Why be afraid?

[Swede]

If you face adversities and feel fear ask yourself why you are afraid. What are you afraid of? Do you need to be afraid? Most threats we encounter do not pose any real danger.

There is nothing dangerous about being embarrassing or not knowing how to act in a certain situation. There is nothing dangerous in asking a woman/man out for a date. There is nothing dangerous in a job interview. Almost everything we do can be done again.

So, ask yourself: Do I need to be afraid?

[Rossoneri]

Now you must remember people that hasn't found personal development still has a negative attitude, and therefore doesn't dare try new things in case they fail.It takes time to change that...


In my case I was afraid, but not any longer

[Sam988]

Originally Posted by Swede

If you face adversities and feel fear ask yourself why you are afraid. What are you afraid of? Do you need to be afraid? Most threats we encounter do not pose any real danger.

There is nothing dangerous about being embarrassing or not knowing how to act in a certain situation. There is nothing dangerous in asking a woman/man out for a date. There is nothing dangerous in a job interview. Almost everything we do can be done again.

So, ask yourself: Do I need to be afraid?

If everything was so logical, it would all be easy. But we are illogical, emotional creatures, so it's not so easy to get over fear in a variety of situations.

The real solution to get over fear, instead of trying to rationalize it, is to just act and do whatever you're afraid of doing. If you are afraid of public speaking, go and speak to as many audiences you can, and eventually your fear will be gone, or at least be diminished a lot.

We lose our fears after we repeatedly do things that we were afraid of doing, until our stubborn unconscious mind realizes that there's no real danger in the given situation.

[Buddy]

All fear comes down to the fear of death. Doesn't make it any easier to realize this, but the mind doesn't differentiate between what is real (TM) and what isn't. The body still responds even if the event isn't "real." Like dreams...who hasn't awakened from a dream scared, or delighted, or horny. Nothing real there but the subconscious doesn't know the difference.

[ZHereford]

I wrote an article on fear a while back that addresses some of the issues mentioned here.

Have a look: Overcome Your Fear.

[Swede]

ZHereford: I agree with the content of your article. There are different ways of dealing with fear.

[ZHereford]

Thanks Swede for taking a look! It's always good to get a broad perspective on any topic.

[openeyes]

To me, fear is frozen energy, and it's great fun to go about releasing it. To get over concern for heights, my main friend that I do Parkour with and I sometimes jog on top of walls with a 5 to 20+ foot drop off on one side. We're aiming to move as freely as we would if both sides were only ~5 feet up.

As for the fear of drowning listed in the "overcome your fear" article, there were two periods in my early life when I almost did drown but made it through fine, and then in my early teens I experienced drowning peacefully in a dream, not feeling a need to fight it, then reincarnating into another dream with full recall of the last one

I don't know of having any paralyzing fears at this point, rather there are just some situations in which I'm sure to think and act more carefully than usual. For me, fear is a call to mindfulness.

[shivraj]

Fear is useful emotion for safty of the body but most of the time is fantacized experiences appearing real .....

I think if you want to change your state of fear first change your core values, increase self esteem.. Everything is void without proper self esteem.
use affirmations, NLP, self hypnosis and always try to do atleast one thing daily which you fear of to do..

[Flyingwithoutwings]

Originally Posted by openeyes

...then reincarnating into another dream with full recall of the last one

What a great practice for the central fear of most people (centered around dying)... not to mention the, surely helpfu, memory of one's past life, talk about a head start! I wonder if these types dreams could be induced? I'd definitely enjoy doing that a night a week.

[MatthewRoberts]

I find that I have very little trouble in dealing with fear. In fact, I enjoy being afraid because it shows that I am alive and growing.

What works best for me is to tackle fear head on... but in baby steps.

For example, lets say you wanted to dive off a 10m diving platform but were too scared.

I'd first start by practicing my diving technique. Then I would dive off the smallest platform. Then I would move up to the next size platform and so on until I finally dived off the 10 platform.

And if I am still scared of the 10m platform... I'd go back again and make sure I really am prepared. Once I am sure of it, it's just a matter of taking the risk and going for the dive.

But I think it's also important to realize that many times people underestimate what they are really capable of. Once you have done your preparation, don't second-guess yourself. Just go for it.

Finally, the key to completely eliminating fear is by repeatedly facing it. With the diving board example again - you'll probably still be scared on your second, third, fourth and fifth dive... but the more often you do it... the easier and less scary it will become.

Matthew

[sarge1]

What is it they say "feel the fear and do it anyway" To overcome fear is to progress. It is not wrong to be afraid it gives us a healthy perspective of the challenge ahead.
I nearly drowned at a young age and was very afraid of water (to swim in) however at the age of 35 I finally overcame the total fear and learnt to swim. I cannot describe how good it felt to achieve this.
Respect fear but do not let it beat you.....