4 Reasons We Should Overcome Fear

Posted May 30 2009 by Celes

“Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.” – James Thurber:
“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.” – Marie Curie

What is Fear?

Fear is “a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined“. In other words, fear is the condition of feeling frightened or afraid, regardless of whether you should be afraid or not.

Fear comes about to help us escape danger. It is actually part of an evolutionary, survival mechanism. When we experience fear, our adrenal glands (located directly above our kidneys) release adrenaline into the blood stream which causes a series of biological reactions in our body. It increases blood and oxygen flow to our muscles so we can run faster; It restricts blood flow to other areas such as our stomach; It dilates our pupils so we can better see things around us. When this happens, we have entered into a ‘fight or flight’ mode. This mode helps us to escape real and physical danger.

However, these reactions are only helpful when we are facing real physiological danger. These bodily responses do not aid us when we are facing self-perceived dangers which do not result in any physical harm. If anything, we only become held back by these reactions. Think about when people get into stage fright or when they become agitated from a high stress incident. In these cases, what you want is a grounded physical state to help you deal with things logically and calmly, not a stimulated one.

The problem is, about 99% of the fear people experience today are non-physical, mental fear. This includes fear of public speaking, fear of loss, fear of failure, fear of humiliation, phobias of things that have no physical danger to you, and so on. This mental fear is what we are focusing in this article today.

Why Overcome Fear?

There are four key reasons why we should overcome fear.

1. Fear Limits Our Full Potential

Firstly, mental fear prevents progress. Whether you realize it or acknowledge it, any sense of fear you have inside you is actually acting to hold you back from being your highest self.

Majority of our society today vibrate at the level of fear. In the Map of Consciousness by David Hawkins, fear is the 5th lowest level in the whole map of 17 levels. Not only that, fear is at an energy level of 100, which is quite a distance below 200, the first awakening point from being a sleepwalker. To be mired in fear means you are being held back from rising to the higher levels of Courage, Acceptance, Love, Joy, Peace, Enlightenment. As long as you entrench yourself off in the land of fear, you are blocked from accessing those higher levels.

When you let your thoughts, feelings and decisions be driven by fear, you have already been reduced to a slave of fear. I have come across people whose lives are very centered on the theme of fear and it is a very disempowering state to be in. Their (mental) fear drives their thoughts, feelings, decisions and behaviors so much that their life has become a byproduct of fear, rather than their own desires.

See fear as your compass towards growth. Where we fear something, it means there is something you are uncertain about. Uncertainty comes from limited knowledge on something. This limited knowledge represents there is an opportunity for you to learn and grow as an individual – to become even better than you are right now. To overcome fear is to move towards becoming a better you. It’s all part of your growth journey.

2. We Can Never Fully Run Away From Fear

Mental fear is pervasive. As long as you let it permeate, as long as you run away instead of dealing with it, it will always be there, haunting you in everything you do. Running away only gives you an illusion of security – you may feel safe for a short moment, but only for that short moment. For example, if you see fear in point A, you can run to point B – but the fear will catch up to you at point B in the form of other things. You can keep running and running, but eventually you are going to find yourself backed into a corner, with nowhere to escape. No matter how you run, you are just living in captivity of fear.

When that happens, you either have to learn to deal with it, or cower in its presence eternally and become a fraction of the person you can be. Since you have to deal with fear at some point, you might as well learn to overcome fear now, rather than waste all that time and energy avoiding it only to deal with it eventually. Between the 2 options: Option A, where you run initially but need to deal with fear ultimately when you have nowhere to run, and Option B, where you deal with fear immediately at the onstart, Option B clearly comes across as a more effective approach.

3. Fear Is A Waste of Our Energy

Mental fear is illogical and a waste of emotional and mental energy.

Every moment you spend swirling around in fear, you are cultivating a seed that gives rise to subsequent similar thoughts. The more you do it, the more you are set back by it. Instead of calmly processing the situation and rationally identifying solutions and ways forward, you are feeding energy into something nonconstructive.

Some may say this fear is what triggers them to move the situation forward. While there have been cases where fear seems to push people forward, a more accurate summation will be people move forward in spite of the fear that is present. As mentioned in the beginning of the article, fear leads to a rush of adrenaline that gives you increased physical performance, not increased mental performance. You can perform just as well, if not better, without all the adrenaline that’s pumping through your body. Having more adrenaline in your body for prolonged periods of time strains your body and gives you jittery nerves instead. Think about how much more you can do if you do not have to spend your energy counteracting that fear and its aftereffects on yourself.

Also remember that for every moment you spend being fearful, you have one less moment for positive thoughts and feelings, which can blossom into a whole other spring of positive aftereffects.

4. Fear Is All In Our Mind

Having mental fear is like letting yourself be scared by a scarecrow – it looks scary and seems scary, but it’s actually harmless.

As I’ve mentioned at the onset of the article, mental fear is based on danger made up in your mind. This fear arises because your brain somehow formulated a perception these non-physical dangers are real dangers – when they are not. Let’s take public speaking as an example. Public speaking is a top ranked fear among majority of people – even more so than death or disease. Why are people afraid of public speaking? Realistically, speaking publicly does not result in physical bodily harm of any sort.

Some people will point out that it’s not from the physical harm where people get fear – but from the thought of slipping up, people judging you, embarrassment that will occur, and so on. These fears are all in your mind. Thoughts of you forgetting the speech, the presentation going wrong, audience feeling bored, etc are all made up. None of that has happened yet. Even if it has happened in the past, it does not mean that this is going to happen in the future. You are in the present and the future has not occurred yet. You are still in the position to shape the future into whatever outcome you desire.

Start to Overcome Fear

What fears are you trapping yourself with? These fears are the limits of who you can really be. Start to overcome fear as you strive to become your highest self.