Sometimes fear is a slight feeling of unease – the sense that something’s wrong that we need to do something about. Other times it’s a gnawing twist in our gut that drains confidence and keeps us frozen in hesitation. It could be a distress signal that propels us forward or a screaming alarm that makes us run as fast as we can in another direction.
Fear can be a momentary flash that quickly passes, or an all-encompassing dread that paralyzes us for hours, days, and sometimes, months and years. When it triggers thoughts and memories of other fears, it can spiral into a whirlwind that consumes our lives.
Fear grabs our attention and holds on until we do something about it. It can come from direct threats, perceived threats, memories, thoughts, dreams, and even from fear itself (being afraid of being afraid).
We spend an enormous amount of time and resources trying to protect ourselves from fear, but we’re more afraid than ever. Attempts to insulate ourselves from fear prevent us from fully experiencing what life has to offer. We build boxes around ourselves to feel temporarily safe and then become afraid of what we’re missing.
Natural Fear and Manufactured Fear
Fear is part of nature. Animals exhibit fear when faced with direct, immediate threats to their lives. Fear is also part of human nature but life-threatening events are rare in modern life. Fear in nature is brief. It passes when the threat is gone. Human fear endures. Crises are averted and deadlines met but a cascade of others loom in the distance. Most human fear is man-made. It has the same physiological and psychological effect as a reaction to actual danger but it’s generated by how we interact and think about each other and our world. The same reaction to fear that saves the life of a gazelle being chased by a lion has been incorporated into daily lives.
Human fear has become more than a temporary reaction to an immediate threat. It’s been built into the systems and structures that shape our lives. Competition breeds fear, stress escalates it, media and movies dramatize it, politicians promote it, and we wonder why it’s so hard to sleep at night.
Why Fear is a Problem:
Fear and clear thinking are like oil and water. They don’t mix. Oil sits on top of water and blocks its natural capacity to put out fire. Polluted rivers burn for days because oil blocks the ability of water to quench the flames.
Prolonged fear is like an oil slick on our lives. It blocks our capacity to see and think clearly while smothering our ability to be comfortable with who we are. It keeps us from seeing ourselves, each other, and the challenges we face clearly.
Fear puts us into crisis mode. Everything not needed for survival goes offline in crisis mode. We don’t ask questions. We don’t think about history or context. We don’t wonder where our information came from or if it’s accurate or dependable. We don’t think about how our actions might affect others or consider the long-term effects or implications of our decisions.
Fear narrows our focus to possible threats and makes it easy to believe that we’re being threatened when we’re not. We only see part of the picture and automatically put what we do see into broad, fixed categories that reduce people and situations to safe/unsafe, for/against, good/bad, etc. without further thought.
At this point in my classes and workshops, someone will invariable say “Fear motivates me.” “It helps me focus.” “I work better under stress.” Fear does generate energy that drives us toward action and it can be a powerful motivator. The problem is that extra energy creates tension which interferes with our ability to see and think clearly. Fear does narrow our focus by shutting out everything unrelated to the source of fear. This is useful when there’s a single, well-understood threat and a clearly defined course of action that leads to final resolution. But we face multiple threats that aren’t so simple. When there’s an accumulation of complex threats, fear prompts our mind to jump from one to another while continuing to press for immediate action. We don’t see the larger picture and tend to miss patterns and relationships that might inform our actions. We’re drawn to simple solutions that sound good at first glance but, don’t take time to try to fully understand what’s going on or consider the long-term effects and broader implications of our actions.
Multiple, complex threats are best dealt with by taking a step back to see how they fit into a larger picture. This allows us to explore history and context, see patterns and relationships, and view things from the perspective of those affected. We have the time to devise a strategy to address the overall situation – to separate and prioritize issues so we can efficiently deal with stressors one at a time. We can anticipate problems and roadblocks and adapt to new information and changing conditions. We can shift focus from details to the large picture and back again while being consistent with our values and priorities. None of this is possible when fear drives us toward immediate action.
Fear Based Thinking
We recover quickly from short-term fear when we’re in balance but prolonged and repeated fear builds tension that keeps us out of balance. This can have a profound influence on how we see and relate to our world. We get stuck in narrow, restricted patterns of thinking and perceiving that limit our capacity to understand what’s happening. I call this limited state of perception and thought Fear-based Thinking (FBT).
Fear-Based Thinking (FBT) is a mental habit that persists after the immediate threat has passed. It’s a state of mind that narrows our focus, restricts learning, blocks compassion and creativity, and makes us more self-centered, impatient, and judgmental.
Fear Based Thinking (FBT) becomes part of how we interpret and interact with our world. It defines who we are and limits who we can be. It keeps us from seeing ourselves and each other clearly. The worst part is that we’re not aware of it. When fear builds inside us, we become filled with limitations and distortions that we don’t notice because we’re too preoccupied with what did, or could go wrong, and what we should, or shouldn’t do.
FBT makes us vulnerable to manipulation and interferes with problem solving while leading us to form rigid, emotionally based opinions that are immune to input and logic.
Most people who grew up in modern culture will exhibit some aspects of FBT, particularly during times of stress. FBT becomes more entrenched and resistant to input through exposure to continuous fear based messages and group pressure. We live in a culture that continually sends us messages that feed fear. Political parties, social media and many groups promote “belonging by exclusion” – a process that creates a sense of inclusion and connection by judging, labeling, or blaming others as it undermines the essential human need for true belonging.
Fear as a Tool for Manipulation
Fear is a highly effective tool for manipulation because it gets and keeps our attention while blocking our ability to see and think clearly. Getting and keeping our attention is a source of profit in social media as well as news and entertainment industries. Fear-based headlines grab our attention and lock us in. Every click on a link is money in the bank for those who profit by creating messages that tap into our fears. Every message of fear increases tension and contributes to FBT, especially when there’s nothing we can do to address that fear.
Fear has become highly effective political tactic. It is easy to manipulate voters when fear and FBT keep us from taking time to understand issues, question values and assumptions, or look beyond talking points and spin. Repeated fear-based messages condition us to accept partial and distorted information without considering whether it is true or relevant. This leads to bias, intolerance, and anger without any attempt to understand what’s really going on. We become immune to logic. Research shows that using facts and reasoning with someone who has a fixed opinion tends to strengthen that opinion.
Fear Undermines Truth and Freedom
We can’t be free when we can’t see and think clearly. There is no real freedom without commitment to truth.
When we’re free, we’re relaxed and open. We can see a large picture with many paths. We can recognize obstacles and limitations and explore how to deal with them. We can’t be free when we’re afraid, stressed-out or in hurry. Fear narrows our focus, limits our choices, and feeds the impulse to act without thinking. Most obstacles to freedom can be traced to fear and FBT.
Freedom cannot exist without a commitment to truth. The freedom to respond to the needs of a situation is severely limited to the extent we don’t know what’s really happening. Distortions of the truth undermine freedom by shrinking the frame that defines what we see. We can’t move freely in a room full of dark shadows.
Fear undermines our tendency to seek truth by pushing us to seek quick explanations and solutions. We easily grab hold of simplistic ideas without fully understanding the problem or considering how or if a proposal might actually work.
One of the most insidious fears is fear of being ourselves. The modern world has trained us to believe that in order to “fit in” we must become something different from who we really are. When we’re no longer true to ourselves, we lose touch with our gifts and potential and become vulnerable to manipulation by those who seek to benefit at our expense.
Fear leads us to create a thick skin that keeps others at a distance. It becomes easier to see people different from us as threats when we don’t recognize shared needs and interests. We become isolated and alone. Anxiety and depression have become part of life for more and more of us.
We can only be truly free to the extent that we see ourselves, each other, and our world clearly. This book was written to help make that happen. The first chapter provides a definition of fear and describes three kinds of fear. Chapter Two explains how to effectively respond to different kinds of fear. Chapter Three describes how to recognize Fear Based Thinking, its role in history, and what it does to our brain. Chapter Four explains how to work through our own FBT. Chapter Five explores how to deal with FBT in others and Chapter Six looks at addressing FBT in the broader culture. The last chapter contemplates what life might be like when fear no longer restricts our thinking and awareness.
The appendix describes the essential components needed to restore and maintain physical, mental, and emotional balance. This text is also available separately in a short book, “Balance: The Key to Physical, Mental, and Emotional Health and Effectiveness.”
Bring Truth to Fear 