The Fears that Control Us
- Apr 12, 2021
- 5 min read
Written by: Megha Mathur, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
What is the one emotion that dictates how we govern our decisions in life? Fear.
You might look at me and disagree, but that is the truth, and I ask you to look back on the decisions you have recently taken and ask yourself these questions:
1) What was the motivation behind my recent decision?
2) When I made the decision, what was the immediate next emotion I felt?
3) What is my biggest fear for that decision?
Fear is one emotion that dictates pretty much how we live, how we interact with others, and how we navigate ourselves in our personal and professional lives.
Fear is a natural, powerful, and primitive human emotion. Fear alerts us to the presence of danger or the threat of harm, whether that danger is physical or psychological. Sometimes fear stems from real threats, but it can also originate from imagined dangers. Fear can also be a symptom of some mental health conditions, including panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, phobias, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But in all cases, fear manifests itself either as conscious fears or unconscious fears.
Conscious Fears
Let’s say someone was bitten by a dog when they were young, which led to a fear of dogs. Now, every time they see a dog, they have a panic attack because they believe that the dog will bite them. This is termed as a conscious fear when someone is aware of the fear's existence. Most of these fears lead to severe anxieties in life.
Most of the conscious fears club have similar situations to the same instigating event that caused the fear to develop. Using the same example as above, an individual who is afraid of dogs has generalized all dogs as aggressive. Their response to that fear comes from what they felt at that moment to that one specific dog, and their responses are now generalized to all dogs.
A conscious fear can be dealt with in a desensitization process where the individual is exposed to smaller yet similar situations to overcome this fear, such as showing them a puppy will not harm them.
Unconscious Fears
This is an interesting phenomenon psychologically. These fears are hidden deep within us and don’t come into our awareness per se, but our actions will prove otherwise. An unconscious fear will keep us stuck in dysfunctional cycles leading to self-sabotaging behaviors.
How do these fears develop? They develop because we, as humans, are looking for one thing in our life, and that is validation - validation that we matter; validation that our relationships are fulfilling; validation that we have successful careers. Some of the most common examples of the manifestation of these fears include:
1) Fear of not succeeding: This type of fear starts we deem failure as being absolute in our pursuit of success. It registers deep down in our psyche, and even though we tell ourselves that the failure was a learning curve, our actions and words would say otherwise. Sentences beginning with “I can’t” will start to take over.
2) Fear of making mistakes: This fear can again be learned in childhood, resulting in a perfectionist behavior. Most individuals who fear making mistakes have low self-esteem and push others to compensate for it through their work ethics.
3) Fear of rejection: One of the most feared “fears” is the feeling of not being accepted by people. When you live with a fear of rejection, your self-sabotaging behavior leads you to become defensive and “close-up” You could use sarcasm to stop others from hurting you because you work retroactively to stop the hurt, which may or may not occur.
4) Fear of the unknown: This type of fear, in its true essence, holds us back to take any action that will truly propel us to our success. When you fear the unknown, you could possibly hear yourself weighing out the CONS of your situation more than the pros.
Overcoming the Unconscious Fears
1) Identify your fears: It is so important to identify your unconscious fear. To identify these kinds of fears, you will have to sit down and self-reflect on some of these things:
Did you at any time in your childhood hear your parents talk negatively about success or failures?
Were you chastised for your failures?
How do you view your relationships in your life? Do you have a habit of pleasing others? Do you become defensive? Do you become sarcastic?
Are you afraid of success because it will mean taking on more responsibilities?
2) Why and when of this fear?
Can you identify the specific situation that made you bury this fear deep down in your subconscious? For example, if you are fearful of success, did you ever have an incident in your life where you failed at something and now equate failure as being “what you are good at” and there is nothing better than you can do, which will be good enough.
3) How has this impacted your life?
Unknowingly the impact of your fear is not seen until and unless you sit down and self-reflect. When you remove yourself from the situation and view yourself from a birds-eye view, you will be able to see how the fear has shaped your life. It gives you an idea of all of the self-sabotaging behaviors you are engaged in.
4) The What If….
This is so important to do once you have completed the first three steps. You need to think through the what if and see how things would be different for you once those fears were eliminated. It could overwhelm you, but it brings things into perspective.
5) Face your fear by utilizing small steps to overcome it:
As a life coach, I cannot tell you to face your fear, and then everything will be fine! No.
You need to see for yourself that small steps taken to overcome your fear make you stronger and that the root cause of your fear has no factually based evidence to support the notion that you will not succeed.
For example, for fear of success – a small goal could be taking on a small project and giving it your 100%. It doesn’t have to be anything that will significantly impact your career but something small.
Once you succeed at your small goals, your mind now starts to loop in positive thoughts against your fear, making it smaller and smaller in your mind.
Conclusion
More than the conscious fears, unconscious fears are what hold us back. It is so very important to know what you actually fear so that you can stop the self-sabotaging behaviors and achieve the success you deserve.
Megha Mathur, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Megha Mathur is a trained Mental Health Professional and a Life Coach. She has her own YouTube channel where she posts weekly videos on mental health and personal development. She has a strong passion for helping those individuals who live in cultures where talking about mental health and stigma is still a taboo. She has become a life coach to give quick solutions to individuals who feel stuck in their life. Her mission is to help everyone live a more empowered life by mastering confidence.
