When I was a kid, I remember seeing bumper stickers and t-shirts with the following logo:
The stickers were cool. The message — and whoever owned it — seemed tough.
It says: I’m not afraid. I can handle whatever life throws at me. I won’t back down.
That’s what we should all aspire to.
Or so I thought.
FEAR IS A GIFT
In The Gift of Fear, the author takes a different approach.
He argues that fear is not something to get rid of.
Instead, it is a gift. Fear is necessary to your survival.
It triggers a fight, flight or freeze response.
You see a bear charging at you while camping.
Or, as it happened to me in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, a man walks toward you with a knife in hand.
Fear kicks in.
Your senses are heightened. Every unimportant thing disappears from your mind.
In a split second, you make a decision:
Do I have to fight?
Do I run?
Or do I freeze? [This was what I did. With cars parallel parked, my ability to escape onto the street was blocked. So I moved to the edge of the sidewalk, and I watched as the knife-wielding man walked past me. This happened in broad daylight. Welcome to San Francisco.]
Fear as a mechanism for self-preservation is a very important insight.
But the author argues that there is another kind of fear — the one that we manufacture — that we must address.
The first type of fear, which triggers our survival instincts, is a necessary tool.
The second type, however, is self-created. In other words, we create fear in circumstances when it should not exist.
If we manufacture the second fear enough times, then we might not be able to distinguish the situations where our lives are truly in peril.
WHEN WE SHOULDN’T FEEL FEAR
You see a man walk toward you in a dark alley. Do you immediately feel fear? Does your paranoia and anxiety kick in?
Or how about when you walk toward your car in an empty parking garage late at night? Do your worst fears come alive?
In the book, this happened to one of the author’s clients.
Routinely, the woman was the last to leave the office. As a result, she walked through an empty parking garage late at night. She had a fear of being attacked or raped.
Was her fear justifiable?
The author asked her: “Why do you stay in the office so late? What if you left earlier?”
Her response: “If I leave early, then my coworkers might think I’m lazy.”
So her fear of being perceived as lazy outweighed the fear for her own physical safety.
Did her coworkers think she was lazy? No one knows.
But look deeper:
The fear of being viewed as lazy stems from her fear of not adding sufficient value at work. If she doesn’t produce enough, then she might lose her job. If she loses her job, then she’s at risk of poverty and living under a bridge. If she lives under a bridge, then she might die alone in the cold.
Does this series of events sound extreme? It does to me.
In fact, she never encountered anyone while walking to her car. She was always safe. And there was never any indication that if she left an hour earlier, then her job would be at risk.
The fear that she created was unwarranted. It made her miserable and diminished her quality of life.
And it doesn’t have to be that way.
I am not suggesting that you navigate through life with blinders on.
With over 20 years of martial arts experience, I developed a “sixth sense” for when things don’t feel quite right, and I always listen to that little voice.
You should, too.
That little voice is the first fear.
It’s the one that tells you to fight off a shark in open water:
Or to save your dog when a kangaroo tries to drown it:
It’s the gift that keeps you (and your loved ones) alive.
But the other fear — the one that we manufacture needlessly — wastes that gift.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
So what can we do about this?
Ask yourself: why am I experiencing this feeling of fear?
Let’s use a fear of mine, as an example.
When I don’t stay on task, or procrastinate, or allow my limiting beliefs to take over and say that I can’t write, deep down there is a fear of failure. There is a fear that it won’t work out.
But, again, let’s probe deeper.
If I fail, then the “tribe” will notice. The community will think that I’m not good enough or valuable enough. If they feel that way, then I’m expendable. If I’m not essential to the tribe’s success, then they don’t need me. If I’m not needed, or if I don’t add sufficient value to move the tribe forward, then I run the risk of being kicked out. If I’m kicked out, then I’m isolated. I’m alone. And the world is a scary, dangerous place when you’re alone.
That’s the narrative.
As social animals, we fear being alone. There are too many predators, too many dangers. So the fear of failure, on a deep, deep level, is about a fear of ostracism, fragility and, if taken to its logical conclusion, death.
But is that fear real? Is it warranted?
Suppose this post — and my writing, in general — is a disaster. Suppose that readers unsubscribe in droves.
Does that mean that I’m out of the tribe? Does that mean that I’m on the brink of calamity and despair?
No.
I’ll just have to keep writing and sharpening my skills. I’ll have to learn and make adjustments. I’ll have to practice, and practice, and practice some more.
My fears, then, are manufactured. I am creating them all by myself.
Why are you experiencing your feeling of fear?
Go deeper — what’s really at the root of your fears and concerns?
The first step, as usual in these posts, is self-awareness. Consider that your fears are likely unfounded.
Then go deeper. Ask questions. Explore your dread.
Then, and only then, will you realize that you are okay. You were always okay.
Oh yes! one must be willing and open to explore the whole truth to find the root of self created fears. Which I feel usually boil down fear of judgement by others or a perceived judgement of ourselves, but how can one truly be and do who they are at their core if an unnecessary fear is what holds them back?
This is something I feel very strongly about.
Great piece! 👏