a weapon of social control used to manipulate thoughts and actions without people even realizing it.
John B. Watson, an American psychologist who established the psychological school of behaviorism, stated, “The driving force in society is not love, it’s fear.”
What is fear?
Common acronyms for fear (F.E.A.R.) are:
F = False
E = Events or Evidence or Expectations
A = Appearing
R = Real
In his article, ‘Practical and Actionable Ideas to Help You Overcome Your Fears, Adam Sickinski states:
Our fears are in fact irrational beliefs that we have about ourselves, our actions, objects, other people or events. These fears only appear to be real within the recesses of our minds, however, they have absolutely no basis in reality. They are in some respects made-up interpretations that we make about things within the physical world.
Our fears are debilitating things that rob us of our energy, our dreams, and our opportunity for redemption. They are very much like rubber bands flinging us back and forth into our comfort zones the moment we try and expand the possibilities.
Our fears are indeed horrible figments of our imaginations, much like dreams — seemingly real, yet completely fictional occurrences taking shape within the recesses of our minds.
Fight or Flight
Walter Cannon first described our fight-or-flight response (hyperarousal or the acute stress response) in the 1920s as a physiological reaction that responds to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival.
The voice of fear is hard-wired into our reptilian brain and involves one of our most basic instinctual mechanisms. This response has evolved over millions of years and can provide us with intense bursts of energy.
A lot of our actions, or reactions, are played out unconsciously. We make many of our decisions without much thought as to why we are making them. We feel an emotion or an urge and accept it and obey it, never really questioning why it’s there.
A few common types of fears?
- The Fear of Rejection is a fear of people. We go through our lives always seeking to please others.
- Fear of Failure involves a fear of being judged or making mistakes
- The Fear of Success may be the most common fear in our society today. We get so cozy with things that pushing ourselves into unfamiliar situations can create a lot of doubt and anxiety.
The above three significant fears result in many other feelings such as inadequacy, commitment, change, responsibility, confrontation, and losing control.
The Consequences of Our Fears
There are several critical consequences of our fears. Paraphrasing excerpts from ‘Practical and Actionable Ideas to Help You Overcome Your Fears’ by Adam Sickinsi:
- Fear breeds resistance that pulls you away from opportunities and back into your comfort zone
- Fear breeds the habit of insecurity which is a lack of confidence that we feel about our abilities
- Fear breeds destructive behaviors that sabotage us from moving forward with our lives in a proactive manner
- Fear robs us of our motivation by creating insurmountable irrational obstacles
- Fear stifles emotional and intellectual growth which can only happen if we move beyond our comfort zone and into the world of new experiences
- Fear costs us big time!
- Unrestrained fear destroys trust, relationships, and love
When controlled by fear, we are easily overwhelmed. Sometimes it mentally paralyzes us. We are easily controlled and manipulated by thinking only about surviving perceived threats.
It is essential to make an effort to understand the real reasons that we are afraid. To work through them and overcome the fear.
Fear is addictive
The more we focus on the negative, the worse we feel, and the worse we feel, the more we feel compelled to search for what’s wrong. Once fear is triggered, we keep coming back for more.
What are some Fear Conquering Tactics?
Final quotes and paraphrasing from ‘Practical and Actionable Ideas to Help You Overcome Your Fears’ by Adam Sickinsi, the steps involved in Questioning Your Fears are as follows:
(1) Validate Your Fears
(2) Understand Your Fears
(3) Determine the Consequences of Your Fears; and
(4) Plan in a rational, proactive manner to overcome your fears
The frequency of fear
Fear is very dense, thick, slow, solid, and low vibration. It makes us feel unsafe, threatened, separated, and disconnected. It can stunt our emotional growth and progress by blocking our interaction with our inner spirit and promoting a lack of harmony with the Creator.
The vibration of fear creates disharmony. A person who vibrates fear will draw others into their lives who are also vibrating fear.
The frequency of fear can cause mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual bondage. It can also significantly reduce our ability to expand our consciousness and raise our vibration or frequency.
Experiencing the lower vibration of fear can result in feelings such as anger, resentment, hate, jealousy, greed, etc. The high vibration of love involves feelings of peace, joy, happiness, kindness, compassion, caring, charity, etc.
Which group sounds better for your life and well-being?
Fear versus Abundance
Fear includes a belief that there is a lack or scarcity of resources and love. The universe always sends a constant flow of abundance to us, but we create barriers to receiving it. Our thoughts, beliefs, and lack of self-worth can block this flow. We are responsible for removing the blockages that halt the flow of abundance.
Chose Love over Fear
Essentially, our choices can be traced back to two opposite sources: Love or Fear.
When our actions are rooted in love, we come from a place of spiritual fullness and self-security. When our actions are rooted in fear, we come from a place of separation and lack.
Living in constant fear is toxic to our energy field. It drains us and keeps us from being our best selves. Fear, anxiety, and insecurity are intertwined. Establishing safety within ourselves helps us heal our mental and emotional bodies and overcome deep worries.
Bringing compassion and mindfulness directly to the experience of fear will help dissolve it. Love makes you brave and has one of the highest frequencies or vibrations, which helps us with our spiritual ascension.
Following are some of the many enlightening contrasts, provided in a Tiny Buddha post by Sarah Nean Bruce, entitled ‘LOVE Versus Fear’:
LOVE IS UNCONDITIONAL (fear is conditional)
LOVE RELEASES (fear obligates)
LOVE SURRENDERS (fear binds)
LOVE TRUSTS (fear suspects)
LOVE GIVES (fear resists)
LOVE FORGIVES (fear blames)
LOVE HEALS (fear hurts)
LOVE FREES (fear imprisons)
LOVE ACCEPTS (fear rejects)
LOVE ENJOYS (fear suffers)
References: http://blog.iqmatrix.com/overcome-your-fears; https://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-whetten/the-gift-of-gratitude_b_7418496.html; https://tinybuddha.com/blog/love-versus-fear/
