Fear is a Liar

We all have it, we have all experienced it, and if we are completely honest with ourselves, it has driven our decision making with some regularity. I’m speaking of course of fear. We all have fears (spoken or unspoken). We have all experienced fear in our lifetimes, and the truth is we have all allowed fear into the drivers seat on occasion to determine our course of action. Fear is for some a daily experience, for others a driving force, and still others a memory they cannot seem to run far enough away from. Fear is felt universally across language barriers, cultural barriers, and even across societies and gender barriers. Fear is hardwired into our brains and bodies, a sort of protective system designed to react to danger and flee from harm. So why is it then, that such a universal human experience, can be so inaccurate? The answer is that fear is a liar.

To better understand fear and anxiety, let us take a look at the two forms or pathways to which fear can initiate worry, panic and anxiety within us. The first is the bottom up approach, also known as ‘Amygdala Hijacking”. The human brain is designed with a built in smoke detector known as the amygdala, which is designed to alert us to the presence of danger and initiate our fight, flight or freeze systems, known as the sympathetic nervous system. The amygdala has one specific purpose within the brain which is to react to the presence of danger. In order to operate efficiently, it does so like a smoke detector, running all the time and scanning your environment for threats of danger. When the amygdala determines that danger is present, it has the authority to ‘hijack’ the brain and initiate a series of systems beginning with the release of the stress horimone Cortisol. This in turn releases a rush of adrenaline through the body, preparing the body to run or fight, increasing heart rate, tightening muscles, releasing stored glucose into the larger skeletal muscles, shutting down the digestive system, and allowing the lungs to increase capacity. All of this, when performed at the proper time, allows us to run from danger or fight back. There’s only one issues with this system, and that is that the amygdala can only do this one job, react. It cannot think logically, process information, weigh the pros and cons of reacting, or think rationally about its reactions. It can only react, and it does that job efficiently and with repetition once programmed. What this means in turn is that your amygdala has very likely, at some point in your life, created an association between something it deemed a threat and an actual threat of danger. With this in mind we must ask, is it possible that my brain has learned to react to something that in reality is not a threat to me?

The second route or pathway with which we can experience fear and anxiety is known as the top down anxiety. That is to say that oftentimes fear is actually initiated by our cortex. The cortex is the frontal lobe of the brain which processes information, thinks abstractly, weighs cause and effect type decisions, orients future planning, and even regulates emotion. With this part of our brain we rationalize and think logically about things, and even fixate on thoughts and emotions that we experience. This top down version of fear begins with thought, and in turn when thoughts become overwhelming, fear focused, worrisome, or negative, then we have the unfortunate ability to essentially scare the amygdala into a fight or flight response. So while the amygdala already maintains the ability to react to various stimuli in this manner, our logical based frontal cortex can also become so fear based in our thinking that we essentially can trigger this amygdala response purely through the power of our thoughts. When the focus of our thoughts becomes things that are stressful, fear inducing, out of our control, overwhelming and seem unsolvable or insurmountable, then the amygdala will eventually react as though it were in a state of danger, and begin the process of activating the neccesary stress hormones and bodily reactions. Here again we have a problem, that through unproductive worry and thought’s focused on fear producing stimuli, our emotional brain then buys into the lie that it again is in danger and needs to react accordingly. with this in mind we must ask, is it possible that I allow my thoughts to focus on worry and fear, and therefore allow my brain to react to that worry and fear that in reality is not a threat to me?

So why do I say that fear is a liar? While fear is a normal part of the human experience, the truth is that fear evokes such a powerful response in the human body that we must ask ourselves if we are guilty of experiencing fear when it is not needed? Is it possible that the fear and anxiety we experience are the results of a misplaced association between the emotional brain and some innocuous piece of our experience? Is it possible that our logical brain has focused repetitively on some thought process that in turn has triggered the fear and and anxiety response of the brain? The fact of the matter is that both of these are common human responses and causes of fear. Therefore, let us not follow the emotion and physical response of fear, as though it were a beacon of truth, but instead recognize that fear is a liar, and that our decision to respond to it is what matters most here. May we instead follow the words of the apostle John, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears had not been perfected in love.” -1 John 4:18