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Emotion: Fear

Meaning: 1) You perceive a threat you want to flee.
2) You perceive something coming for which you feel unprepared.

Threat Based Fear

Similar to anger, you must first evaluate whether or not there is a threat. Is there an immediate threat to you? Is there an immediate threat to one of your responsibilities or someone or something you love? If the answer is no, then your fear does not stem from this.

If you do perceive a threat to yourself, your responsibility, or someone or something you love, the first question to ask yourself is: Is there really a threat? Sometimes we perceive threats that do not actually exist, or the threat we perceive is very hypothetical and exceptionally unlikely. We must assess the threat to determine if there really is a threat.

Very often, we feel there is a threat that does not actually exist. For instance, what is more dangerous to have in a home with children? A handgun or a five gallon bucket? More young children die from accidents involving five gallon buckets than die from accidental gunshot wounds. When gun death statistics were published talking about gun deaths of “children,” they defined children as anyone under the age of 21. The vast majority of “children” deaths were criminal to criminal fights in the 17 to 20 year old range. If someone was concerned about accidental death of an 8 year old, the statistic was incredibly misleading.

On a related note, a mother was terrified that her children might be shot accidentally if their grandmother’s gun, kept in her purse, went off. She had an irrational fear that the gun would fire by itself in the purse, although her children were more likely to be injured slipping in the bathroom after showering in the morning. The fear was not rational because the threat was wildly hypothetical. While not totally and completely impossible, it was so unlikely as to constitute no threat at all.

Also, our Mind responds to what it has seen and heard, not what is real. That means that if you watch a horror movie and go for a late night walk, your Mind just got two hours of experience watching monsters jump out at people, and it recognizes that walking around in the dark is where such things can happen. After watching a move about shark attacks, your Mind is focused on shark attacks and may give a fear warning when you want to go in the water.

These fears we can recognize as irrational and then ignore them since we know there is no real threat. The feeling might be intense since our Mind thinks it actually saw it and knows it happens, which means that these opportunities are excellent for tackling Fear head on. By setting Fear aside and doing what we know is safe anyway, we can condition ourselves to do what we choose to do no matter how we feel.

Confronting Fear when we know for certain it is irrational is good exercise for this. This is part of the utility of horror movies and horror novels. It generates fear that we know is irrational, and it helps us feel safe in the face of irrational fear. Boys and men often enjoy horror movies most because they understand that they are expected to do frightening things without hesitation, and it seems very masculine to face Fear head on.

Despite all the admonitions to Fear God, the Bible says that we have not been given a spirit of Fear, and some use that as evidence that Christians should never seek to experience Fear. However, the word is more properly translated fearfulness, or timidness, or having a default emotion of fear and uncertainty. Allowing yourself to be frightened when you know you are safe is good for strengthening your Will in the face of intense Emotion. When times are particularly tough, horror and action films gain popularity. When life is difficult, it is helpful to people to know that they can be scared and be okay.

If we do recognize a threat, then the next question is whether or not we can get away from the threat, and if so, how? Sometimes threats are so obvious that there is little need for much evaluation. If we’re afraid because a car is about to run over us, we move. If we can’t escape, then we have to take another action, even if that action might be nearly hopeless. If escape is impossible, doing nothing will result in injury or death, and trying will still result in injury or death, we may as well go down trying.

Unprepared to Face Something Fear

Most Fear is due to perceiving something coming for which we feel unprepared. Sometimes we’re afraid of public speaking. Sometimes it’s a test. Sometimes it’s talking to someone, or a social event, or learning a new skill, or facing someone when we know we’ve done something wrong. Sometimes we’re afraid of failing, and sometimes we’re afraid of succeeding.

When we’re afraid, the first thing we have to do is find out what it is we think is coming. What is it that we perceive, and how are we defining it? It our perception true? What is it, exactly, that scares us? Once we know exactly what we think is coming, we’re ready for the next question.

What would it take to be ready? If your first impulsive answer involves things that are impossible, like “a million years of practice,” that tells you your problem. You need to make an honest assessment about what it would honestly take to be ready. Once you know what you think is coming and what it will take to be ready, then go to the next question.

This first question is meant to be non-personal. We aren’t asking ourselves what WE need to do to get ready, but what it would take no matter who was facing the situation. By externalizing the situation first, it helps us be more objective. Our “million years of practice” answer obviously wouldn’t apply to everyone, since no one who has ever done whatever it is had a million years of practice.

Likewise, we must beware of excusing ourselves by defining the need as something we do not have and cannot acquire. Answers to the “What would it take to get ready” question like “talent” or “experience” are excuses. We need to be objective and think positively. Assuming it were possible for someone like us, what would it take?

The next question is “What would I have to do to get ready?” If you know what it takes, and you have an honest assessment of your own abilities, you should look at what you can already do and what you need to do. You might find that you’re ready now. If so, it was a false perception. You might need some practice to make sure you’re ready. Some professional performers feel fear before every show, and their answer is to over-prepare so much that they could practically do their show in their sleep. When they are that prepared, they’re ready to go on.

I used to compete in martial arts tournaments, and I’d overtrain my forms to the point that I didn’t even remember doing them when I competed. I’d remember doing the opening protocols, then bowing to start the form, then in what seemed like less time than was possible, I was bowing at the end of the form and waiting to be excused. The form was repeated so many times that my body went on autopilot once I started. I didn’t have to worry about fear because even if I didn’t know what I was doing, my body knew.

Once you are certain that you’re ready, you can face the fear as a matter of Will. Unless you are so over-practiced that you would have to concentrate just to mess up, then you may still feel some fear when you do what scares you. That would be normal. A little fear can sharpen your senses and make you more aware of details. Fighters and soldiers often rely on this in combat. They know that only a fool is never afraid.

If You Honestly Cannot Get Ready

You may discover that what it would take to honestly get ready for what you need to do is beyond your ability. You might have a perfectly rational fear telling you that you really aren’t ready for something and there might be nothing you can do about it. In this case you might seriously consider avoiding a particular situation, but only if your rational thought process concludes that your best option in a particular case is to run and hide.

You might find that you need some particular skill to deal with a situation, and that might require help or further training. If you understand that you fear is telling you that you aren’t ready, you know you need to get ready. If you find that you are lacking in a needed skill this time, you can immediately start work to acquire that skill before a similar situation arises again. Very often facing a terrifying situation you cannot overcome can be used as motivation to make sure the next time the situation arises, you’re ready.

Before you simply give up on yourself, though, you really should check carefully to make sure there really is no way to be prepared. Ask yourself this question, and honestly try to answer it: “If I got through this okay, how would I have done it?” By assuming you got through already, then trying to look back from the standpoint of success, we can often find answers that we might not see looking forward at a situation.

FALSE EVIDENCE APPEARING REAL?

There is an axiom with the general theme that F.E.A.R. is False Evidence Appearing Real. The danger of this axiom is that it treats all fear as irrational and often explicitly teaches to simply ignore the feeling and the information it may be providing and do something anyway. We must be careful of this way of thinking because it can often lead us into trouble.

Any feeling is there to provide information. We must consider the information properly, not just ignore it. We should not minimize what we perceive any more than we should magnify it irrationally. We should always do our best to deal with and consider the objective facts.

THE DANGER OF VANISHED FEAR

Just because the emotion of Fear seems to have vanished does not necessarily mean that the issues have been properly addressed. There are a number of inadvertent techniques people use that result in Fear vanishing without having really dealt with the thing coming.

Since Fear means we perceive something coming for which we feel unprepared, it might disappear if we change our perception so we are blind to what’s coming. We could redefine the coming event to something for which we are prepared. We might decide that there is no way to prepare for it, so we’re as ready as we can be without doing anything more.

If these things are true, then we’ve dealt with Fear as Fear was intended to be addressed. If, however, we have told ourselves lies, or believed the lies of others, so that our fears are eliminated - we might be in for a rude awakening somewhere down the line.

One example is having a baby. If someone is thinking that having a baby is a 25 year commitment to raise another human being from a clean slate to a mature, educated adult, and they feel fear, that would be an indication that they feel unprepared to do so. Thinking about having a child, if all they focus on is having a baby without thinking much about what that means in time, energy and responsibility, and the duration of that commitment, then they likely would not feel afraid. They haven’t fully considered the things that come with the decision being made.

If the spouse that hasn’t thought about it prevails, or even if the more long-thinking spouse simply does not want to appear to be against the idea or not loving a child already confirmed as coming, she will change her view. If she does this by ignoring the coming responsibility, her fears will vanish not because she has gotten ready, but because she has redefined the coming event in such a manner that no preparation is required.

There is no lack of help to do such things. Just in this area alone, many people will say things like “You can never be ready,” “Children are chaos,” “You’ll figure it out,” “You just have to love your baby, and the rest will take care of itself.” There are many other ways we say “Don’t worry about it” without actually dealing with it. However, we ought to think about it, consider what it will take, look for where we lack skills, and spend the duration of the pregnancy doing what we can to prepare.

Children and teens often allay their fears about becoming adults by simply not thinking about the responsibilities involved. Engaged couples often quench their fears about marriage by simply ignoring the coming realities of being husband and wife. Lovers simply ignore the risks of pregnancy and disease. The more fears are dealt with by ignoring things that will come, by ignoring those things for which they are unprepared, the more the lack of fear can be destructive.

Thus we see God’s intent for Fear. Fear is there to warn us to get ready. Fear is there to remind us that the baby is coming several months from now, and we ought to work diligently during that time to prepare ourselves to be mom and dad, to find out what to expect, to structure our lives and home and finances and grow ourselves. Fear is there to drive us to soberly consider the responsibility of raising a human being from child to adult, for crafting the marriage we want them to duplicate when they’re adults, to drive us be the people we hope they will be when they grow up.

If we ignore the fear, then we won’t be ready. If we allow ourselves to redefine the coming event rather than face its reality, we won’t be ready. If we’re not ready when the event does arrive, we will suffer the consequences of our lack of preparedness. We won’t be emotionally ready to have a baby need us day and night. We won’t be ready to face the responsibilities of being an adult or a spouse. If we aren’t ready, there are consequences.

A SPIRIT OF FEAR

The Bible says that we are not given a spirit of fear, or, more specifically, timidity or fearfulness. However, there are many people who routinely interpret things in such a manner as to be constantly afraid. These people need to consider the realities of all that they had feared, all the things over which they have worried in the past, and think about them objectively.

For instance, some 50,000 people a year die from vehicle accidents. That’s nearly 1,000 people a week, about half from alcohol related accidents. Several dozen were killed in the last decade at school shootings. However, when a school shooting dominates the news, which do we fear? We fear the thing that recently happened at one place with a handful of victims, rather than the thing we all do nearly every day that takes hundreds of lives a week. Unless some event has brought automobile accidents to their conscious awareness, we tend to fear what we see in the media or fear what recently happened to us or someone we know.

When a San Diego girl vanished from her bedroom, many parents were afraid their child could be taken from the home. People wondered aloud what they could do if a child wasn’t even safe in his or her own bed! But it was one girl, one time, out of millions. From time to time things like that happen, and it’s always a shock. Children are so seldom taken from their homes (other than estranged spouses kidnapping their children from one another), that such a thing makes the news every time. However, most children who die aren’t kidnapped from their bedrooms while their parents are home. In fact, even with millions of children nation wide, would it be unusual for one child a year to fall victim to a one in a million crime?

There are always dangers, and we can’t always be worried about all of them. The best we can do is deal with probabilities. Certain things so seldom happen that there is virtually no need to prepare for them. Other things are probable enough that we should take some precautions. Even then, it’s not just a matter of feeling afraid of what ought to scare us, but the question is always “What can you do to prepare?”

If you catch yourself always making the worst assumptions about what might happen, you might want to check your thinking. What is your philosophy for evaluating facts? You might have to change the rules your Mind uses to evaluate information. To do that, consult the chapter on Rules.

FEAR OF GOD

“Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” is found both at Psalms 111:10 and Proverbs 9:10. The Bible talks about fearing the Lord, fearing God, and even taking delight in that fear. Some think it means we should be scared that God is going to get us if we step out of line. Others think that this just means that we should have a healthy respect for God. However, approaching it with this chapter’s understanding of the emotion we call fear, it makes sense.

The emotion of fear means that we perceive a threat we wish to flee, or we perceive that something is coming for which we feel unprepared. If God is who the Bible says God is, then He is a holy and righteous and just God, and despite His love, He will be forced by the choices made by those who reject Him to likewise reject them. It requires proper alignment in our Spirit, being spiritually born again to gain spiritual life (something more thoroughly explored in the book Master of Self). So for the people who have chosen to deny Him, God is something to be feared. While many might want to run from Him, or at least consider that they have no need of Him, the only answer is to run to Him, not away from Him.

By the second definition, perhaps more enlightening in this case, is the understanding that fear means that we perceive something for which we are unprepared. It is this fear that brings the beginning of wisdom, when we realize that we are completely unprepared to meet God face to face. We are unprepared to stand before Him with our sin intact, unprepared to meet eternity. This realization helps us come to Him for mercy, mercy granted to us because Jesus Christ already paid the price for our sin if only we trust that God has taken care of it for us, and that nothing we do by ourselves could be enough.

For those of us who have worked through evaluating ourselves, and have also sought truth and discovered for ourselves that a holy and just God must demand payment for sin, and have then accepted Jesus Christ as Savior, we understand that we cannot face God on our own merits. Christians, by and large, trust that the Bible means what it says, understand that all have sinned, and that the wages of sin is death, and that our salvation is a free gift from God. It is the realization that only through God are we prepared to face God that the fear of God rests in us, not the frightened terror of someone who thinks God is out to get him, but the awesome realization of the majesty of Almighty God.

The models of Emotion we use tell us that when we are confronted with something that is coming for which we are not prepared, there are two options, either withdraw or do whatever we can to prepare. We cannot withdraw from God for He is an ultimate reality everyone must someday face, though many do try to flee Him and His truth, some on purpose, some ignorantly. Since we cannot withdraw, we must do whatever we can to prepare. Some people will deal with it just by ignoring Him, but the consequences will come.

An understanding of God tells us that we cannot be prepared in our own strength, that we must follow His rules, and His rules demand sacrifice. Fortunately, He also made the very sacrifice demanded by justice that God may remain holy even as He is also loving. Our preparation, then, is faith in God through Jesus Christ, and in Him we are prepared and have dealt with fear properly.