Fear is Only Useful in a Moment
How does reading that statement make you feel?
Fear is only useful in a moment.
Does it resonate? Does your mind try and reason away from it? Can you think of a time when a sustained level of fear has been useful to you?
Fear is useful, when we need the adrenaline rush to swerve our car out of oncoming traffic. Fear like this is immediate, and we react to it, and we move accordingly. Thank God for that fear. It communicates exactly the response we need, in the moment we need it. This same fear signals to us when we need to find safety in response to danger.
Our sympathetic nervous system is naturally built to control this fight or flight response in cases of dangerous situations. It increases our heart rate, blood pressure and breath, as it diverts blood flow to the brain and muscles, so we can prepare for immediate action.
Key word ~ immediate.
After we react and the threat is over, the parasympathetic nervous system kicks back in and initiates a rest and recovery response. This brings us back into balance once again.
We weren’t built to sustain fear, and when you consider the biological response in the body to fear, you can understand why. Now more than ever, it is important to tell your overactive thoughts the cold hard truth about the fears it keeps expressing.
Fear is only useful in a moment.
You can feel the truth in this when you sense the fear creeping up in your body, as you tune into the news. You can feel the truth in this when you sense your overactive mind racing with worries and things to be stressed about. You can feel the truth in this when you notice your heart rate creep up and your blood pressure increase over things that have no bearing on the here and now.
“I have had many crises in my life, and most of them were in my mind.”
But my body, was none the wiser… The body responds to a crisis whether it is in your mind, or actual danger. The crises in our minds, if left unchecked, will keep the body in fight or flight mode for unhealthy lengths of time.
Use this statement as an affirmation when you feel yourself responding in fear, to things you cannot control, nor are affecting you personally.
Fear is only useful in a moment.
Your brain knows that this is true and cannot argue with it. Try it.
See if you can test the theory by speaking that statement the next time you recognize that you are feeling an irrational response to fear. Your body and mind will settle a little bit, when you say this to yourself.
Then begin taking deep breaths and notice what happens. You really can override your irrational thoughts and activate your parasympathetic nervous system, when the fight or flight response has kicked in.
Fear is inherited by family, society, and past lived experiences. Fear gets awakened by anything that provokes our past or inherited unhealthy thought patterns. If we have fearful energy living in our body from the past, it is crucial to notice it and understand it.
Self-awareness in the moment, is how we heal these reactions in our bodies.
If you feel a fearful response in your body over something that is not an immediate danger, then it is likely a trigger from another time. It is helpful to pause, then place your hand on your body where you feel the discomfort and ask yourself, “what is this about?” Be with your feelings. Unacknowledged feelings from other times in our life will stay in our bodies until they are processed. Try not to look outward to blame.
For some, this may take healing work energetically, with help from a practitioner. For others, it may be self healing through a regular grounded meditation practice to foster self awareness and nurture the parasympathetic nervous system. Fear can be an addictive habitual response that overtime can even feel “safer” than peace and calm. This is why it is crucial to practice fostering peace.
To sustain a healthy body, mind, and a more productive and happy life, we must realize our relationship to fear. Why is it there? What am I doing to provoke it? Are my thoughts contributing to it? Is what I consume (media) contributing to it? Am I in a situation that is provoking it, that I need to walk away from?
Are my fears valid enough to be putting my body on constant high alert?
The long-term ramifications of living in sustained fear and a state of dis-ease, is likely, disease. Heart disease, panic disorders, immune disorders, chronic pain, fatigue, metabolic disorders, mental health issues, and relationship difficulties, just to name a few.
Constant activation of the fight or flight response does not indicate that you are a more caring person. It indicates that it is time to look within and take care of your body.
Trust that if something fearful comes up in a moment, that your body is equipped to handle it. If there is no danger in the moment, then try to relax. Breathe. Have some calming tea, listen to some gentle healing sound frequencies, or take a walk and get grounded.
Be the bigger voice in your mind and tell your worried thoughts, that fear is only useful in a moment.