Origin of Fear

Fear is a universal emotion. It’s an emotion based on survival. Our ancestors relied on their sympathetic nervous system to drive them into a “fight or flight” mode based on the world around them. A dark shadow at night that looked like a tiger prompted this reaction. This reaction and similar reactions were the difference between living to see the next sunrise and not. Response to fear dictated how we lived.

Today we should not and do not need to live constantly on edge, constantly skittish, and constantly observing for danger. By understanding the truth about fear you will be far more courageous in your life. The truth about fear is everything fear-based stems from a reaction within the mind. You perceive some stimuli and your mind tells the rest of your body to be scared. You think a certain thought and your mind tells you to freeze. Fear is entirely self-generated in your own mind. Fear saps all attention until it’s all-consuming and until you cannot focus on anything else but the feeling of fear itself. When fear controls all, fear wins and fear controls your life.

Walking through your house in the daytime, you aren’t scared of the pile of laundry you left out, nor are you scared of the noise the refrigerator makes. Walk through your house at night, when the sun’s illumination is gone and your mind can be overrun by the whispers of fear. That pile of clothes is a person waiting for you—waiting to grab you. The noise the refrigerator makes is no longer just the ice machine, it’s someone breaking into your home.

When the shadows come out, fear emerges from a hole in your mind. The key is it emerges from your mind. By recognizing the fear you have is within yourself and caused by your own mind, you can find comfort in the feeling of fear. When you befriend fear you take all of the power away from this emotion. When you’re aware that you are scaring yourself you know that the fears you have are really “fears” — they are make-believe. That pile of clothes isn’t a person, it’s just a pile of clothes. The fridge is still making ice, just like it did during the day. Where your imagination goes because of the control of fear is all just your imagination. Fear is only real if you let it be real. Befriend the feeling of fear to see how courageous you can be.