Universal Truth about Fear

Fear is built into every living being as a biological response to protect itself from harm. It is acts as protective mechanism on any living being (humans included) as a reaction to a threat and prepare the being to fight or flee away from it.

Similar to animals, every one us of will feel fear when we encounter any unknown situation. Though some say that do not feel fear but experiences only minute forms of nervousness or anxiousness, which are also forms of fear manifestations. As you all agreed these feelings of fear is unpleasant and majority of us avoid situation or get paralyzed without taking action due to it.  Susan Jeffers [1] in her book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway [2] says that "You cannot make Fear go away" and defines 5 universal Fear truths which you need to acknowledge to make it a trustful companion. Given below is an my attempt to describe them.

Truth 1 - Fear will never go way even if I continue to grow

 

Fear will never go away even after achieving your dream skill sets, stretch your capabilities and take new challenges and risks. No skills or advice can take away your fear completely. You should be relieved to know that you need not work so hard get rid of the fear. When you encounter new situations which was not experienced before there will be a fear towards that situation. This will always be true. What you need is to understand this truth and have good relationship with fear.

Truth 2 - Only way to get rid of fear of doing some thing is to, go out and do it.

You must first do the stuff you are afraid to remove the fear of it. This means action comes before removing the fear emotion. As an example thinking as "when I less afraid, then I will start driving the car" will not happen. This is called When and Then game. It will never work for fear because When will not happen before Then

I can remember the day I was giving the my first speech in the company. Getting ready for it was a quite a drama. I took several days to prepare for the presentation. And on that day of the presentation, I was very nervous and I did not have proper sleep the night before. While giving the speech, I was trembling and was stammering. I still clearly can remember how relieved I was when it was over. Fast forwarding to now which around 20 years later, I can deliver speeches with short notice with much more confidence than the first time. But I still struggle with nervousness, when I am required to give speeches on areas which is new to me.

Truth 3 - Only way to feel better about it is to go out and do it.

When you do something that you were postponing due to fear of it or because of the negative imagined consequences, you loose that fear to face it. Also you will gain self confidence to handle other situations as well.

Truth 4 - Not only I experience fear, everyone else do feel the fear when they are in unfamiliar territory.

Think of high profile person, a celebrity or hero you look up to.  You may feel they are performing in a fearless manner any given situation. These people are also had felt the fear when they performed these tasks for the first time. Also they may be afraid of trivial task that you perform like riding a bicycle if they are not familiar with it. But like you when they keep on doing these tasks, their fear will be diminished.

Do you know that Jennifer Aniston, Tony Curtis, John Madden, Muhammad Ali, Cher and Johnny Cash have all admitted to the extreme fear of flying. Also Keanu Reeves and Megan Fox is afraid of being left alone in the dark.[3]

Truth 5 - Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the feeling of helplessness. 

Some people assume the worst possible things that can happen to them and take all the counter measures to avoid them. They live with constant fear of What If and worrying about possible catastrophes. The underling truth is that no matter what actions we make us feel secure, there will be events that will occur, which we do not have control - like loss of a property,job or spouse.

People who refuse to take risks, live with helplessness are far more in pain than ones who are taking the risk itself.

This is the story of Chamath, who managed to concur his helplessness. When Chamath was in his late teens he lost his mother suddenly. Up to that time he and his 2 younger sisters was living a life with full security offered by the family. Chamath's friend Lahiru lost his mother when he was much younger and had lot of issues due to withdrawn father after mothers death. While listening to Lahiru's daily hardships, Chamath was nervous of similar plight happening to him and he becoming helpless. In 2015 on July 26th Chamath worst nightmare happened.  His mother was basically running the house from cooking to cleaning. Without the mother everything was chaotic in the house. Initially, the 4 members of the family had very difficult time adjusting to the new situation. But with their unity and determination they managed run the house. Moving forward to few years, Chamath's family are now experts in new skills of managing the house.Chamath now knows that all worrying about events that may happen in future creates helplessness and knowing that he will be able to handle any event is a big relief.

 

As you can see, that feeling fear is universal and it cannot be permanently taken away. Only thing you may do is to acknowledge and treat it as a companion and make your life an adventurous journey. 

References

[1] - http://www.susanjeffers.com/home/bio.cfm
[2] - https://www.amazon.com/Feel-Fear-Anyway-Indecision-Confidence/dp/B011T7KWO6/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=feel+the+fear+and+do+it+anyway+susan+jeffers&qid=1638860383&sr=8-2
[3] - https://www.fearof.net/surprising-celebrity-phobias-that-famous-people-have/