Fear is the Mind Killer

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear – From Frank Herbert’s Dune Series

Fear is very interesting. Fear is different to most emotions. First of all, is omnipresent.  There is not a human being on this planet that could honestly say he has never experienced fear. Fear is also a very distinctive emotion. We might not be sure what love or passion feels like, but we all know from a very young age what it feels to be afraid.

This has a biological reason, since fear is one of the most important emotions for the child in order to survive the dangers around him. Biological fear makes total sense and there is reason to tackle it for personal development, but the thing is that fear does not remain as a survival emotion and often expands itself to scenarios where there is no danger to us. In our daily lives activity fear cripple growth and prevent us from engaging in situations or experiences that could improve our lives significantly.

Overcoming our fears is one of the most important steps we can take towards our personal development, because much growth will be lost if we are afraid to face the challenges we will encounter. But in order to overcome fear we must understand clearly what fear really is…

 

1. Fear is Irrational

If we want to successfully overcome our fears we have to accept that most of them are irrational. The only true use of fear is to alert us from a situation that threatens our lives. When we feel afraid of a situation that would not put our lives in danger, we are being completely irrational and the presence of fear should serve as an alert that our beliefs about that particular situation are inaccurate.

That what we are afraid of can hardly represent a real danger to our lives. Think about the things you fear the most and see for yourself. Remember, I am not talking here about biological fear (fear of heights, fear of spiders, etc.). The idea of public speaking, for example, may be terrifying, but you know there is very little chance that the worst possible outcome represents a danger to your safety. Yet, is one of the most common fears.

 

2. Fear is an Alert

As stated previously (see Ring the Alarm), just as any negative feeling, emotions are nothing more that alerts giving us information about the overall alignment of our beliefs in relation to our intended creations (i.e. The life we want to build). Even if you are not into Law of Attraction, the information that your emotions provide are just as useful. Think of fear as a warning from our minds showing us what we believe about a particular scenario is fundamentally wrong.

Getting rid of our irrational fears is like a coder getting rid of the bugs in software. What task can be more important and rewarding that to debug our minds?

 

3. Fear is a Choice

Even when we often are unable to realize we are choosing to be fearful, the truth is that we do. Fear is a choice we make in order to preserve our emotional safety.

I prefer not to care much about choosing fear, as this happens subconsciously and it would require a great deal of effort to conciensly identify the moment when we make such a choice. I think is much more productive and cost effective from an emotional point of view to instead question the reason that makes us choose the first places. In other words, what is important is not that we chose to be afraid in order to preserve our emotional safety, but to question why we believe some events threatens our emotional safety at all.

Maybe asking someone out on a date makes us feel afraid because we believe we could be rejected and even ridiculed by the person we are asking out and this would cause us a great deal of pain. I could intent to change the way I see asking someone out in order to diminish its capacity to make me afraid. I could try to get some info about this person, to know is she is interested in a relationship at the moment, or to know is she currently has one, or I could try to know what her preferences are and try to appear more attractive to her but I prefer to meditate about the fact that I consider being ridiculed a painful experience. If I success I could understand that being rejected or ridiculed it is a possible outcome, but there is no a single reason why such outcome must inflict pain onto me. Certainly it will not inflict physical pain (in most cases anyway…), and it does not have to inflict emotional pain.

Fear is a choice, and as with anything else, is a choice we can change anytime.

 

4. Fear is Crippling

The Bene Gesserits were right all along.  Fear is the mind killer.

Fear can be paralyzing not only physically, but, also mentally and spiritually. And the worst thing about it is that once we are crippled by fear, we get stuck in a downward spiral.

Fear cripples growth in the most critical areas of our lives. Notice how you do not experience fear about the things you do not care, and this simply because the things that do not mean anything to you cannot summon a strong emotional response.

The stronger the emotion, bigger it is the potential for growth. This is why fear can be so hurtful to our development as human beings.

 

5. Fear is Expansive

Once we allow fear to influence our decisions, no matter how little or it insignificant it might seem those decisions, it acquires the power to infect other aspects of our life and we become increasingly fearful. Before we realize, our tolerance to fear decrease and we start to give in to anxiety and stress. Situations that were no big deal before, can now suddenly knock us off balance.

Just as transcend our fears is a decision that has power by itself, give in to it is also a decision (though slightly subtler) with its own set of consequences.

 

6. Fear is Personal

Fear is a deeply personal feeling. Even when we share some kind of fear with others, the reason behind the feeling can vary greatly. This is simply because fear is nourished by subjective, individual experiences that differ from one person to another.

As a consequence, to transcend fear is a task that can only be performed by you. Guidance can be helpful, but only you can acknowledge the importance that to transcend your irrational fears has over your well-being and the course of action will be greatly influenced by your biggest fears and by the reasons behind it.

Take the decision to transcend your fears is to embark on a journey of self discovery.

 

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