How to Manage the Fear of an Emotion

An emotion can be a painful experience. Once we have felt the pain, we never want to go through it again. We begin to fear having the painful emotion. Fear is a relentless task master. It doesn’t sleep, it doesn’t go away, and the more you look it, the louder it becomes.

When fear accompanies our emotions, we overreact and overrespond. We work tirelessly to prevent the emotional pain from occurring again. When we act out of fear, are actions are often a catalyst to perpetuating the very thing that we are trying to prevent.  We run from the fearful situation, and in doing so, we train our body to fear it more. We push others to change, and in doing so facilitate resentment and stagnation.

Oftentimes, it is not the object, context, or the person that we actually fear. What we fear is the emotion that we encounter. It is the emotion that we must do battle with, if we are to not be driven by fear.

Tolerance

An emotion is simply a change in chemical regulation that is taking place inside our body. It is triggered by thoughts, events, contexts, and memories. There are many emotions that we will feel throughout the day.  We enjoy the emotions that we label “happy,” “elation,” “gratitude,” etc. We fear the discomfort of the emotions that we label “embarrassment,” “loneliness,” “ineptitude,” etc. It is our fear that prolongs the discomfort.

When we experience a distasteful emotion, if we embrace it and allow ourselves to feel it without fear or angst, our body will play out the chemical regulation of the emotion and then return to homeostasis. The experience will be over very quickly. When we experience a distasteful emotion and we become fearful of the emotion, we will experience the chemical regulation of the distasteful emotion AND the additional physiological response generated by fear.

If we start dwelling on the fear of the situation, our bodies will dole out the correct chemical response for fear, until we are done dwelling on it. If we are going to dwell on the fear until our body is finished responding, then we will be dwelling for a long time. Our body is going to respond to our mind. If our mind is thinking about the fear, then our body will continue to excrete the chemicals necessary to facilitate a fearful feeling.

If we frantically try to take actions to prevent the feeling of the distasteful emotion, we will continue to experience the feeling, until our mind is satisfied that our actions have effectively “resolved the problem” and we no longer need to think about it. Once we feel that we no longer need to think about it, we will stop thinking about it. When fear is no longer in our mind, our body will stop excreting chemicals that facilitate the fearful feeling.

If we try to change someone else, so that we will “resolve the problem,” we will be taking those action steps for a long time. The person we are trying to change has “free will” and their ability to make their own choices ensures that they will never be stagnant. Our peace of mind will not be found within bending someone else’s will to our own.

Acceptance

An easy way to tolerate distasteful emotions is to accept them. It is often necessary to accept the circumstance that trigger the emotion. Acceptance does not mean that you condone it. Acceptance simply means that you have come to terms with it.

If you made a mistake and hurt someone, to accept that you made the mistake does not mean that you are condoning your actions. You are accepting that you made an error, and now it is time to move on. You are also accepting the feeling that comes, whenever you remember the error. The feeling of disappointment accompanies disappointing memories. The feeling of embarrassment accompanies embarrassing memories. The fact that your body can correctly facilitate an emotion that accompanies a memory, means that you’re not broken.  

Sometimes we fear the emotion that comes when we think about what someone did to us. We fear the feeling of helplessness, loss of autonomy, and mourning. Those are all awful feelings. We would never feel something good, during an act of terror and memories of the terror can only produce awful feelings.  We cannot go back in time and change a situation. What we can control is our fear of the emotions that the memories carry with them. In not fearing the emotions, the emotions lose potency with time.

Fear and Memory Resilience

Our body is designed to keep us alive. When we experience a life-threatening situation, our mind likes to hold onto that memory. If we are standing in the driveway and a car runs over our foot, our mind is going to try to keep that memory vibrant, so that we will not stand behind a moving car again. When we go to Walmart and buy a pen, our mind will allow that memory to fade, because it is not necessary for our survival.

When we remember a painful situation and we fear the accompanying emotion, our mind knows that the emotion is threatening. It is fearful and therefore a threat. In order to protect us from the threat, our mind will keep the memory vibrant, so the situation will not be repeated. As we remember painful situations and we do not remember them in fear, our mind allows the potency of the memory to start to fade. The more we experience the memory in a relaxed or bored state, the more our mind will allow the memory to fade.

When we experience an event, it is often not the event that scares us, but the emotions that will be attached to event. If we are scared of the emotions, the memory will remain vibrant. Our body will facilitate the chemical reaction that accompanies the feeling of fear. If we let go of the fear, the body will turn off the physical state. The less we fear the emotions, the duller the attached memory will become.