Is fear an emotion or a perception? What do we do about the notion of fear? In the next two posts, I am going to look at how fear is driving the problem of social conflict and the ongoing collapse of church institutions in America.
In this post, I want to address three areas regarding the experience of fear: the psychology of fear, and finally mindful practices to deal with fear.
Psychology of Fear
Fear is closely related to anxiety, here is a post on anxiety that I wrote a few weeks back:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/loveopensdoors/2023/12/advent-spiritual…actice-of-prayer/
It is important to note that anxiety and fear, while related, are not the same. Fear relates to a known or understood threat, whereas anxiety follows from an unknown, expected, or poorly defined threat.
Like anxiety, we need fear. If we did not have both, we would not be able to protect ourselves. As an evolutionary device, it has protected our species for millennia. While the stakes are lower today, as a clinician and as a former pastor, I witness and help folks manage a lot of fear in my practice. While speaking in public, driving across town, or even getting groceries are not the scariest experiences, every day, I help people manage their fear and anxiety.
There are many factors that lead one to be fearful. The behavior trait known as neuroticism can increase one’s likelihood of developing a phobia. One’s tendency toward frequent worries and negative thoughts may also increase the risk. Traumas such as being raised by overprotective parents, losing a parent, or sexual or physical abuse also can raise the potential for an openness to fear.
There is another fear that I have had to deal with my entirety of my career as a pastor, the fear of change. My working hypothesis here is that these feelings are more of an anxiety than a fear response. I say this because of the definition I used above. I will dig more into this in a future post. When I talk about taking the emotion out of fear, I do believe that while fear is an emotional state, it is also a state of being. In the military, there are many ways that we are trained to deal with the many fears we will encounter in a gun fight. Facing those fears and problem solving through the fears are one of the solutions that I will talk about later in this post.
Philosophy of Fear
The Stoics teach us that fear is not the enemy, but a tool to help us determine what we should fear and how to live in a diminished state if our worst fears come true. It is from the Stoics that I take my cues for how to manage my fears. While fear is based on real and tangible threats to our existence, our reactions can be magnified by our perception of hopelessness, meaninglessness, and victimization.
The most important aspect to our mental health is our emotions. Emotions bring meaning to our experiences in general, make life worth living. However, when one emotion dominates our headspace, say depression, anxiety, grief and in the case of this post, fear, we begin to lose sight of what has the most meaning for us.
Turning back to the Stoics then, they argued that emotions make no sense because we can not fear what we cannot control or what we can for that matter. As I mentioned in the section on psychology, fear is normal and okay, anxiety is not. A healthy relationship with fear along with other emotions can bring us into a greater awareness of ourselves.
Mindful Practices to Manage Fearful Responses
I would argue that our ego gets our fear really fired up and then anxiety comes along and joins the party and now I have someone who is not engaging in life. To take the emotion out of fear, we need to take the ego out of the emotion.
On of the most obvious things we can do when we are fearful is to just breathe. While I hear it all the time, “deep breathing doesn’t do anything for me,” the evidence is quite robust when it comes to breathwork and its healing properties. As a long-distance runner, getting control of my breath helps me maintain control of my mind so I can not only run, but eat and focus on my strategy.
Two of the most common breathwork approaches I teach in my office are box breathing and diaphragmatic breathing:
Diaphragmatic, or belly breathing
- Start by sitting comfortably or lying on your back.
- Place one hand on the upper part of your chest and the other hand on your belly.
- Relax your belly muscles.
- Breathe in slowly through your nose until you feel your belly start to rise.
- Breathe out slowly through slightly pursed lips and feel your belly fall.
- Repeat.
Box breathing
- Breathe out while counting to four.
- Hold your breath while counting to four.
- Breathe in while counting to four.
- Hold your breath while counting to four.
- Repeat.
Walking is another way of dealing with fear. In the military, we often were told to move, or the only way out is through. What does not work is staying put or getting stuck.
Finally, turn off the television, put down the phone and get off the social media. All these mediums are curated to maximize your fears. The world really is not any worse off than it has ever been. When you engage in these mediums, especially in this day, you only get to see what you want to see. I get it all the time; I tend to read the news in the morning to have material to talk about throughout the day. Inevitably in my morning readings, I find myself reading articles sent to me about things I had talked to clients about the day prior. It really makes decent quality research hard to do.
I want to close with William Ernest Henley’s poem, Invictus (Henley, 1875) as challenge to our fears:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
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