Fear Unchecked Can Erode Tranquility

When I was in high school, I joined my mother as a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman. In order to increase interest in our product, one of my duties was to hang door hangers offering free in-home demonstrations. One warm afternoon I wandered onto a friendly looking porch and rang the doorbell. After a few seconds a warm-faced little girl peered around the door. Looking at her I could see that she was under stress, but before I could ascertain the source of this concern a full mouth of teeth, followed by four peg legs, lunged for my thigh. I could not move fast enough, and the mouth found its mark causing me to cringe in pain. After I regained my sense of awareness and the little girl regained control of the canine, I kindly handed her my material and asked her to pass it on to her parents. Due to the events that had just occurred and the pain they had caused, I could not bear to stick around any longer and I certainly was not able to face her parents. When I later told my mother about the afternoon, she was so alarmed that she wanted me never again to ring doorbells alone. I assured her that it was all right and that this was an isolated incident. While I never became a great vacuum cleaner salesman, I did indeed learn a valuable lesson about overcoming fear.

Certainly you have watched the news or spoken to a colleague about the fears of war, health and health insurance, the state of our economy, and the safety of our vehicles. However, have you rationally considered these fearful topics, leaving out the emotional overtones? You probably haven’t, because fear is a learned and instinctual drive for self-preservation. Its logical purpose, to keep you out of danger, motivates you keep alert until the danger passes. Physiological changes, meant to help move your body away or to prepare for battle, occur during these times of heightened awareness.

A short burst of instinctual fear is healthy, but fearing a perceived enemy – known or unknown – over a long period of time may stymie your humanity. If you are fearful that you are at risk of getting a particular disease, then you increase the risk of developing other problems. In fact fear causes stress which raises blood pressure which leads to taking medicines which can create their own forms of ill health. Before you know it you are taking 2-4 pills a day for something that could have easily been solved by not being so fearful. This is not to say that you should not be health conscious, but worrying all the time will take its toll on your body’s ability to fight off common abnormalities. Similarly, if you carry a groundless fear of other people or allow the media to convince you that everyone – be they down the street or on the other side of the world – is out to get you the fear will often block your ability to have an open conversation with people. This is not the healthy, instinctual fear; it is a learned process.

Naturally there are ways to become more empowered and less fearful. I will not begin to try to explain how to overcome unfounded fears, but I have found it helpful to go back in time in my mind in order to isolate what – and why – I fear. I can then begin to examine them objectively and realize, for example, that my fear of public speaking was tied to a childhood incident when I found myself in a compromising position. By realizing that most people had forgotten about it – and that those who hadn’t now see the incident with humor and good-hearted laughter – I now have no problem speaking in public. By removing my own bias, I could see that there were solutions available. By examining my fears, I found that by removing them, I could be a better person and a healthier contributor to our community.