Befriending fear: what am I really afraid of?

     

      As I mentioned last week, fear is part of the human experience. It’s an emotion. Emotions aren’t something we can control. When we aren’t willing to own what we’re feeling, the feelings control us. We’ve all met people who are both disconnected from their emotions and controlled by what they feel.

    We may not have choice about feeling afraid, but we can chose how we relate to our own fear. The most secure prison is constructed not of metal bars, but of fear. When we chose not to acknowledge our fear or find out what we’re really afraid of, we let ourselves be taken hostage.

     We make ourselves not be afraid. We can shift our relationship our fears and deflate them a bit by looking at what we’re afraid of. So once we’ve acknowledged that our anxiety or need to make excuses is fear wearing a different face, how do we find out what the fear is really about?

     Fear can be tricky because it comes with sense of urgency and is often tangled up in secondary emotions. When we feel afraid the fear seems immediate. It comes with a sense of urgency, often adrenaline based, that pushes us to do something right now. If what we’re afraid of is the wooly mammoth that’s about to run us over, the urgency helps us get out of the way.

     When it comes to fears not attached to a physical threat, that same urgency can push us into reacting in ways that create a bigger mess we have to clean up later. Breathing into the urgency and letting it move through us or engaging in some physical activity that expends the urgency is step toward responding rather than reacting.

     Primary emotions are the spontaneous feelings that arise in response to a person, thing or experience. These primary emotions are direct result of internal or external stimuli. So when we’re afraid, even if the fear shows up as anxiety or anger, fear is the primary emotion.

     Secondary emotions are what we feel in response to the primary emotions. They often come from our judgments and beliefs around experiencing the primary emotion. If we’re harboring a belief that feeling afraid is a sign of weakness we may choose to feel angry instead. This isn’t a choice we make consciously but looking at what we’re really afraid of means being mindful of the interplay between our primary and secondary emotions.

    Often secondary emotions have little to do with what’s actually happening right now. They are tied to past experiences, wounding, the assumptions we make about the world and who we believe we are. Secondary emotions often last longer than primary ones. (Here’s a great article, Primary and Secondary Emotions, with some tips for differentiating between the two.)

     Uncovering what we’re really afraid of allows us to move into right relation to our fears. Most of us spend a lot of time being afraid of things that don’t actually happen. Ultimately what we’re really afraid of is some aspect of the unknown. Recognizing and owning the specific fear that’s being triggered is the key to deflating the fear.

    So how do we get there? We start by sitting with the fear. That means literally sitting still. It means being with the fear and feeling it rather than analyzing or intellectualizing it.

    Our fears are information. They have a message for us if we’re willing to hear it. The memories and images that arise when we sit with the fear or whatever mask the fear is wearing are good clues to what the fear is really about. The voices that emerge in our internal dialogue in response to the fear are also important clues.

    Sometimes I start by asking myself, “What am I really afraid of?” Often the first answer that pops up is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. When we touch a deep fear we risk paralyzing ourselves. So as a self-protective mechanism to avoid the paralysis we unconsciously bury the deep under layers of other fears that are easier to deal with. This is part of the interplay between primary and secondary emotions.

     We all have different deep fears. One that I’ve worked with for years is my “kicked out of the tribe” thing. I have a fear that I either am something or will do or say something that results in being ostracized or isolated. This usually comes up when I feel nudged to be direct about something that’s uncomfortable. Simultaneously I feel the need to be direct and my mind begins to scramble about why being direct isn’t a good idea. This isn’t a good time. It’s not socially appropriate to be direct right now, etc., etc.

     The first things my mental scrambling throws up could be valid. In that moment being direct might be socially inappropriate and mistimed. Ultimately my reasons for siding with the fear are pretty irrelevant. This isn’t about finding a good justification for surrendering to my fear. It’s about deflating the fear rather than feeding it by making myself smaller.

      So if in the moment my brain is telling me being direct isn’t appropriate but the images that arise are all related to saying something that triggered another person to get angry and walk away, I know what I’m really dealing with is the “kicked out of tribe” thing. That awareness allows me to meet the fear directly. I give myself the opportunity to be brave; to make a powerful choice in full awareness of what I’m risking.

     We can’t simply make our fears go away. They are as much a part of who we are as our eye color. We can choose to disconnect and not feel them. But that choice is really a decision to let our fears hold us hostage and make our lives smaller. Each time we choose to meet our fear and do it anyway we take some of the power away from the fear. Our fears shrink when we allow ourselves to have a new experience. That experience can be one of having our fears not materialize or having the fear come true and realizing we’re still okay.