The Function of Fear

Fear Can Be Useful

Fear doesn’t need to be defined. Infants know what fear is. We are born with the fear of falling and the fear of loud sounds. All other fears are learned. Some serve us. Some don’t.

Fear is a survival mechanism that warns us of an impending threat. Given our vivid imagination, we can drum up a fear in an instant. Real or imagined, we must pay attention to our fears or they will persist. Ignoring them can result in physical harm or death. Given the physical and emotional stress created by fear, if we don’t deal with it effectively, it will hurt us. This gives additional meaning to the old adage:

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt

There are actually two kinds of fear based on their source and significance. This famous quote really only applies to one of them. And I believe that the preferred response to these two types of fear is different.

Physical Fear

The first type of fear is physical, fear of bodily harm. This is the fear of being hit by a truck, mauled by a lion or a snarling dog, being bit by a tick, affected by poison ivy, or infected by the latest biological threat. There are so many more examples of physical threats.

These physical threats can be real or imagined.

If you just stepped off a curb and then look to see a truck bearing down on you fast from fifty feet away, you have good reason to be fearful and should step back quickly. If there is a snarling dog barking at you in a threatening way, you should move away slowly and speak softly. For sure, you should avoid real physical threats.

FDR’s quote does not apply to this type of fear when the threat is objectively real. But by far the majority of our fears today are imagined. There are few real physical threats for most of us in our day-to-day experience, thank Goodness.

When the threat is less immediate and certain than the examples of a truck or a mean dog, each of us must make our own evaluation of the degree and severity of the threat and the inconvenience of various countermeasures. In our current situation with COVID-19, there is the additional issue of potentially harming others by being lax about wearing a mask and social distancing.

Fear of bodily harm might also be imaginary and keep you cowering in your bed, cause a serious hesitation in taking a necessary action or excessive behavior to avoid a tiny possibility of harm. We have all heard of people who are so afraid of flying that they will use a much less convenient form of transportation that feels safer to them, even if statistics indicate that flying is safer.

While this paralyzing fear of imagined harm is a real problem deserving serious attention, it is beyond the scope of this post. If you or someone you love is compromised by this type of fear, I highly recommend professional help. We all need help from time to time.

The balance between appropriate and excessive precautions is a grey area. Most of us do not experience an imagined fear of bodily harm that affects the quality of our lives. However, there is another type of imagined fear which most of us do experience. And the toll of this fear is enormous.

Then There Are the Egoic Threats

The second type of fear is the fear of harm to the ego, our sense of self, rather than the physical body. This is the focus of this post. While both the source of the fear and the stimulus causing it are different than in the case of fear of physical harm, the bodily experience is the same.

Your heart is racing, your breathing is shallow and rapid, your muscles tighten up and you are alert to any possible threat. There may be a feeling of dread and impending doom. We are not actually present in the moment because we are anticipating some possible harm in the future. Fear is fear, real or imagined.

These threats are imagined but feel every bit as real. And these egoic fears can persist for years causing chronic stress which takes its toll on our physical and emotional health.

I may be feeling fear because I am considering taking on a challenge:

• a physical challenge, like running or winning a half marathon which might scare me even if I were in very good physical condition, the fear is related to performance anxiety, being embarrassed rather than being physically hurt
• a mental challenge, like getting a college degree or publishing this blog post, or
• an emotional challenge, like the fear of having a confrontation with someone who is important to me.

Basically, this egoic fear is the result of feeling the need to do something that we don’t feel competent to do and so we fear an adverse outcome.

This is the type of fear that FDR was referring to, the fear of fear, the fear of a challenge, the fear of change, the fear of failure which could actually be a fear of success.

If I don’t address it, this fear will keep me from improving the quality of my life for as long as I allow it to determine my actions. The fear will keep me from becoming all that I am capable of. It will hold me back, minimize me. And as long as I give in to this fear, I am telling myself that I am a coward.

Right now, I am experiencing this fear with one aspect of writing this article. I recognize that there is a fine but real distinction between the intense fear of flying that makes it impossible for someone to take advantage of this convenience and the fear of exposing my ignorance and incompetence by publishing an article that may be inaccurate or poorly written. I’m afraid I won’t clearly make this distinction. I’m afraid I might offend someone who is afraid of flying or has a similar phobia. I’m afraid of passing myself off as an expert on fears and their management. All irrational, egoic fears that hold me back from publishing this post.

What to Do About This Fear

There are two ways to avoid this stress:

• give up the desire to accomplish whatever it is, decide that I don’t want what is on the other side of this challenge, move on with my life directing my efforts in a different, less challenging, area, or
• act to move forward acknowledging that this fear is a “paper tiger” that really can’t hurt me, reminding myself that this is just my ego resisting change and fearing the unknown future along this path.

Letting the fear control my actions by avoiding, rather than accepting, the challenge guarantees that the fear will return as long as I still want what lies on the other side of the fearful challenge. That feels unacceptable to me. So I will publish this post and the others that I think might help you deal with similar issues in your life.

If I need to have a conversation with someone important to me and I think that the conversation will be confrontational, fear may come up. If I procrastinate by finding something else ‘more important’ or make an excuse why now is not the right time, I will avoid the discomfort, the challenge, and the fear for now.

This will provide temporary, superficial comfort and peace until having that conversation becomes important to me again. In fact, every time I see or think of this person, I will have a subconscious fearful reaction. This will cause me to withdraw slightly from being fully present with them. They will sense my rejection and our relationship may get worse instead of better because I am avoiding a possible confrontation. This will keep occurring until I have the conversation or completely resign myself to never having an open, honest discussion of this issue with them.

Avoiding the challenge will provide brief respite but will reinforce the idea that I avoid confrontation. Wait, no, make that “I avoid the imagined possibility of confrontation.” There is no real confrontation. It is all occurring in my mind. And still, there is persistent discomfort. That is very real.

Moreover, by repeatedly avoiding this challenge, I am telling myself that I am a coward. I am a person who avoids things that are difficult to do. I am building a personality that will look for the easy way, the comfortable way, out the next time I face a challenge.

Everything that I really want in my life is difficult to achieve otherwise I would have it in my life already. If  I want it and it is easy for me, I would have done it a long time ago and I wouldn’t still be wanting it. If it is something I have wanted for a long time, there is certain to be fear connected with achieving it, and I can count on resistance coming up.

Therefore, by dodging challenges I am making it impossible to achieve what I want today and making it harder to accomplish what I may want tomorrow.

At some level, I know all this … and so do you. And this is why avoiding challenges creates a peace of mind that is shallow and superficial. We know that this will happen again and again until we take the required action.

Writing this blog post is a challenge. It requires me to really look deeply at what I am doing and not doing. It requires me to admit to myself what I am avoiding in order to be able to tell you about it.

It will only benefit me, and maybe others, if I am vulnerable and honest with myself and then with you.

I want to be a transformational writer – a person that writes articles and books that support others in examining and improving the quality of their lives. In the process, my life will change in many ways. This is part of my fear.

Can I do that today, right now? No, I can’t write a book right now, not even an article. I can’t finish this blog post before my next Zoom meeting. But I can finish this paragraph. I can make progress. I can take the next step, and then later the next one. I know this is another one of those “paper tigers”. I know the only way to get past this is to go through it.

In summary, when I am experiencing fear of a high likelihood of physical harm, I will avoid the situation. However, when I am experiencing an egoic fear of incompetence in meeting a challenge, I want to move towards the fear, into the fear, I want to take the necessary action to do whatever it is I am afraid of so I can begin to disempower that fear.

Let’s do it. If you can read this post, I did it, I published it.

If this strikes home with you, leave a comment below. Share it with your friends on social media. Thanks.

 

 

What Do We Do?
That is the real question. The answer is simple if the fear is due to a real physical threat. We must do what we can to avoid it.
If a truck is bearing down on you, step back on the curb, FAST!
If an animal is threatening you, get away.
If you see poison ivy, avoid it unless you know you are not sensitive.
If your Doctor tells you your risk of a heart attack would be less if you lost weight, you might go on a diet or you might ignore it because you believe the risk is low and you don’t want to give up something you enjoy. Been there. Done that.
These are all different levels of real threats in the physical world. Our choice of response is based on our assessment of the level of risk and what we have to give up to achieve greater safety.

 

The important distinction between these two types of fear is that we should run away from the physical fear and run towards the ego fear.

 

There are some goals that are not a challenge for me. Running a marathon is one. It’s not a challenge for me because I don’t want to do it. Period. I don’t believe I should do it or that it would be good for me. I don’t want to and I’m not going to so I don’t feel any fear about it.
On the other hand there are some things I want to do but haven’t yet that are fearful for me because I am telling myself a story that has a scary ending.

 

 

 

We all know about people who are afraid of flying and will take some other much less convenient means of travel to avoid it. These fears are real even if the risk or threat is minimal or even minisule. While they may seem trivial to the average person, they can have a profound effect on the person affected by them.