Fear of the Unknown: How to Avoid Being Paralyzed

Fear is one of the most basic emotions related to human beings. Associated with the survival instinct, for centuries it has accompanied man to warn him of the dangers of the world around him. It is a primary emotion that derives from the natural aversion to threat, and all animals possess it.

But what happens when instinctive dangers like being eaten by a lion disappear in a developed society? Today we explain what fear of the unknown is, and how to prevent it from negatively affecting us.

Fear invents its own dangers to keep running

Most of the fears we have in our society are neurotic fears, that is, fears based on mental constructions and not on real threats. Fears about what might happen, and not about what is actually happening.

Not in vain people we spend most of our lives suffering for things that will never happen to us.

Neurotic fear continually puts us on alert and makes us live in excess, depriving us of the enrichments that the unknown can provide us.

And it is that most of us have an unjustified fear of what we do not know

. We anticipate events and avoid new situations that we believe that we will not be able to manage or solve.

Why does the fear of the unknown appear?

This fear is for the most part learned. The child, when he begins to walk, has the instinct to explore and continually perform different tasks to discover the world around him.

And that is where adults, in an effort to protect you, inoculate you with an infinity of fears that will surely accompany you for much of your life. "Do not talk to strangers", "do not open the door to strangers", "do not get on there you will fall", "do not let go of my hand or you will get lost", "do not walk away they can kidnap you" and a long list of prohibitions that make the boy scout gradually become a child afraid of the world, which will gradually reduce its area of ​​interaction until reaching the adult phase where it will have already consolidated its comfort zone.

Safe or comfort zone

There has been a lot of talk in recent years about the "comfort zone", defining itself as that vital area known to the person, which does not always have to be comfortable, but which is predictable and allows the brain to run on autopilot within it. I say that it is not comfortable because the comfort zone for someone can be a toxic relationship, a boring and low paid job or a sedentary life.

It is very likely that people show discomfort within this area, and yet they do not dare to leave it.

Why don't people leave their safe zone?

Due to lack of confidence in their own abilities. Some people do not have enough resources to face unfamiliar situations, so prefer to stay in the "safe", in the foreseeable, in that place that they see themselves capable of handling or control.

As they learned as children, it is better to avoid the unknown "because of what may happen."

So why is it advisable to get out of your comfort zone?

It is the only way to acquire new knowledge and skills. Doing different things or going to new places is likely to be a bit uncomfortable at first. Like when you jump into the pool for the first time to learn to swim. However, it is the only place where new things happen. It is the way to expand the world and self-fulfillment.

How do you start to move out into the learning zone?

Experiment. "Do something every day that scares you." It is advisable to stop living so much in the world of thought and move to the world of action, which is where things really happen.

It is not about losing fear, but about doing things despite it. Do not let fear take the reins of decisions, without losing sight of the fact that the comfort zone is a state of mind, and not a real terrain.

"Everything you want in life is out of your comfort zone"