Last update: July 18, 2016
Fear is a protective emotion and warns us of dangers. When the danger is not real, the fear becomes pathological. Even so, it continues to be an emotion that teaches us a lot about ourselves and, if we know how to understand it, we will be able to overcome it and we will be able to know ourselves more deeply.
If you think about it, in all the fears you have treasured, the ones you have faced, for sure you have drawn a clear conclusion: they weren't that scary. Much of his strength did not go beyond the appearance of a ghost.
What is fear?
Fear is a reaction of our body, in particular of our mind, in front of a given situation, animal or person that we perceive as dangerous or unpleasant. It is an emotion, originally, of survival, because it protects us from risk and danger. However, often there is no real danger and we feel fear all the same.
Fear can become a limited reaction for our life, because it can get to block us to the point of not being able to react. But, on the other hand, we are inclined to increase its size when we do not compare it with reality.
"There is only one thing that makes us think that a dream is impossible: the fear of failure."
-Paulo Coelho-
About us
From the day we are born, we live by observing and feeling emotions, whether positive or negative, among them there is also fear. According to the experiences lived, fear can develop as a protective reaction to prevent a previously unpleasant situation from happening.
Being one of our primary emotions, brings with it important information about us and about all those unpleasant situations we have experienced and that you don't want them to happen again.
All our emotions remain registered in our subconscious and, therefore, we are not aware of the information of past events that is saved.
Tackle, don't avoid
As fear appears in our life, we tend to avoid the situations we fear in order not to experience them again. This is not a good decision, because as long as we avoid these situations, we will not learn anything. On the contrary, the fear will become stronger and more difficult to dispel.
By avoiding fear, we are feeding it. In our own while we get smaller and smaller in his presence, and each time he seems to have more and more weapons and points to attack us. This is not only noticeable in our level of fear, but also in the way it affects our life.
"Fear is natural in the prudent, and knowing how to overcome it means being courageous."
-Alonso de Ercilla y Zuñiga-
Eliminate fears, get to know each other
To overcome fears, there is no other remedy than to face them, to overcome them and thus obtain the resulting satisfaction. At the same time, to face them it is good to discover something more about ourselves, that is to know ourselves through fears, their origin, meaning and our interpretation of the danger.
For this reason, we will discover in ourselves skills and abilities that we did not think we had, and which now make our fears unmotivated; we realize that we can count on strategies to face the feared situation, probably originated in childhood, when we still did not have the means to face life.
On the other hand, for some resistant fears that we feel unable to face, it would be advisable to consult a specialist. He will look for the most suitable strategy so that fears affect us as little as possible and also to be able to overcome them.
“In life, nothing is to be feared, only understood. Now is the time to understand more, to fear less. "
-Marie Curie-
Pay attention to emotions
It is always interested to pay attention to all our emotions and, thus, to be aware of the information that, unconsciously, remains registered for each of them.
Any emotion helps us to know ourselves, because it tells us how we see ourselves, what we like and what we don't, what hurts or makes us happy and what situations remind us of past experiences, whether these are more or less positive.
Being aware of it will always provide us with valid information about ourselves, to work on weaker or unrealistic personal aspects in relation to the present we are experiencing.
Grow and feel safer
On many occasions, since we are not aware of our personal growth and maturation, we feel emotions that correspond to past experiences, usually from childhood. We certainly grow up with them and continue to interpret present situations with the same danger as when we were little. This account by J. Bucay perfectly reflects this circumstance.
Knowing ourselves through fears means being aware of what blocks and limits us, reinterpreting apparently dangerous situations and transforming them in our mind into situations capable of dealing with; now we have grown up and have strategies to deal with them successfully.
Recognizing our abilities allows us to feel more confident to face any fear, from the present moment, erasing the footprints that the past has left within us.
"Fear is the principle of wisdom"
-Francois Mauriac-
