Fear has evolved beyond our primal function of anticipation and avoidance of physical pain to the anticipation and avoidance of mental pain. The sabre tooth tiger of today exists in rush hour traffic, conference rooms, and the dark recesses of our imagination.
We suffer self-imposed injuries to the ego, psyche, we undergo humiliation, experience sorrow, and reflect in regret. We dread our mental anguish, yet we embrace the conditions that foster it. Our kaleidoscope of emotions from embarrassment to depression can produce the same physiological symptoms as the fear of physical pain. Recent neuroscience breakthroughs have discovered the evolution of fear and how it is produced in the brain by revealing a three-step interconnected system that reacts and processes fear.
Rush W. Dozier, Jr., in his excellent work “Fear Itself” has labeled the three systems as primitive, rational, and conscious. The primitive is outside the direct control of our cognitive consciousness. It is the panic, the initial emotional impression. The rational is the sorting system that reviews options including escape or avoidance from more carefully considered alternatives. Our consciousness can bring awareness to primitive alerts and become the supreme decision maker. Awareness can pull from the resources of experience, prevail upon a breadth of understanding, assess and with the assistance of the rational brain, provide for decision making.
The sabre tooth tiger of today exists in rush hour traffic, conference rooms, and the dark recesses of our imagination.
Consciousness will create choices commensurate with our level of awareness. Choice will give us the power that resides from decision. The decisions we make to face fear will be contingent upon our willingness to face it. Facing fear will summon our strength of resolve to move through it, and our resilience to continue forward. We must recruit those mentors in life that can assist and guide — we need the collective voice of experience to encourage a journey that only we can make.
Our journey will be a personal pilgrimage unique to each individual who chooses to face fear.
Always Forward!
