Levels of Fear

2024-01-18 00:00:00 / episode: 367

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Do you have deep dark fears?

Where do your fears come from?

Are there levels of fear?

What about FOMO?

How do you deal with it?

Hi welcome to the Les Perras podcast.

This is episode 367 and it's about your deep dark fears.

Sources

Fear has two sources: outside and inside.

Outside sources are some physical threat.

It could be an animal or a person.

They could be threatening your physical safety or your emotional or social safety.

Inside sources are your own imagination.

A typical example would be a child in bed feeling very afraid of the dark.

They are imagining possible monsters and creatures that are out there that could come to harm them.

Levels

There are several levels of fear. Let’s take a look.

Trepidation

Trepidation happens when we feel a slight level of unease with some situation that is unfolding, and may not turn out pleasant.

##Nervousness Nervousness is a bit stronger and deeper and it's stimulated by a situation where we can easily imagine an unpleasant outcome.

Anxiety

Anxiety is a little bit different from nervousness, because it tends to stretch over a longer period of time.

But it still finds its source in our anticipation of an unpleasant outcome for a situation.

Dread

Dread is quite a bit stronger than anxiety.

At this level, we are now quite certain that the outcome is not going to be pleasant at all, and in fact, will be quite unpleasant, and we cannot avoid it.

Desperation

Desperation is a feeling that we feel when the unpleasant outcome is unavoidable. The point is not whether it's avoidable or not.

The point is that we feel we can't avoid it and it's going to create a great deal of pain for us.

A quick example would be after you've done something bad and you will have to face some authority pretty soon to account for your actions.

Panic

Panic begins when we are faced with an immediate threat to our physical or emotional safety.

Something bad is going to happen, and it's going to happen very soon, and we are helpless to do anything about it.

A great example would be if you fall into some water with no easy way to escape out of the water.

Horror

Horror is the feeling we get when there's a terrible threat to our existence.

At this point, we are fearing for our lives, and the outcome may also be extremely painful and unpleasant.

This is a very rare situation for most of us, but it could happen if you were being stalked by a killer and you knew about it.

Typically the situation happens in horror movies only.

Terror

Terror is the feeling that comes when there's a direct physical threat to our personal safety and lives, and we can see it and it's violent.

This is where the word terrorist comes from.

If you're sitting on an airplane and the man in front of you stands up and pulls out an automatic rifle and says everybody get down, you might start to feel terror.

The next minute could be your last minute.

BUT FOMO

FOMO is a little bit different from most of the situations presented above. FOMO is an acronym that stands for fear of missing out.

In this case there is some event happening, and for some reason you cannot be present at the event.

You think the event would be extremely pleasant, and not being able to attend it gives you a sense of loss.

Before the event happens, you're going to have some fear that you can't attend it for whatever reason.

This is the fear of missing out.

Dealing with It

Dealing with these fears is very difficult because of the nature of fear.

It's a very strong emotion.

it tends to take command of your mind.

If the source of your fear is outside of you, probably the best way for you to respond to the fear is to put your attention on your breathing

before the fear takes your breathing to a higher level,

because when your fear controls your breathing, it tends to run out of control.

If you can control your breathing,

you can control your fear which

allows you to think better and respond better to the situation.

If you are dealing with imaginary

sources of fear, then the first thing

you can do is focus your mind

on something else.

Make yourself think

about other things

like the work that you're doing

or some pleasant memories.

If the fear keeps on coming back

then you can start to work on

your breathing,

as I mentioned above.

Both of these are great techniques that are highly effective but we forget to do them.

That's where practicing

mindfulness can help.

This takes weeks or months of practice

but with practice you get very

good at realizing that you're feeling fear.

This means that you can respond to it.

If you are interested in meditation, listen to my podcast about meditation next.

Thanks for listening.