What is hidden behind our Fears?

In principle, emotions are a basic element of human psychology precisely because they are universal. This means that fear, as an emotion that it is, is present in practically all societies and members of our species, and it has been for thousands of years, since it is an essential aspect of the behavior of our species.

All ethnic groups and tribes experience fear and express it in a very similar way, with the same facial gestures, and that reveals that emotions arise, in large part, from a series of biological predispositions arising from a selection process natural. Simply, the inability to feel fear was too costly for the genes that produced that phenomenon to be passed on to subsequent generations.

Now, emotions have different layers of complexity; It is not the same to feel fear in the presence of a tiger, than at the idea of ​​losing your job. That makes many people suffer from fears without even knowing very well what is generating it; and in some cases, they even deceive themselves into pretending that they don't feel that way.

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Fear can be an experience with many psychological layers.

All the mental processes that arise in our consciousness do so while being mixed with a series of abstract concepts. For example, that means that we never experience emotions for themselves, in a “pure” way; in all cases, we experience them through the interpretation we make of what is happening to us. We are incapable of living our emotional side in a way totally disconnected from our use of language, except for exceptional situations in which there are a series of neurological abnormalities or neurodevelopmental problems.

For this reason, if managing our own emotions is a challenge, it is precisely because we do not have exact knowledge about their origin. The ability to think abstractly is a great advantage in reasoning in very sophisticated ways and taking many things into account. possibilities, but it also makes us sometimes get lost in our own feelings and emotions, without knowing how analyze them.

If our mind were occupied only by the stimuli that our senses capture, we would have a much lower level of intelligence, but in many ways, our lives would be less complicated; but having a great facility to generate abstract concepts in our minds (for example, the tranquility of a sunset at sea, or the delicacy of a flower), complex ways of experiencing emotions also emerge, including fear.

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The importance of self-awareness

There are many reasons why the root of our fear is not obvious to us.. Sometimes this is because what disturbs us is a taboo subject due to social pressure. On other occasions, because we do not dare to address an internal conflict on which we have built a life project that is beginning to falter. At other times, it is simply due to ignorance; because we don't understand something that makes us feel threatened for no reason. But in all these cases, the problem is linked to a possible solution that can be developed in psychotherapy, while time goes by and we continue feeding that inertia of not promoting self-knowledge, the discomfort intensifies and an emotional crisis may break out.

In the case of fear, there is an added problem: daring to examine its origin can become so intimidating, so uncomfortable, that it is something we constantly put off. Not leaving the comfort zone has a high cost in terms of emotional balance.

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How to develop that ability to know yourself?

It is clear that we will never be able to know exactly what is behind fear every time we feel it on a daily basis; however, that should not be our goal. To achieve a good level of mental health, it is enough to have a level of self-knowledge that allows us to understand the general logic behind our way of experiencing emotions. This happens by learning to observe ourselves; both what we do and what we feel in the key moments of everyday life.

Some useful strategies to achieve this are filling in a personal diary, talking openly about our emotions with our beings loved ones, and exposing ourselves to new environments and experiences to learn more about ourselves instead of always being in contact with the same type of situations.

In any case, the most effective way to make rapid and stable progress over time is to go to psychotherapy. With the help of a professional, you will have a personalized treatment adapted to your particular case. Therefore, if you notice that you have a complicated relationship with your emotions and with fear in particular, I encourage you to contact me.