What is Fear and Why You Feel Scared

fear you me our friends and our parents we all live in constant fear sometimes without even realizing it fear is a powerful force that lives inside you and governs your every action whether you like it or not we feel it the strongest when we meet something that scares us a stranger in a dark alley right behind you a loud noise out of nowhere in complete silence a frantic hawk of a car when you're crossing the street but the real fear is much deeper and more insidious than that you might remember a time when you were

waiting beside yourself for the results of the final test on the subject you never really understood you go about your day as usual but somewhere in the back of your skull there's a feeling that gnaws on you whispering that you fail you're a disgrace a loser and when the results are finally announced no matter what they are you feel a rush of relief there are lots of types of fear the instinctive animal one is the most basic the fear for your life and the fear of pain are given to us as a means of self-preservation

like fear of heights you look down from the top of a high-rise building and your head is spinning because you don't want to fall you're scared fear resides in our deepest and darkest self it was born because it helped our earliest ancestors survive now it's become something we have to overcome every single day we give it different names trying to hide its true nature but what we call stress or anxiety is nothing but fear in its purest form even from the point of physiology fear of immediate danger and pressure of stress are caused by the

same hormones adrenaline and cortisol they give you a boost of energy to overcome a threat but when they're in the game for too long they quickly turn from friends to enemies messing with your heart blood and sugar levels we humans are extremely complex beings and we're afraid of things animals can't even imagine and i'm not talking about nightmares or creatures from horror movies i'm speaking of the fear of life itself from early childhood we're subconsciously being taught to be afraid toddlers learn to behave for fear of being punished school kids bring home good marks for

fear of being scolded by their parents college and university students try their best for fear of being expelled and workers show good results for fear of being fired even the most successful business people are afraid of going out of luck and losing their wealth it's a never-ending chain of fears that presses us almost from birth and to the end of our lives beneath these layers of fear though lies the simple truth they're all caused by conditioning and that's perhaps the scariest part of human nature without this learned fear of consequences we'd be able to do

atrocious things with not a single pang of guilt the whole moral code we build and follow within the society is based on the fear of getting penalized by other people imagine if you had superpowers whichever you like for example if it was super strength and invulnerability you might become a hero rescuing the weak but wouldn't it cross your mind at least once that you could break into a bank vault instead and get away with all the money you want or perhaps get back at those who bullied you in school you can banish these thoughts all

you like but there's no hiding from the truth the only thing that constrains you is your own conscious or put simply the fear of consequences and the lack of those superpowers of course as children we seem to believe we're immortal and live our lives to the fullest with all the ups and downs but once we learn there's going to be the end of us we grow fearful we can't but stop to think of what we're doing with our lives what if i don't leave any mark of my own on this world what if my life

is useless what if i'm gone tomorrow and no one will even remember me these intrinsic fears both push us forward and hold us back when you want to make some serious change in your life like confessing your feelings to someone you love there are two fears fighting inside you tugging you back and forth one is telling you you'll be rejected because you're too shy too small too insignificant for this person they deserve better than you and the other is fear of what will happen if you don't come out with your feelings you might stay forever

alone and the person you love will choose someone else leaving you to watch and blame yourself for not being braver in the end it's one of those fears that wins and you get to live with the fruit of your choice but make no mistake even those who seem fearless in the eyes of others have anxieties of their own in fact they probably are much more insecure than they show the bold facade might hide a ton of unresolved personal issues someone who bullies others and isn't afraid of getting into a fight might be doing that to

spill out their pent up anger at the world a person whose life is a thrilling adventure could be afraid of not being recognized or not living their life to the fullest finally the heart of any company always surrounded with friends and fans who's not afraid of approaching anyone might be terribly scared of staying alone and yet all these fears can be explained they're part of what you are and if you dig deep enough you'll find reasons for them all but there are other fears that seemingly don't follow any logic you might be a lover of

extreme sports skydiving mountain climbing base jumping or whatever but be afraid of swimming to the point where you don't even go near the water or say you can bravely throw yourself into a fire and save dozens of lives but are scared scentless at the sight of a harmless bug others might write it off as your little quirk but it has much deeper roots in your past and most probably you don't even remember what made you feel this way our brain tends to block traumatic experience we had and doesn't let us recall it to protect us

it usually happens with something really bad something that broke you down at some point in your life to recover from damage you need to blot out this event from your memory and your brain obliged but even though you can't remember what exactly happened the effects of it might have clung on and sometimes they're not so obvious if you're afraid of water it might mean that sometime in the past you nearly drowned and were barely brought back to life but it could also be that you were witness to something horrible on or near a body of

water fear of the dark might be just that the fear of what's hiding in there one of our most ancient instincts yet you personally could be affected by darkness in a much deeper way than others because as a child you were left alone in the dark as punishment far too many times still although fear can't be defeated entirely it doesn't need to be the anxiety about not being accomplished in life makes us strive for improvement without it no great discoveries would have been made and no daring souls would have fueled the progress if we had

no fear whatsoever our life would also be terribly boring just imagine not being able to enjoy a roller coaster ride or a good horror movie there would be no thrill in those and we'd never feel that awesome rush of excitement adrenaline gives us and finally there would probably be no us to speak of at all fear appeared millions of years ago as an evolutionary feature it allowed our ancestors to adequately measure their surroundings and either fight a predator they felt they could take on or flee from an apparently stronger enemy this is known as a

fight or flight response and you can feel its effects to this day alternatively you could freeze on the spot when the danger is too huge this is how many animals make predators lose interest in them by pretending not to be alive so don't fight your fear too much and neither should you be ashamed of it it's an indispensable part of your nature so embrace it and let it be your friend instead