The Gift Of Fear

The gift of fear is wisdom and freedom.


Embracing our fear gives us the opportunity to notice what is life destructive and what is life enhancing. Both involve risk. Fear gives us the pause to reflect and make judicious evaluations. The opportunity to use our wisdom gained from listening to our fear gives us choice. Freedom Is The Ability To Choose.

Repressed or denied fear controls our life.

Shame is often called the master emotion, yet fear is its equal. Re-pressed fear can create phobias, anxieties, death obsessions, hyper-vigilance, terror, anxieties, worries and obsessions, with the attendant rituals. Two primary issues of co-dependency are the fear of abandon¬ment and the fear of intimacy.

The dysfunctional, polarized approach to fear involves overreacting to fear, and or attempting to avoid any risk in life that might stir up our fears. We become like wallflowers, standing along the wall watching the dance of life but afraid to join in because we may be rejected, laughed at or not do it well enough. If we do get rejected we end up back where we started. The fear of rejection prevents many of us from risking and putting ourselves out there again. This fear of being ridiculed, laughed at or not performing well controls our lives.

The other approach is the daredevil who says, "I’m not afraid of anything.' We have fear but we disconnect from it. We can’t ignore it so we defy and challenge it, taking life-destructive risks: I’ll jump the Grand Canyon on a bicycle with a parachute." Does this prove courage or a lack of common sense?

The bully keeps hiding the fear behind aggression.

Our fear can be the pause to reflect, and this gives us an opportunity for choice. Listening to the fear tells us what is alive and life enhancing. This is the source of our wisdom.