Having Some Fear Is Healthy

Having some fear is healthy.  Fear plays an important role in our psyche.  Without the fear flight survival response – the instinctual urge to run in the face of danger – our species would have been hunted into extinction long ago.

Just imagine how well fear served our cave-dwelling ancestors.  Before humans rose to the top of the food chain, we would have had to escape much larger predators.  A hungry saber-toothed cat weighing as much as 700 lbs with 10-inch long canines might view you as her next meal.  Fear alerts all of your senses, and you become aware that you’re being stalked.  It gives you that little voice that tells you to beware of a lurking threat, “watch out behind you – something’s there.”

However, this is not to say that we can’t use the other side of that survival instinct… fight.  Imagine our ancestors running in fear, but also imagine them making a stand, pooling their resources and fighting back, too.  That took a heck of a lot of courage.

That thing called courage.  It’s about the fight response, especially using the fight response to fight fear.  This doesn’t mean that you will lose your fear.  You don’t want that to happen anyway because it’s too important to completely go away.  Mark Twain wisely put it this way, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.”

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Angela Loëb helps people rediscover and use their gifts so they bring who they are to what they do in life. http://about.me/angelarloeb ___________________________________________________