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Emotions and Natural Fear.Emotions are valuable assets. In situations where we don't have enough data to make logical choices we fall back on emotions. One of these is fear. In the first year of our lives we are afraid of loud noises; in the second year of being left by our mother; from our third year we're afraid of the dark, maybe large objects, wind, rain, and some animals. Later, children learn to be afraid of ghosts or heights or scary animals or of bodily injury, or sleeping alone, or being late for school or burglars or bullies or dentists. Later we're afraid of being shamed, or failing; and many adults are afraid of sickness, or loneliness or death. The list goes on... Throughout nature fear is often a good thing: if an animal is never afraid it will become another animal's lunch! Fear keeps a small animal clinging to its mother. Fear protects us from harm: we stand back from the cliff-edge; something happens to your right foot when you see a traffic policeman. But fear can also be destructive. Anxiety is 'generalized fear'. Phobias are irrational fears. (You've seen lists of these: agoraphobia, fear of open places; acrophobia, fear of heights; claustrophobia, fear of being shut in; pathophobia, fear of disease. There's some debate about whether fear of spiders is learned or inherited). Sometimes parents unwisely use fear to control their children - fear of the bogeyman, the devil, 'your father' - even fear of God or hell. We Westerners are more fear-free lives than anyone in history. Most of us live in safe neighbourhoods in a safe country. We don't fear of our own or other governments waging war upon us. But many in our world do face the real fear of random crime and violence, the fear of hate because of their skin-colour, religion or sexual orientation. Two thirds of the human race lives daily on the edge of survival... President Roosevelt said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." If only it were that simple. Psychologists suggest we 'face the thing we fear' with the help of another who can help us do some reality checking. Then we engage in 'progressive desensitization' - conquering little fears before moving on to larger ones... Natural fear can be healthy or destructive. |
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© thinkpositive.uk.com 2006
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