When we break our moods down to the “four corners of feelings”——mad, glad, sad and scared——we find that we can identify some of our emotions more easily. Fear is a naturally occurring emotion that is directly tied to human survival. It’s the emotion we often associate with fight-or-flight.
Fear is an important emotion that keeps us safe. We can ask ourselves what is making us fearful, then listen to our bodies, moods and thoughts to acknowledge what we are feeling and why. We do not have to second-guess our fears.
Feeling fear is different from feeling anxiety, panic or ruminating thoughts. Although fearfulness can be an integral part of any of these, the fear by itself is an emotion that is deeply connected to our body’s self-protection mechanism of fight-or-flight. From this survival standpoint, our bodies help us to assess perceived threats like food and resource scarcity, physical harm, social/community group displacement, death——or anything that seems to be connected to these potentialities. It is important for us to maintain awareness to stay safe in our worlds; feeling fear is one way we do this.
If our fearful feelings begin to paralyze us, this can be the opposite of protective. How do we know the difference?
We can use The BMT Index™ to gain more self-awareness in the moment. We can use our own individual tools to process our feelings of fearfulness, first by accepting that our fear feels real to us in the moment. Thanking our body systems for working to protect us can be one way to deepen our self-acceptance and help cycle out of the fear circuits. Then we can move to other tools (like grounding exercises, prayer or meditation, calling a friend or healthcare provider, etc.) as we choose.
Centering Thought: Fear is a survival feeling that my body uses to keep me safe. I can cycle out of my fear as appropriate by first accepting it, then thanking my body for using it as part of my awareness. I can also choose other tools to move through fear if appropriate (like grounding exercises or calling someone I trust).
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