Jane Philips

Transforming Fear

Understanding Fear

What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it.
-Jiddu Krishnamurti

If you've ever had a panic attack, you know what it means to be paralyzed by fear. They are among the most uncomfortable sensations imaginable, and for many people, enough to keep them from going places, and trying new things, or even having a conversation with someone new. Fear has a function in our myriad emotions—a warning signal, designed to put us on heightened alert. But living from a place of fear is both dangerous and exhausting, and most of the time, unnecessary.

Living from a position of fear is like building a wall around oneself that shuts out all life. Fear can paralyze us in a multitude of ways. Procrastination is one of its forms—masking fear of failure, or more deeply, fear of success. We prevaricate on taking a position or accomplishing what we might, because we are afraid of where either success or failure may lead.

Our armed society is indication of the role fear plays in our lives. If you need an automatic weapon with a thirty-round clip to feel safe, the enemy is not without, but within. When we respond to attacks by reloading and rearming, we create a culture of fear in which tempers are hair-trigger and any provocation can lead to disaster.

What is needed, as Krishnamurti says, is to learn about our fear, not to run from it, and certainly, I would add, not to arm against it. Understanding fear, even panic attacks, helps to diminish them. Taking that step into the unknown in spite of fear is what brings courage. Putting oneself out, even if the response is rejection, brings understanding that we need not be paralyzed by fear of failure. We will survive it and try again. We can, by facing fear, take the wall down one brick at a time.

Jane Philips is a fabric artist, writer and retired counselor in Birmingham Alabama
Her daily blog is called Spiritually Speaking.