"I bury fear like bodies in unmarked graves; pretend I don't feel the earth shake." -Chloe Frayne
Fear is a chain reaction in the brain. It always starts with a stressful stimulant and results in the releasing of chemicals in your body that cause your heart to race, your breathing to quicken, and your muscles to tighten. Then your brain quickly decides, "Do I run or do I stay and fight?" In other words known as, fight or flight.
Fear can be a good thing. Often, it can save us from very harmful situations or objects. But, I worry my generation has become fearful of all the wrong things, over fantasizing the word, making it become a bigger issue than it should. Just think about all the mental illness and sickness driven by fear.
Anxiety: a feeling of fear or worry about a situation or outcome
Social Anxiety: the fear of social situations
Panic Disorder: an attack that happens to your body when feeling intense anxiety or fear about something
Depression: Negative feelings about life or yourself often spawned by the fear of the past, the fear of being good enough or the fear of loneliness.
I could list many more but you get the idea. We live in a word full of fear. Where did bravery go? Where did confidence go?
We are so terrified of fear, that we hide our fears from others, we bury our fear from ourselves, because we fear them judging us or knowing our flaws and we fear confrontation.
The first way to battle fear is to say it out loud. Face your fear verbally. "I am afraid of…….." And then confront it. Discover what created this fear. Fear is not born with us. It is learned. Once you find the source, you can start to work on battling your fear instead of burying it.
