Fear Is the Superpower of Brilliant People!

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“I’m frightened, and nobody else seems to be.”
“If I show fear, people will think I’m weak.”
“Why can’t I get rid of my fears?”

We have been taught to regard fear as an obstacle.

Something to conquer.

Something strong, rational people ought to have mastered by now.

That is a rather poor way of looking at it.

Fear is a first-rate early-warning system, fitted as standard.

It scans for danger and sounds the alarm.

Sometimes enthusiastically.

Sometimes rather too enthusiastically.

Still, it has a purpose.

Fear does not make us weak.

Nor is it responsible for every physical or psychological collapse we happen to associate with it.

That is not its function.

The confusion usually comes from mixing up fear itself with the effects that follow it.

A person with no fear would not necessarily be brave.

They might simply be unaware of danger.

Courage has very little to do with the absence of fear.

Stupidity, on the other hand, occasionally does.

Someone who learns to listen to fear develops an important form of intelligence: the capacity to detect, analyse, anticipate and avoid what may threaten survival or equilibrium.

Fear is information.

Properly understood, it becomes an ally in anticipation, learning and protection.

So how do we use it intelligently?

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First, let’s take apart the fear circuit

My dear fellow human beings, whatever our preferred description, we all come equipped with an emotional survival system centred largely in the limbic brain.

Its job is to help us survive and, where possible, live reasonably well.

This system includes five basic emotions, sometimes called functional or vital emotions.

Like vital organs, each plays a distinct part in our development — both as individuals and as a species.

Which makes them worth understanding.

Each of the five has its own article:

grief, disgust, joy, anger and, today, fear.

If this is the first article in the series you have stumbled across, here is the basic map:

• Grief alerts us to the pain of loss so that it can be expressed and life can continue.
• Disgust alerts us to something potentially harmful so that we can move away from it.
• Anger alerts us to an obstacle requiring action.
• Fear alerts us to danger so that we can avoid, reduce or prepare for it.
• Joy is different. It is not primarily an alarm. It tells us that, for now, we are free to be present without needing to defend, escape, reject or repair anything.

Emotions are brief.

Sometimes a few seconds.

Sometimes less.

There is an attractive English phrase:

Emotion = energy in motion.

Not scientifically exhaustive, admittedly, though rather useful.

An emotion is a rapid response initiated by the brain, accompanied by physiological changes designed to help us respond to what is happening.

With fear, adrenaline and noradrenaline are major players.

These rather efficient chemicals increase physical readiness and sharpen attention.

They prepare us to escape, avoid, confront or otherwise deal with danger.

So we should not confuse fear with the feelings and moods that may follow.

Paul Ekman’s work on emotion offers a useful way of looking at the sequence:^[1]

• A possible threat is detected, consciously or otherwise.
  An explosion somewhere down the street, for example.
• The limbic system identifies danger and initiates the fear response.
• The body reacts.
  We jump. Attention sharpens. Muscles prepare. Breathing changes.
  If clear thinking returns quickly enough, we may realise that the explosion was simply some teenagers setting off fireworks.
• We consciously interpret what is happening.
  “I’m frightened.”
  That sentence is not the emotion itself. It is our conscious description of the experience.
• Then comes the interesting part: what do we do next?

If the physiological activation is allowed to settle, the fear response subsides.

If we continue feeding it with repeated thoughts, imagined catastrophes and internal monologues, we can create something more persistent:

a mood.

And moods are often what people are really talking about when they say they want to “manage their emotions”.

The emotion itself does not require eliminating.

It is useful.

What may require attention are the states we continue to manufacture afterwards.

With fear, these can include anxiety, worry, apprehension and paranoia.

These are not identical to the original emotion.

They are sustained states.

And those can indeed be worked with.

Of course, some fears are highly disabling.

One of the most familiar is fear of public speaking.

We even give it a special name:

stage fright.

For some people, stage fright produces genuine paralysis.

Its origins vary.

The basic physiology is recognisable.

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Stage fright: when fear gets stuck in the body

In stage fright, the gaze of the group becomes the stressor.

Being watched is interpreted as danger.

Fear activates the body.

Then comes the difficulty.

Ask someone who experiences severe stage fright:

Where does the fear go in your body?

Hands shake.

Throat tightens.

Breathing becomes shallow.

Stomach churns.

Sweat appears from places you had forgotten contained sweat glands.

Legs become unreliable.

The mind goes completely blank.

Even your own name begins to feel like confidential information.

Everyone has a preferred location in which to store an adrenaline surge.

The practical problem is that adrenaline is supposed to support action and cognition.

If the whole response becomes trapped in one part of the body, people can feel frozen.

When I coach public speaking, clients are often surprised by the first things I ask them to do.

I use two particularly simple methods.

Tip #1: Move something

A chair.

A lectern.

A table.

Anything requiring a small amount of physical effort.

Movement helps the body use the activation.

Tip #2: Use the glass-of-water trick

Place a glass and a bottle of water a few metres away.

Walk to them.

Pour the water.

Drink.

It makes you move.

It gives you time.

It also provides several perfectly respectable seconds during which nobody expects you to speak.

There are, naturally, situations in which remaining completely still may be more advisable.

A Tyrannosaurus rex, for instance.

Let us not overgeneralise.

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Is fear always right?

Personally, I trust my limbic brain.

It has been useful to me.

Trusting it does not mean assuming every alarm is accurate.

Sometimes it is wrong.

Sometimes it is running old software.

Something learned in childhood may continue producing alerts long after the original danger has disappeared.

That is precisely why fear can become such a useful route into intelligence.

Learning to examine our fears — to ask questions, assess danger, anticipate problems, find solutions and understand what exactly we are protecting — is a major emotional competence.^[2]

And sometimes the process is extremely fast.

When you slammed on the brakes because an idiot cut across you on the motorway, that was emotional intelligence too.

Admittedly, not the reflective seminar-room version.

Your intellect did very little.

Still effective.

I keep saying it:

fear is clever.

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If your answer is:

“Not really…”

it may be time for a little detective work.

People often say:

“I’m just a naturally anxious person.”

Perhaps.

Or perhaps the stressors have not yet been identified clearly.

Fear does not appear from nowhere.

Something triggers it, even when we cannot immediately say what.

Ask yourself:

• Is this fear linked to physical danger, failure or judgement?
• Is it connected to something learnt earlier in life?
• Is the danger real, interpreted or projected?
• Is my brain reacting to the present or replaying an old story?
• Is this an alarm for something happening now, or a remake of something that happened years ago?

• Notice the situations in which fear appears.
• Identify the exact moment the reaction begins.
• Ask: “What danger is my brain detecting?”
• Then ask: “Is that danger current, probable, possible or merely familiar?”

His metaphors may have given his profession away.

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Fear sometimes prevents genuine stupidity.

Choosing not to respond to an aggressive stranger in a deserted street at two in the morning, for instance, is not cowardice.

It is quite possibly excellent judgement.

At other times, fear locks the door on something that matters deeply.

The distinction is crucial:

fear as shield versus fear as padlock.

Fear can protect us from danger.

It can also prevent us from approaching uncertainty, change or ambition.

Choose one fear you have been carrying for some time.

Write down what it prevents you from doing.

Then ask:

What exactly is this fear protecting me from?

Real danger?

Embarrassment?

Uncertainty?

Failure?

Loss of status?

Having to discover what I am actually capable of?

Sometimes fear is sensible.

Sometimes it is simply loyal to an older version of us.

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There are roughly two approaches.

Some people wait for fear to disappear before acting.

They may be waiting for some time.

Others act while fear is still in the room.

That is usually the more useful option.

• Name the danger you perceive.
• Break the action into manageable steps.
• Reduce genuine risks where you can.
• Take the first step without requiring yourself to feel fearless.

Fear often changes once action begins.

Not because it has been defeated.

Because the brain receives new information.

Yes, yes. One has to find testimonials somewhere.

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