Why am I afraid of life? Possible causes and what to do

Everyone has big dreams in this life. Regardless of age, gender, culture or race, we all want to become happy and achieving our great life goals is a good way to approach happiness.

But in the same way that these goals satisfy us enormously once they are met, the path that leads to them, with their efforts and sacrifices, is not comfortable and even scary, but of course, if we do not dare to risk or suffer on the path that leads to our success, we simply will not get.

Many people want to achieve their goals but fear the effort that comes before reaching them. They say to themselves “if by trying I can get what I want and be happy then why not do it? Why am I afraid of life?"We will address this issue in depth below.

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Why am I afraid of life?

Fearing life is something quite common but curiously it goes a lot unnoticed. Virtually everyone has felt it at some point in their lives, manifesting with very deep feelings, with an unpleasant sensation in the chest and seeing the world worse than what really is. The fear of life is not, in itself, being afraid to live, but to start the stormy path that leads us to be able to enjoy it.

Life is not a bed of roses. In order to enjoy it, to be able to live with all its letters, it is necessary to take risks in the decisions we make, invest in our happiness by putting effort and sacrificing some immediate pleasures to achieve our long-term goals term. They are changes that are not comfortable and the uncertainty that accompanies them is scary, especially if we move far from our comfort zone but we must understand that if we do not change our habits we will not change our lives, having to resign ourselves to our situation current.

It is true that fear can act as a protector from making too crazy decisions, however, being afraid of anything that moves away from what we are used to, although we know that doing them will bring us closer to what we have proposed, it limits us a lot of. Feeling fear is natural, but letting it slow us down to achieve our dreams and goals can become a real tragedy.. If fear controls us and convinces us that striving will be useless, we will not move forward. We will have given up before taking the first step.

But living does not only mean achieving great vital goals, but being happy being who we are. Being afraid of life can also mean doing the same thing as others, “playing it safe”, going with the flow, fearing that if we show how we really are, others will judge us. Nobody wants to feel that they do not fit in but it is much worse to deceive ourselves to please others than to show how we really are and that others do not understand. We cannot be happy if we do not risk and behave how we really want to see what happens.

Understanding the fear of life

Fear, as an emotion in general, is necessary for our survival. When we feel fear it is because we feel that something bad can happen to us and we should be careful. Both human beings and other animals are afraid of dangers that make us fight or flee. Whatever is done, fear motivates us to protect our physical and mental integrity and, in essence, survive with as little damage as possible.

However, a peculiarity of human beings is that we can feel afraid of something that has not yet happened, further interpret it as more threatening than it really is and therefore avoid it when it may not be necessary. What we interpret as "dangerous" may not be at all or, if it affects our physical and emotional integrity, it may do so in a more gentle and temporary way than we thought. We may be depriving ourselves of a great experience thinking that it is a powerful threat.

As we said, being afraid of life limits us, prevents us from moving forward. For example, consider someone who wants to get in shape because he is not comfortable with his body and this lowers his self-esteem. Consider that by being fit you will look good in the mirror, feel confident and have more success in his social relationships and for this reason he decides to join a gym to fulfill his dream.

But despite the fact that it is said that he will go three times a week and do strength exercises, such as lifting weights or joining the "body pump", he does not comply. He makes excuses saying it is due to lack of time or because he has other more important tasks to do But if being in shape is his dream, something he thinks will make him happy, isn't going to the gym a priority? His current situation causes him to have low self-esteem and he does not enjoy life, which is lengthening his current suffering.

Investigating further we discover that while staying in his current comfort zone makes him feel bad, he imagines going to the The gym could cause him more emotional suffering than he already feels, despite being aware that it is necessary to get into shape. Yes, he does want to be in shape, but he is afraid that when he goes to the corner of the weights he will do the exercises wrong and the other users will look at him strange, making fun of him to themselves. His fear is that, feeling humiliated, even if it is an imaginary fear.

As we can see from this example, the steps that lead us to success can be perceived in such a threatening way that our natural reaction is to avoid them. The problem is that on many occasions, as we have not faced those steps necessary to achieve what we have proposed, we do not know how “dangerous” they are. In fact, we do not even check whether the situation we have imagined is remotely real or merely the product of our biased mind.

With this case that we have just discussed, to what extent is your fear of being judged by other users real? He doesn't know how real it is because he hasn't checked it to begin with, fear blocks him. The fear of what we do not know is something natural and until we try it we will not know if there were reasons to fear it. For this reason, it is necessary to leave our comfort zone in order to live life because, as we have said, Without risking or making an effort it is not possible to know to what extent the situation is as serious as we have imagined.

Possible causes

One of the reasons behind the fear of life is the person's own experiences, in addition to the perceptions they have of themselves. He or she has had experiences in which he has "learned" that it is not worth it, that success is for other people or that if he tries, he has a good chance that he will go wrong. Y Even if it was not going to go wrong, he may also think that he is not going to do it perfectly and of course, to do it half-way better not to do it.

The fear of life can limit us so much that we not only take our current dreams for granted, but also stop looking at all the good things that we have achieved. It may happen that we have had so many recent failures that we think we are absolute losers, failing to do anything new assuming it will also go wrong. As he puts the spotlight on recent failures he ignores or belittles the successes he has had in his life of him being the victim of a powerful negativity bias, a negative view of our personal history that makes our self-esteem lower than it already is Yes it is.

Another factor that contributes to our failure to get to work on our way to achieve our goals is the fear of failure. We all know that failure is a very unpleasant thing, perceived by many as a real physical pain. Many people are so afraid of feeling the pain of failures that they do their best to avoid them., being the most "safe" way not to directly start the path towards your goal. If the path is not started there is no suffering, but there is no success either. For this reason, the fear of failure is a great obstacle to achieving our goals.

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How to overcome the fear of life?

Everyone knows stories of famous people who have achieved what they set out to do, great achievers we envy because we feel they have achieved goals and dreams that have made them happy. Although we know that these people are flesh and blood, we attribute special capacities and abilities to them, we think that they are very different from us. As we convince ourselves that they are made of another paste, they succeed naturally, while we simply are not going to achieve it..

It is true that each person is different and has his strengths and weaknesses. There will be things that are better and worse but this does not mean that some people are better than others, but that they stand out in different abilities. As real people who are the successful people, they too have been afraid of life like any otherOnly with the difference that they have known how to handle it, they have overcome the fear of life and have simply started living it. They know that without risks, suffering and effort there are no gains and they got rid of the fear that hindered them.

In the same way that they learned how to handle their fear of life, we can do the same. Basically there are two aspects that have to be taken into account when overcoming the fear of life, one being to change the attitude and the other to leave to focus on the past, in addition to being very clear that everything in this life involves suffering a little, a necessary suffering in order to be successful later.

Change attitude

To live without fear of life it is necessary to change the attitude towards the day to day. It is essential to put aside the negativity that makes us see things worse than they really are, as well as to stop convincing ourselves that we are not worth it. In order to do this, it is necessary that we ask ourselves and find out where the feelings of fear arose, what is it? the origin of the fears to initiate the change so necessary to be happier and achieve what we want achieve.

Maybe we grew up in a very strict family where mistakes were seen as symptoms of weakness and worthlessness. It is possible that in our mind our desire to achieve what we have proposed collides with a fear in which we think that any failure is synonymous with the most absolute failure, a sensation that, as we have mentioned before, some feel like a real physical pain.

It can also happen that we have had so many disappointments lately that we are unable to initiate a change because we are not willing to live new ones. Although we have a history of having had some triumphs, it happens to us that we have such a bad streak that we do not want to feel more pain and, therefore, we remain paralyzed, static. But as we have insisted before, if we do not do something we will not be able to progress.

Regardless of the way we perceive failure, we must change our attitude towards it. Far from being synonymous with the most absolute incapacity, we must see it as something that can be learned, something that teaches us how things should not be done or that motivates us to try more times. As we said, life is not a bed of roses and, if we stand still, we will not succeed. You cannot be successful without suffering and you never have to give up. If it fails a fifth time, it tries a sixth time.

If our way of seeing the world is too pessimistic and no matter how hard we try we cannot change the way we see our small failures, the most appropriate thing is to go to a professional. Psychologists are experts in encouraging habit changes, helping their patients to progress in life. In fact, psychological therapy is highly valued by most achievers since it has That has been what has made them change the course of their lives, a change that is also within our scope.

Focus on the present

On many occasions it happens that these fears are the result of having a mind too focused on the hypothetical and not focusing on the present moment. The mind often tricks us, tries to put us in the worst of situations, overwhelms us with all kinds of thoughts intrusive and irrational that despite being very unlikely overwhelm us, making us think all the time about all the bad things that could be occur. This is why one of the best strategies to deal with them is simple: live in the here and now.

In fact, the experience of living in the here and now is a protective factor for our mental health. There is only one time when we can act to change our future: now. Instead of thinking about the bad things we did in the past and the supposed unpleasant situations of the future, it is best to try to initiate changes right now. If we have the opportunity to enjoy life now, now is the time for it.

On the other hand, if it is necessary to do something unpleasant in order to enjoy life a lot afterwards, it is appropriate to do it as well. Whatever has to be done now, we must think that our present behaviors influence what the future will be like, not how we imagine how it will be.

Bibliographic references:

• Hofmann, S.G., Dibartolo, P.M. (2010). "Introduction: Toward an Understanding of Social Anxiety Disorder". Social Anxiety. pp. xix – xxvi.
• Goleman, D. (1996). The practice of emotional intelligence. Barcelona: Kairós
• Oñate, M. (1989). The self-concept. Formation, measurement and implications in the personality. Madrid: Narcea.
• Schiraldi, G.R. (2016). The Self-Esteem Workbook. Second Edition. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.