What Is Fear And What To Do About It?
No one is born courageous. However, we can’t afford to live in fear forever. One of the best ways to find success in our lives and businesses is by living a courageous life because we can’t sit back and watch fear dictate what we should do, when we should do them, and how we should do them.
Fear will always deprive us of the opportunity to get what we deserve and what we want, and we must not let that happen.
You may probably be thinking that “hmm, it’s easier said than done” but the fact remains that it’s very possible to live a courageous life and live a life that’s void of fear.
Of course, it’s human to be fearful but with fear also comes a decision to be calm and courageous. For us to live the life we want, we must learn to banish fear from our lives.
Whether a danger is psychological or physical, fear helps to notify us of the threat of harm or presence of danger. Fear involves a high individual emotional response and a universal biochemical response. Fear is a primitive, powerful, and natural human emotion.
While fear can be an indication of mental health conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, phobias, social anxiety disorder, and panic disorder, it can as well originate from imagined dangers, but it often stems from real threats.
However, take note that fear that’s highly personalized is stemming from an emotional response and on the other hand, our body as well responds in specific ways when we face a perceived threat — this is a biochemical reaction.
Fear is a survival mechanism and a natural emotion and, high adrenaline levels, increased heart rate, and sweating are some of the physical reactions to fear.
Symptoms Of Fear
As earlier mentioned, you can react emotionally or physically, or even both, to fear. While it’s possible that we all may react to fear in different ways, here are some common symptoms of fear:
- Upset stomach
- Trembling
- Sweating
- Shortness of breath
- Rapid heartbeat
- Nausea
- Dry mouth
- Chills
- Chest pain
Some people also have the tendency of experiencing psychological symptoms of having a sense of impending death, feeling out of control, being upset, or being overwhelmed
Causes Of Fear
Fear is more complex than how most people see it. While some people may trivialize fear and say it’s for the weak, even the strongest person on the planet has his or her own fear.
Think of the strongest wrestler or boxer in the world. Would you think such a person would have fears? Apparently, what we fear is different, and what makes someone fearful can be more complex or less complex, compared to another person.
Nevertheless, here are some of the common fear triggers:
- The unknown/uncertainty
- Real environmental dangers
- Imagined events
- Future events
- Situations or some specific objects (flying, heights, crowd, roaches, snakes, spiders, etc.)
Take note that certain fears can be related to associations or traumatic experiences. Others that aid in survival can be evolutionarily influenced because they tend to be innate.
Characterized by fear, here are some of the distinct kinds of anxiety disorders:
- Social anxiety disorder
- Specific phobia
- Social anxiety disorder
- Separation anxiety disorder
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Panic disorder
- Generalized anxiety disorder
- Agoraphobia
Why You Must Overcome Fear
The kinds of fear most people have only existed in their head and some of these fears include fear of being hurt, fear of being alone, fear of growing old, fear of humiliation, fear of rejection, fear of judgment, fear of changes, fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of losing out, fear of authority, fear of strangers, fear of people, fear of public speaking, and the list goes on and on!
Do you look at your future and you feel feverish immediately because you’re not sure of what tomorrow holds? Do you get intimated easily or you’re often filled with fear?
If you feel you’re less of a courageous person, here are some reasons why you must brace up yourself to overcome your fears.
Fear limits your full potential. Fear makes it difficult for you to grow and progress in life. When you’re driven by fear, living your best life, and becoming a better person becomes very herculean and you’ll find it very challenging to believe in personal growth.
Reaching the higher levels of consciousness is impossible if we keep entrenching ourselves off in the land of fear. For us to rise to the higher levels of enlightenment, peace, joy, love, and acceptance, we must not be mired in fear.
Most of us have the propensity of constantly vibrating at the level of fear and this is one of the major problems in our today’s society.
For us to reach our full potential, we must not let our life become a by-product of fear because we’ll be reduced to a slave of fear if fear is the only thing that drives our decisions, feelings, and thoughts. Understand that reaching your fullest potential is impossible if you keep on reacting to fear.
You can never fully run away from fear. How long can you run away from your fear? Think of it yourself. Since you’ve been running, what has it done to you? Has it helped you get rid of the fear completely or does it complicate it more?
Running will only make you feel secure, but you’ll always be haunted by your fear in everything you do if you refuse to deal with it and let it permeate. Mental fear is pervasive. It’s impossible for you to fully run away from fear, even though it may not be obvious.
Know that fear will always try to catch up with you more when you keep running and there comes a time when it will corner you and you’ll have no means to escape.
And when this eventually happens, you’ll have two options alone; brace up yourself to face your fear or shiver thoroughly. Thus, you would see that it’s quite pertinent that you learn to overcome fear now because avoidance is not the best solution, and it can never be.
Regardless of whatever your fear is, tell yourself that now is the time to deal with it.
Fear is a waste of your energy. When you succumb to fear, you’re investing your energy into something non-constructive. Instead of you brainstorming, identifying solutions, mapping out a way forward, and calmly processing the situation, fear consumes your physical and mental energy, and it draws you back.
Although fear, in some cases, can be a motivating factor to do more and perform better, especially for adrenaline seekers, it can as well be a waste of emotional and mental energy.
Fear is all in your mind. It’s funny that fear is harmless, even though it often seems scary and looks frightful. The danger made up in your mind is what mental fear is based on. A good example of this is the fear of speaking in public and this is something a lot of people suffer from.
Do you even ever think of why people are so scared of public speaking? In the real sense, you’ll not experience any harm in your physical body when you speak publicly.
However, you’ll get to realize that this fear is stemming from you thinking that you may be embarrassed, you may mess up, you may be judged, or you may slip up.
You see, all these fears, they’re all in your mind. Whether you think the audience will not be interested to hear your speech, you feel the presentation will go wrong, you may forget your speech, or whatever it is you may be thinking of, it’s all made up because they’re yet to happen.
There’s even no guarantee that any of these things will happen in the future even if they’ve already happened at a time before now. Whatever outcome you desire, it’s up to you to make it happen. The future is yet to happen. You’re in the present. Relax and do well to make it count.
As you can appreciate, changing the way you think can have a huge impact on your life, and if you want to know more about developing an inspirational mindset for success, please click on the featured resource below for a free Strong Mindset report; download, read it and take action 😊
