The Gift of Fear

People often view ‘fear’ as a liability. It’s seen as a problem that must be eliminated or avoided. While fear itself certainly is not a pleasant feeling, it does offer many benefits that are worth highlighting.

Survival Mechanism

Perhaps the most obvious benefit of fear is that it alerts us to danger. If you’re out in the jungle and you see a tiger, your heart starts to pound, the pupils dilate and you instinctively react by running away or trying to protect yourself. Similarly, if an oncoming car is about to hit you, you’ll feel extremely scared, followed by a quick surge of adrenalin which may help you quickly swerve out of harms way. This is the survival mechanism of fear, for which we’re all wired on a biological level. Thank goodness for that!

A #1 national best-selling book by security consultant Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that Protect Us from Violence, shows that most violent acts are not random and often have clear warning signs. This book, featured on national TV shows including Oprah and Larry King, helps people learn how to predict dangerous behavior partly by teaching people to tap into their intuition more. To learn more about this book, go to https://www.gavindebecker.com.

Gives you information about others

Contrary to the cultural messages we receive, fear is everywhere. As humans, we are naturally hardwired to feel fear to varying degrees, depending on the circumstances. Most people, however, are taught to “be strong” and not show fear. Consequently, people end up acting with much pretense, wearing a “mask” that projects a certain image, while hiding or repressing underlying emotions, such as fear.

When you’re in a situation where you notice you feel more fearful, this could be a sign that you’re in an environment where many are covering their fear. You could in essence be picking up on their fear on a subconscious level. Having this awareness can empower you to react in useful ways, such as exploring means to create more safety and less guardedness in that particular situation.

It’s not uncommon for people to exhibit anger when they’re feeling fear on a deeper level. Fear is probably the least comfortable of all emotions to feel. To avoid the sense of vulnerability that goes along with fear, people often quickly shift to a place of anger. Shifting to anger mobilizes energy and creates a feeling of being more in charge. So, if you’re in a situation — say your work environment — and you notice there’s lots of stress and angry people running around all the time, there’s likely lots of fear fueling this behavior. Being aware of this may help you, as an employee, avoid taking on or internalizing the stress and anger that is so pervasive in your environment.

Opportunity to learn more about yourself

In addition to learning about others, fear helps us learn more about ourselves. For example, if you notice that you feel more fear in front of authority figures, explore that. You may find than an “old wound” is getting triggered because of negative or hurtful experiences in the past related to authority figures, such as a parent, teacher, babysitter, etc.

Alternatively, if you find yourself feeling extreme fear in performance situations, it may be a sign that you’re overly focused on external measures of your abilities and self-worth. This presents an opportunity to look inside — rather than outside — for what really matters. For example, instead of thinking about what others may think, shift your thoughts to simply doing the best you can and to preparing adequately. Focusing on what others think is often a waste of energy. While it’s important to be respectful and considerate of others, it’s also healthy for individuals to define ‘success’ on their own terms, rather than basing it on what others think.

Sign of your vitality

If you rarely feel fear, it means one of three things: you’re dead, you’re numb to your emotions or you’re not challenging yourself enough. Fear is a sign of one’s vitality. It consists of energy that can be channeled wisely, as long as one is aware of it. Alternatively, suppressing fear drains energy and being numb to fear can maintain unresolved problems.

When people take on challenges or start something new, it’s normal to feel a certain amount of fear. Fear isn’t the enemy, but unfortunately, people sometimes set their lives up to maintain a certain level of comfort (i.e., lack of fear), which leads to stagnation and lack of growth.

Of course, an excessive amount of fear (e.g., feeling fear all the time) is unhealthy and counterproductive; this is the type of fear that truly is a problem, rather than a gift. When it comes to any emotion, including fear, the key is to maintain balance — not too much, not too little.

Ways to work with fear

There’s a tool from Buddhist psychology known by the acronym R-A-I-N (Heckler, 2008; Kornfield, 2008), that can be helpful when dealing with strong emotions, such as fear. This is something that can be practiced spontaneously in the moment or in a more structured way during a meditation sitting.

The “R” stands for Recognize: the first step involves becoming aware of what you’re feeling, recognizing and naming the fear.

The “A” stands for Accept: bring an attitude of non-judgment and acceptance to what you’re experiencing. Our usual instinct is to fight or push away negative emotions, so this step is counterintuitive. Remember, this is an “attitude” or approach in the moment; it doesn’t mean that you agree with what is happening or can’t make changes to improve your situation. You can say to yourself, “this is what I’m feeling now, fear; it’s not good or bad, it’s simply what I’m experiencing.”

“I” refers to Investigate: explore what you’re experiencing with a sense of curiosity, asking yourself questions like “what thoughts are going through my mind right now as I notice this fear?” “What am I feeling on a physical level, in my body?” Perhaps you’re feeling things like tension, trembling or shortness of breath. “What am I doing in response to what I’m noticing?” This refers to the behaviors that follow the fear. “What happens if I just pay attention to what I’m noticing without trying to change anything? What happens then?”

The “N” stand for Non-Identification: this refers to the importance of not taking things personally, recognizing fear as a universal experience that we share with our fellow human beings throughout the globe. For example, if you’ve just been laid off from your job, you can say to yourself, “Unfortunately, we’re living in difficult economic times right now and many, including myself, have lost their jobs. I’m not alone with the fear this brings up and this fear is not me per se; this is something that thousands of others have experienced as well. This is not something I take personally.”

Another simple approach can be described as PAUSE-TAKE ACTION. Fear tends to trigger much reactivity, whereby people engage in behavior without thinking first. As noted previously, when you’re being chased by a tiger, a knee-jerk reaction like this is just what you need. However, in many other situations, it’s important to pause and reflect before taking action.

Fear can also be paralyzing. For example, excessive thinking about the fearful situation (also known as ruminating) can maintain the fear. When highly aroused for long periods, you’re less likely to think clearly and rationally about what action may help you. Taking action — doing something with the intention of furthering your goals — can be liberating, regardless of the outcome. When you’re feeling a lot of fear, pause, take some deep breaths and ask yourself, “what can I do right now, in this moment, that may help me feel more relaxed and achieve my goals?” Identify 3 or 4 things and then do one of them, preferably the one that feels easiest to accomplish. You can do this exercise over and over again, remembering to ‘pause’ first and then take action.

Something important to keep in mind is that ALL FEELINGS WILL EVENTUALLY DISSIPATE if you don’t do anything. If a feeling arises and you just watch it, it will stick around for a while and then eventually fade. You don’t have to do anything for this to happen. Where we sometimes get into trouble is with trying to push things away too quickly; this can actually add “fuel to the fire,” so to speak, which ends up sustaining the negative emotion, rather than letting it naturally play out its course.