Many people experience fear as an extremely negative feeling that limits them to doing what they want. It is true that fear, like no other feeling, can limit you in what you do unless you decide otherwise. Fear becomes a restriction and turns into suffering when we decide to fight it, to accept it and run away from it. When we stop doing it, fear is retreating, because it is not natural and it is not useful to live permanently in fear.
Here are the basic reasons why not be afraid of fear:
The More it Persists
The more you fight with fear, the more it persists – relieving fear leads to its maintenance because the organism needs more time to calm down. When you resist fear, you are actually sending your brain a signal that the danger has not passed yet .
The More Unpleasant it Becomes
The more you fight the fear, the more unpleasant it becomes – the struggle with fear leads to the creation of an unpleasant internal conflict that manifests itself through the tightening of the body, unpleasant body sensation, internal pressure, and the intense feeling of fatigue and exhaustion. If you do not fight fear, you won’t go through those unpleasant feelings, the discomfort is less intense and when the fear passes the person does not feel tired and exhausted.
The Longer it Lasts
The more you fight the fear it lasts for a longer time – the struggle with fear makes it last much longer, which is therefore more unpleasant. If you did not resist fear at all, it would take about 90 seconds to two minutes for it to go away. If you are struggling with fear and anxiety, fear can last for hours.
The More Helplessness You Feel
When you fight fear, you increase your sense of helplessness or create anger towards yourself. The person feels helpless because they think they cannot control themselves, or cannot control fear. Some people think that they should not even react with fear in some situations that they know they are not dangerous. If a person reacts with fear, that does not mean that the person is weak or not brave. Brave people have fears too, but instead of feeling stressed they accept it as a normal feeling/ emotion. Therefore, courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the confrontation with it.
It is always good to be brave and courageous instead of trying to fight it. That is the only way to deal with it.
