Fear and Anxiety

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What is the meaning of fear?

Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, threatening or a potential source of pain.

What is doubt?

Doubt is a feeling of uncertainty.

What do fear and doubt have in common?

They are both feelings. Feelings can be fleeting and reactive to not only our immediate circumstances, but triggered by past experiences, or familiarity with negative outcomes.

The very definitions of fear and doubt cast concern over whether or not these feelings are reliable enough to guide us. In fact, fear is usually considered a subjunctive mood. Now, go with me here, I’m not trying to get too technical, but subjunctive forms of verbs are normally used to show various states of unreality. They are wishes, emotions, possibilities, opinions, or actions that have not yet occurred. The very nature of fear rests in the future. Things that have not yet happened.

Sounds an awful lot like Anxiety, doesn’t it?

Is Fear a Reliable Guide?

Our brains are programmed to learn, from people, from experiences, from traditional books or teacher-student relationships. But when we experience negative outcomes from a situation or around a certain type of person, we develop triggers, psychological blocks and neural pathways that lead us back to a feeling of fear or doubt whenever we consider repeating an experience or giving in to a person.

Not every experience or person is the same, though. Which is why our fears sometimes mislead us. We train ourselves to expect negative things to come from repeated negative experiences, even if the situations or people are different.

This is somewhat to be expected. As a kid, if we touch a hot stove or hot pot on a stove, we experience pain and move forward with the knowledge that we need to be careful around cooking implements. The same process is applied to life experiences.

Anxiety, or a lack of control over our fears, is a prime example of our brain’s ability to override rational, pragmatism in favor of our established pathways. Our personalities and experiences can cloud our judgment.

This is very common in people suffering from PTSD. Trauma, long-term conflict, certain types of behaviors can take a normal life situation and wrap it in a custom-made fear gauze that feels like a bandage to help heal a wound, but it can also cause a constriction that prevents you from engaging with the world without increased fear.

How can fear control your actions?

Fear overestimates the benefits of protective measures. As much we feel a sense of control by risk taking when we are first allowed to go out and experience the world, after we get hurt, we experience that same sense of control by putting up too many protective measures. We don’t get exposed to ‘risks’ because they aren’t allowed within our bubble of existence.

Even if we are given statistics about the known risks surrounding any venture, our bias can come in and cause us to doubt the facts. We may not even pay attention to relevant facts because our brains search out the information that confirms our already-held beliefs that our measures of protection are the best course of action, despite any evidence to the contrary. Or rather, evidence of the truth.

Then there’s the question of genetics. Some people inherit a more thrill-seeking type of disposition while others are naturally more fearful. Whatever your predisposition, it helps to seek therapy whenever your fears and anxiety are overriding your ability to function normally.

What happens if you let fear control you?

You will likely shut down and never experience a fulfilled life. If fear is in the driver’s seat of your life, you will never leave the garage, let alone turn the key to get things started. Fear can become the monster that sucks up your willingness to try.

Fear will become your enemy, not the helpful voice of survival you relied on as a kid who still had much left to experience in this world.

Quotes about Fear and Doubt

“Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it… that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.”
Dale Carnegie

“Don’t fear failure. Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious to even fail.”
Bruce Lee

“The thing you fear most has no power. Your fear of it is what has the power. Facing the truth really will set you free.”
Oprah Winfrey

“To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.”
Katherine Paterson

“Many of our fears are tissue paper thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them.”
Brendan Francis

“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.”
Helen Keller

How to overcome fear and doubts

Put things into proper perspective. Even if you need to force yourself out of your comfort zone to better understand your fears. Look at things objectively, without allowing your bias to thwart your ability to make a pragmatic judgment about any potential risks.

A lot of this comes from conducting proper and thorough research.

Some will come from doing the thing that you fear. Facing it. Some people will call this exposure therapy.

Even making the choice to not allow fear to control you can be the needed change.

Coming from a person whose battled anxiety for most of their life- don’t let fear control you. You cannot avoid life unless you never want to live.

That being said- overstimulation is real. Facing your fears may be a multi-step process for which there may never be an end goal. Overwhelm may cause a few setbacks, this is normal.

Don’t be afraid to fail, then try again. Learning to understand your limits during each new season of life can be helpful. Don’t judge yourself as you get overwhelmed or burned out. Trust the journey, trust yourself, and give yourself time to heal and space to take each step as you need to.

It will be worth it.

May God Bless and Keep You.