What Being Afraid Means About You

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“It wasn’t the fear that mattered in life. It was the choices made when you were afraid. You were brave because of your fear, not in spite of it.”
― Kristin Hannah, The Four Winds

Being afraid is not only okay, but it is also part of being human. It means your survival instinct is intact. Your body is letting you know it believes you are in danger. Feeling that fear and choosing to go forward anyway is courageous. However, denying or minimizing your fear and blindly going forward is foolishness.

So, while your friend might love to ride that death-defying rollercoaster, your racing heart and queasy stomach may be warning you against it. There is nothing wrong with your friend for enjoying the adrenalin rush. But if she’s ignoring the obviously dilapidated state of the ride, her fearlessness is putting her in real danger. Meanwhile, your fear of the rollercoaster is likely innocuous, or at most inconvenient. But, if your fear extends to refusing to drive on any highways (and you live someplace where this leaves you stranded), you now have a problem, because your fear is significantly constraining your life.To be clear, it’s not fear that’s the problem, but rather how you are handling it. (For more on facing your fears, see my article, How to Shrink Your Fears Down to Size.)

When you feel afraid – or even just a bit anxious – take that as a signal to pay attention. Are you in danger – even if only emotionally? Just as the heart-pounding fear you feel when driving fast in the rain is practically screaming that you are in danger, that same intense fear of speaking in front of a room full of strangers is also a signal of perceived danger. It likely means that you perceive the possibility of a negative response from the audience.

Many people feel like they have low self-esteem as they tell themselves that they should not care what others think. While this mantra may sound reasonable at first, our concern about what others think is often not so easily dismissed. As social creatures who rely on each other in nature for survival, the fear of rejection or being ostracized is a primal one.When it comes to awareness of threats, our bodies often react first, leaving us to make sense of the situation afterward.To learn more about how you can assess what’s driving a fear that doesn’t make sense to you, watch this brief video, Understanding Your Fear.

Facing Your Fears

Understanding your fears can often help you respond to them. Below is an example of how to face social anxiety and fearing the criticism of others at a party. Consider whether this approach might help you.

First, assess the level of real and current danger. In this case, you might realize that you know the people at the party and they are not particularly critical. Still, you imagine doing something embarrassing that will prompt them to reject you.

Next, make a plan for facing that danger. You might begin by reminding yourself that they are a respectful group of people. You might even imagine someone else tripping or dropping something (a fear you have for yourself) and realize that you would feel sympathetic, not critical of the person – even if it prompted you to chuckle.

Consider the worst that could happen. If you did stumble, and people did laugh, you would be embarrassed. But the world would not stop rotating, your life would not fall apart. Also, if you are honest with yourself, a person would be an ass to ridicule you or hold that against you as a person. The situation would not be comfortable, but you would survive. (Understandably, you might need to spend some time imagining the situation and practicing sitting with the discomfort before being willing to even consider facing your fear.)

Finally, choose whether to face your fear. Try to truly understand how someone else might be afraid, and allow yourself to feel a sense of wanting them to not feel this way. Then use that insight to nurture self-compassion. With this compassionate self-awareness, you can make a more objective decision about whether the benefits of facing your fear are worth the effort. If they are, you can guide yourself through the fear in a supportive way. You can also take other helpful actions, such as enlisting the support of other friends. 

When you can accept your fear, you won’t add further emotional pain by being critical of yourself for something that is already difficult. Instead, your efforts will be about assessing the real level of threat you face and how to manage it.