We have no direct control over fear, but we can reduce fear by ACTING in a non-fearful way.

How Fear Works

  1. There is a specific primitive part of our brain where we learn to be afraid.
  2. Whenever we have any kind of negative experience, this part of the brain goes to work, and automatically help us to escape.
  3. This escape mechanism is often called the fight or flight response.
  4. All our past escape or avoidances are recorded in this mechanism.
  5. Whenever we run into situations that remind us of our past negative experiences:
  • This fear mechanism immediately wakes up, and prepares us to escape from this event.
  • We feel lots of changes in our bodies, such as increased heart rate, chest tension, increased breathing and we interpret this primitive arousal as fear.

We have not direct control over these feelings:

  • They are automatic.
  • They help us do what we have done in past situations, which is to protect ourselves.
  • And repetition of these escape responses make us more and more afraid.

In other words; fear remembers what you did in the past and automatically prepares you to do it again.

Here’s a simple example. If someone has a strong fear of dogs:

  • I guarantee that they have a history of running away from dogs.
  • Many can recall a negative experience that started process.
  • And some have no conscious memory of the event.
  • But this primitive part of the brain seems to never forget.
  • So the sight of a dog immediately gets this primitive mechanism aroused, which simply prepares them to do their usual habit of running away.

The Main Point About Fear

  • The fear of dogs that someone has today is a result of their past escape responses.
  • As long as they avoid dogs, or run away from dogs, there is no way in which their fear can ever subside.

This leads to a remarkable observation:

  • If our present fears are controlled by past attempts to escape, the fear is a slave to past behaviors.
  • As long as we keep running away, the fear is doing its job of preparing us to run.
  • So fear is NOT the source of your problem. It is the running away that’s the problem.

Stop Running Away

Stop running away and the fear has no choice but to eventually go to sleep.

This is why Graded Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is a very effective strategy for treating most of the anxiety disorders such as phobias, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post traumatic stress disorder. It involves gradually facing our fears. Many other contributors to this question have discussed similar ways of learning how to handle fear, which is to face it in some fashion. In general, the method involves:

  • Deliberately putting yourself in a slightly threatening situation, and then surprising the fear, by acting as if you are not afraid.
  • In other words, you need to live with the mismatch of feeling the fear, but acting as if you are not afraid.

Fear Is Not Your Enemy

  • Fear is an early warning system,
  • Fear is your bodyguard.
  • Fear is your friend
  • Fear’s job is to remind you to run away from anything that you have consistently run away from in the past.

So you can indirectly control fear:

  • Fear is a product of your past defensive behaviors
  • So if you keep surprising the fear by not running away, the fear which was preparing you to flee has no choice but to change to match the new predicted relaxed behavior.