Working With Fear Rather Than Letting It Control You

Source: Josh Bartok/Used with permission

Fear is a natural, adaptive emotion that serves an important function: it tries to keep us safe. When our heart rate quickens, our palms sweat, and we experience an urge to fight or flee, our bodies are telling us that danger is present and action may be required. When fear takes control, our attention narrows to the potential source of threat and we quickly react. This is very useful if, for instance, we are crossing the street and a truck is hurtling toward us. Such a moment is not the time, of course, to mindfully notice flowers or birds!

Potential social harms can also elicit all of these fear responses. The first day of school, a job interview, or asserting our needs can lead to a racing heart, sweaty palms, thoughts of catastrophe, and an urge to flee. Many of us choose to move toward these contexts, but many also find ourselves avoiding them or dreading them. This too is human and natural and tied to learning around survival. However, it can also lead to more harm, rather than keeping us safe. The narrowed attention that helps us successfully avoid an actual physical danger can lead us to see all the potential threats and none of the rewards or pleasures of social situations. This can lead us to constrict our lives and reduce our life satisfaction.

Further complicating matters, we can learn to fear things that are not dangerous at all. Because fear is such a strong, compelling emotion, it can be easily activated, even through images of danger that are not in fact present in our lives. It is also easily generalized through pairings, so that when a dangerous image is linked to some previously neutral image, we come to fear the neutral image. Sometimes these pairings are accurate (for instance symbols of violent hate groups) and therefore adaptive and other times they are manufactured and cause harm (for instance images of foreigners or immigrants linked to dangerous images or rhetoric).

Fear is powerful—and when our fear is weaponized (by, for instance, certain elements of the news media), it can lead us to turn on one another, or ignore vital information about the humanity of someone who is being portrayed as a danger. Because fear attracts attention, social media algorithms center fear-inducing content. This further intensifies fear reactivity and drives division.

Here are some strategies that can help you respond effectively to fear:

Observe fear as it arises

Fear, like all emotions, potentially carries information and a strong urge to act—so being aware of fear in our bodies and thoughts is important. However, if we notice it arising and observe our current context and see that threat is, in fact, not immediately present, we can instead bring curiosity to our emotional reaction, rather than impulsively acting or believing our feelings or thoughts, or shifting over to fear-based autopilot. Mindfulness or other practices of awareness can help us build our ability to notice and hold emotional reactions, rather than simply acting them out.

Recognize potential biases and distortions

Recognizing that the narrowing and activating impact of fear can lead to distortions and misinformation allows us to examine our strong responses, rather than simply following fear-induced urges. Understanding our own history of trauma and learned fear can help us to recognize when we are reacting to something that has happened in the past, rather than something happening in the moment. We can also notice when we are taking in content that is activating our nervous system and be intentional about when we are effectively bearing witness and when we are being manipulated in ways that undermine us.

Expand our awareness

Once we have established that a physical threat isn’t present, we can broaden our awareness so that we intentionally take in additional information besides the potential “threat” we have perceived and reacted to. This might involve noticing that there are smiling faces in a crowd in addition to the bored or angry-looking face that we have zeroed in on, or considering how a new experience might be exciting or rewarding in addition to being scary. Or realizing we have been scrolling social media and getting more and more activated and choosing to notice something else we might engage in.

Connect to our values and consider approaching instead of avoiding

As we have a clearer sense of the full context surrounding our fearful reaction, we might choose to approach rather than fearfully avoid. Approaching might mean connecting to what is important to us and considering whether we want to approach a new person, learn more about people from a different background, or engage in a new activity. Then we can notice how approaching feels, continuing with spacious awareness, and see if we want to continue to engage. We may notice opportunities for connection that we have been missing out on. We also may find that courageously facing our fears can give us a sense of satisfaction and meaning!

With thanks to Josh Bartok for editing assistance.