Are you afraid ?
FEAR
All boaters have tasted fear. It comes with the territory, sort of like getting wet- it's a common ground that we all share and often joke about, but don't always discuss seriously. We kind of have a tradition of 'bucking up' and 'persisting through it' as a way to deal with fear in order to get past it, but in my experience it's rare to actually discuss why we're afraid of things. Overcoming your negative reactions to fear- panic, guilt, anger, shame, powerlessness, and all that accompany it is an important part of becoming a better person, of discovering your true purpose- a theory of mine is that I like paddlers in general because they have all dealt with fear and to some extent or another, succeeded. Fear is inevitable, but the way you understand it and react to it is not.
Fear is a conditioned response, related to physiological mechanisms present in all animals, the mechanics of which which are only now being discovered- we know that certain regions of the brain are in charge of managing different classic 'fear' responses, for example- there's one region that prompts a vocal wailing, the call that reunites a lost child with it's mother, another region that governs a 'freeze' instinct, and yet another that prompts a violent aggressive posturing, and still another that fundamentally changes your physiology to increase your heart rate, speed up your breathing, etc. We know that certain brain chemistry affects the way this system is regulated and that genetics are involved, but we also know through psychological studies and experience that simply thinking differently and relating differently with the object of your fear can influence whether or not these primitive brain systems are triggered. In other words, these studies suggest that while the mechanics of your physiology are natural and instinctive, the act of engaging (or overriding) these systems is a learned, conditioned response.
Fear is a lot of things- it is the sensation of 'expectation with alarm', according to Webster's. We associate it with an emotional and physical sensation, we relate to it perhaps less consciously than we could, but what is it, really? Is it merely an artifact of our neurochemistry? A survival trait? A spiritual challenge? Does it make us focus, or is it possible to focus without fear? Does it make us stronger, perform better? Does it possess an intelligence we otherwise lack? Is it just our own conditioned self-programming? Is it something we can do without? Is it a good thing?
In this article I'm going to suggest that a couple of ways to think about fear that may sound rational... but the difficult thing about discussing fear rationally is that fear is not a rational thing- it's mechanisms operate in different areas of your brain than your conscious self does, and very often our larger, subconscious self has an agenda counter to that of our consciousness- small wonder, then, that we're conflicted about fear, it's nature, and what we should do about it. In this article I'll suggest loudly and often that you should question your fear, question it's value and validity, and I'll even suggest that you don't ideally need to relate to any part of your world through fear- please, don't take this to be macho posturing. I offer this essay in the humblest terms possible, as one who has known much fear.
Stimulus, response
Understanding fear and functioning appropriately in spite of it are two entirely different things, probably because fear is irrational and it affects you not just logically, but emotionally and physically as well- and not in that order. We respond to most all stimuli in a specific order- physically, emotionally, and then rationally- it's built into the way we're wired. For example, when a paper bag is popped behind you, your first response would be to jump- and as your system gears up to deal with an unexpected threat, you respond emotionally as your physical state changes. By the time you rationally figure out that you were the subject of a harmless paper-bag prank, you've already processed it physically and are emotionally involved as a result of your physical reaction. In a broader sense, everything you experience follows this pattern, whether the stimulus is a surprise like that of the paper bag, or it's a slow creeping realization that maybe you're in over your head on the river.
Perhaps more insidiously, your emotional response to a stimulus can itself become reactive and self-propagating- the fact that you're scared can create a short-circuit where you're afraid because you're afraid.
At the same time, it's important that you accept your feelings and acknowledge them- after all, they're absolutely real- the thing is that although they're real, the way you relate to the object of your fear usually doesn't serve you very well- and of course, there's always the possibility that your fear is rooted in perception, rather than in reality.
Good Fear, Bad Fear
People talk about 'good fear' and 'bad fear' a lot, but really they're the same thing- fear is the worrier in your head that interprets an otherwise ambiguous situation (standing on the bank of a river, looking at a challenging rapid) to mean that the worst will happen if we try it. Fear is the devil's advocate in your head that says, "...on the other hand, that portage route doesn't look half bad". Maybe this feeling of fear is your vast subconscious genius which has evaluated a zillion variables and advises you not to go for it. ...or maybe not. Remember, in any story, there's your perception of it, and then there's reality. What you conclude and what is real are not the same thing, because your conclusions are the product of the way you view the world, they exist only in your mind. Of course, the way you view the world, through the filters of your conditioning and perceptions, is neither right nor wrong, it's just your view. Does it serve you, or do you serve it?
It might be simple to conclude that fear is a survival trait- but this is probably an oversimplification. Animal behavior studies point out that there's a phenomenon called 'the handicap principle' observable in many species, whereby individuals who live dangerously but survive are favored when it comes time for mating- hence, perhaps, our urge to seek thrills and our admiration of strong, fit, or dynamic individuals. The urge to seek a little danger, to live gracefully under stress, lives in your genes. In this sense, acceding to your fear response might be a survival trait, but managing your fear and functioning gracefully with it is a different, equally valid one, and it's up to you to determine which one serves you.
In any case, often we rationalize the urge to avoid risk as 'good fear'- but remember, just because you're afraid of it doesn't mean it's dangerous, and for that matter, your 'natural response' to it is not guaranteed to be the best one. After all, some people are deathly afraid of speaking in public- the thought of doing so can lead to a fear response that will actually incapacitate them. In this case it is the reaction to fear itself that is the only undesirable thing, and let us not forget that the reaction can be very injurious indeed. We talk about this as 'bad fear'- but in the end it's really the same thing. The difference between the two is whether we think our reaction to it is appropriate or not- but often, why we think the way we do about our reaction, or it's appropriateness, is left unexplored. Often, we accept our response as 'natural' and we don't question it at all- but remember, our response is not natural- we programmed it ourselves, we made our response a habit, somewhere in our past.
...so we describe our fears, more or less, by whether we think our response to them is useful to us- and because they get to us before we can really think about them rationally, often we accept our reactions to them as phenomena beyond our control, and I'd like to suggest that this is not true. Fear is a conditioned response we have- but it does not logically follow that the way in which we react to it is appropriate. Fear is a universal thing- everybody experiences it, entire regions of the brain appear to be in charge of this system of response- and because we identify with it through our negative personal experiences, we're prone to examining it in a reactive, judgmental, un-empowered way. It's difficult at first, but very profitable, to find ways to experience your relation to fear with openness and empowerment, rather than with panic, guilt, recrimination, anger, or aversion- if for no other reason than the fact that an inappropriate response to fear can make you unhappy in all aspects of your life. After all, aversion will strengthen your fear, despite the temporary relief it may bring you- you can run away from the thing that scares you, or you can empower yourself in your relation to the object of your fear, but not both.
One key to overcoming your negative reaction to fear is in realizing that in a very important sense it's all in your imagination. One definition of fear is 'expectation with alarm'- that is, what you dread exists in the not now- the process of experiencing fear is largely based in pondering a possible future or the what-ifs of the past. By putting yourself into this frame of mind you separate yourself from the present- and the present is the only thing you can control. The past is gone, and the future hasn't happened yet, right? You can influence the future only by shaping the present. In other words, most of what we experience as fear is not an empowering choice- it's an artifact of our self-programming designed to make us feel helpless, and to run away.
So in order to choose an empowered response to <whatever you're afraid of>, you need to understand the nature of the part of you that thinks you should be afraid. Remember, you created your fear- you programmed yourself at one point to relate to <whatever it is> through fear- you concluded (again, a conclusion is a function of your perception, rather than of reality) that <whatever it is> is something to relate to in an un-empowered way, which at the time may have served you, but does it serve you now? Remember, it wasn't right, it wasn't wrong, it was just your choice at the time. Is it the right choice for you now? Does fear serve you? ...or do you serve it?
Put another way, in order to choose an empowered response to <whatever it is>, you need to stop relying on your old self-programming to protect you and start relying on your present self to keep you safe- after all, the only context in which you have power to make change is in the present. At the same time, it should be stressed that your trust must not be misplaced- after all, there's a difference between courage and foolishness. You need a plan to solve the problem <whatever it is you're afraid of> presents that's within your capabilities, a plan that addresses the contingencies that may rise in your situation, so that if things go wrong you've got something to actively work towards in lieu of dwelling on the fact that you're afraid. This is a markedly different thing from simply avoiding your fear- instead of avoiding what frightens you, your task is to train yourself to focus on something neutral or positive, rather than negatively on the subject of your fear.
Often, when dealing with a crisis, people experience intense focus, no sensation of being or otherness, merely the experience of doing what must be done- so as your car slides on an icy road, you countersteer, take your feet off the accelerator or brake, and deal with the requirements of the situation. Only afterwards, once you've had a chance to ponder what might have gone wrong, do the real heebie-jeebies set in. "What if there wasn't a shoulder on this part of the road?" "What if there had been another car there?" "I might have died." In this sense, we might call fear the process of negatively pondering what might have happened, what could happen- and note that these are what is not happening to you right now- it's the thought process that takes us to the part of our brain that knows how to cry for help, or freeze in panic, or run away. If you need to function, the key is in finding that place of focus, that experience of what is happening right now, in this moment. When you relate to your context in terms of how you are right now, rather than how you are not, you assume an empowered, present context, able to deal with what is happening right now. ...and when you're able to do this all of the time, you'll be a Zen master.
