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Overcome Fear to Reach Your Full Potential

© Jerry Lopper

Fear, though critical to human survival, is often unnecessary fear and prevents us from achieving full potential. Understanding the source of fear and learning techniques for overcoming fears detrimental to your personal growth are critical for effective self empowerment.

What is Fear?

The American Heritage Dictionary defines fear as a feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger. You and I know fear as a cold chill, nausea, racing heartbeat, cold sweat, and a tension or tightness throughout the body. These symptoms result from the body's natural reaction to threat, with preparations for fight or flight.

Perhaps what we don't realize is that fear is always about a future event. Even the fear one feels from an immediate threat is a projection that the threat will become reality. While it is useful to be aware of potential threats to physical well being, we must recognize that fear mobilizes the body for immediate action--flight or fight--which effectively focuses all our physical and mental resources on the perceived threat.

This is all well and good for a real threat. But we seldom face real threats. Most of the threats we perceive are ill-defined future situations with low probability of occurrence. Yet we frequently feel fear and fear drives many of our actions. Why are we so fearful and is it healthy for us?

Fear Controls

Fear is a powerful emotion. Fear keeps us from crossing a busy street without looking. But fear also keeps us from realizing our full potential. We grow up with fear because those who influence us know that fear is an excellent way to control a person. This seems to work well when our parents tell us the terrible things that could happen if we:

• Run with a sucker in our mouth,
• Talk to strangers,
• Take alcohol, tobacco, or drugs,
• Fail to eat our vegetables,
• Do poorly in school,
• Break the laws of government and religion,
• and on, and on.

Parental responsibility is to educate young people to the dangers of life. But education informs while fear controls. All too often those in power select fear rather than education. It's so much easier to control behavior through fear than to inform and debate; it's no wonder parents, teachers, coaches, political leaders, employers, and the media routinely use fear instilling techniques to accomplish their objectives.

The Roots of Fear

Our ultimate fear is that of survival. A parallel fundamental fear is that we will not be loved. The two are intertwined when God or religion comes into the equation. Some religions teach that to fall out of favor with God (to be unloved) is to burn in hell forever (failure to survive).