When we know where they really come from, we can start to control them.
Published on March 22, 2012 by Karl Albrecht, Ph.D. in BrainSnacks
President Franklin Roosevelt famously asserted, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”
I think he was right: Fear of fear probably causes more problems in our lives than fear itself.
That claim needs a bit of explaining, I know.
Fear has gotten a bad rap among most human beings. And it’s not nearly as complicated as we try to make it. A simple and useful definition of fear is: An anxious feeling, caused by our anticipation
of some imagined event or experience.
Medical experts tell us that the anxious feeling we get when we’re afraid is a standardized biological reaction. It’s pretty much the same set of body signals, whether we’re afraid of getting bitten by a dog, getting turned down for a date, or getting our taxes audited.
Fear, like all other emotions, is basically information. It offers us knowledge and understanding—if we choose to accept it—of our psychobiological status.