Loving The Afraid

In the dim distant past fear would have saved many a early human from making that disastrous flip from hunting dinner to being the main course on another’s menu. Of course, modern fears tend to be a little different but if you think it through then they remain, in essence, based on the same strong desire for self-preservation.

Experience is a strong cause of fear – a negative experience can create a powerful imprint on the human psyche. You put your hand in a flame, it burns and the fear of the pain prevents you from doing it again.

This is our primary way of learning especially when young however experience still holds a strong sway over us as an educator throughout our lives. Experience of a broken-heart and/or rejection often stays with us for a long time and informs our behaviour in subsequent relationships.

As it is with physical pain it is with emotional pain; if we are burnt then the fear of the pain animates a thousand shadows in a person’s heart. What makes fear so hard to overcome is that deep down you know that no matter how much you tell yourself it is all in your mind, you also know that there is that annoying rational kernel which beats you back every-time. Although fears often appear irrational that is only due to influencing behaviour beyond it’s original context; it seems slightly odd that a tree can be produced out of a tiny seedling but the fact it can is generally accepted.

Often fear causes you to act in such a way that the very thing you are afraid of actually comes to pass; thus it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.