Why fear is such a powerful emotion, and what we can do about it.

I read somewhere once that our emotions are merely the result of our biological evolution. In other words, what we think of as “emotions” are simply the evolution of biological processes that began way back with our primitive ancestors as responses to their external environment. A classic example is the fight or flight response which is based on the emotion of fear; such as fear of death. For example, imagine you are a small hominid (ancestors of humans) foraging around the forest floor for food with your mate when a big cave bear comes along. You sense danger and so you either run away, fight for your life, or get eaten.

Now, if you didn’t get eaten and lived to “fight another day” (but your mate did get eaten) chances are you got the opportunity to meet a boy, fall in love, or whatever ancient hominids did, and reproduce the next generation - your kids. In other words, the way you reacted was somehow superior to that of your hominid companion who never had the chance to reproduce. What’s the old saying? You don’t need to outrun the bear, you just need to be able to outrun your friend!

So it stands to reason that being good at fighting, or running away, turned out to be a natural advantage in this situation compared to your companion who didn’t react as quickly or effectively and got eaten instead. Voila, we have Charles Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest” - that being born with certain natural advantages leads to potentially greater success in being able to survive, and therefore to reproduce, thus being able to pass on those natural advantages (genes) to the next generation of life.

Without getting too technical, what happens in the fight or flight response is that once the emotion of “fear” is triggered the body responds physiologically setting off a cavalcade of internal actions and reactions without you having to think about it. Because by the time you think, you are dead.

A key driver of this is adrenaline. Adrenaline is a hormone produced in the adrenal glands that sit just above the kidneys. In fight or flight it is released into the bloodstream quickly reaching every cell in the body. Attaching to a receptor on the outside of a cell, adrenaline sends messages through the cell membrane. The activated receptor then turns on an enzyme inside the cell that begins a secondary chain reaction of physiological responses such as: allowing sugar into the cells to speed up metabolism; (ie, instantly giving you more energy); releasing extra calcium into the muscles (including our heart muscle) thereby increasing the power of muscle contraction (ie, more short term power); relaxing the lungs to let more oxygen in (again, more energy), and so on.

All of this happens very quickly and unconsciously. We “feel” it of course, via a rapidly beating heart, a rise in temperature in the head, the hair on our bodies standing up, etc; and, if a physical response is required we might notice that we have enhanced (super)power for a few moments or minutes. But the reaction itself is unconscious. It just happens.

I’m sure you have either experienced this yourself or at least heard anecdotes of people physically doing things in a stressful situation that they would not normally be capable of. For example a student of mine once told me that she was able to lift a huge wardrobe that had fallen over onto her toddler, thus rescuing the child from being crushed. Later, once the child had been cleared of any damage by paramedics my student and her much stronger male friend went to put the cupboard back in place and could barely do it; even though she had managed to throw it off her child on her own under the powerful effects of the rush of adrenaline.

It’s true that we no longer face as many literal life and death situations from our environment as compared to our more primitive ancestors, yet the “emotions” that developed throughout our evolution are very real and very visceral, felt experiences for us still in every day life, often leading to confusion, self-doubt and despair. And we experience many emotions - love, anger, sadness, etc. But fear, perhaps because of its primitive and literal life and death consequences, seems to me to be the emotion that most afflicts us. I’m not talking about the literal fight or flight fear; but the deeper fear we might call existentialism.

The word “existentialism” entered the mainstream in the 20th century through authors and thinkers including Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger and Albert Camus, but followed from literary work of even the century prior, eg, via Dostoyevsky and Kierkegaard. Essentially, existentialism is the tension between an individual’s ability to make self-determining decisions and actions that provide an authentic, meaningful existence but within an “uncaring”, purposeless, vast and meaning-less universe.

It is that sense we get that “nothing I do matters or has any real significance.” It can therefore be quite a destructive emotion.

As a teacher of yoga and other complimentary philosophies the question of “being” comes up a lot in my training courses. In fact it goes to the heart of yoga (no, yoga is not just physical “exercises”), not to mention Buddhism, Jainism and other religious and philosophical systems that developed in ancient India around the same time.

The question of “who am I?”, if indeed we are any type of Self at all (note Buddhism’s notion of “no-self”), goes to the heart of all religions and most schools of philosophy. For it is the idea of Self that leads to the fear of either not realising that ultimate state of being or of that Self being annihilated that provides the metaphysical underpinnings of religions, their purpose, and their resultant “rules”, methods and practices.

And in our modern era where, at least in the West, religion and spiritualism has less prominence in our day to day lives than it previously did; and where science as a way of interpreting the workings of the universe (and therefore ourselves), along with the pragmatism of existence and the institutionalised ways of living that have arisen from such a clinical view of nature, is it little wonder that we are all suffering at least a little existential crises?

So what to do about this so that we can live a life less fearful, more content, and more meaningful?

Well firstly, let us expand on this idea of “fear” and what it really covers.

Fear is really a label we apply to a spectrum of emotions. Each base emotion - anger, fear, sadness, happiness - are also just labels for wider spectrums of emotion. For example, if we take anger as one of the base emotions we could see that a wider interpretation of “anger” might include frustration, irritation, violence, and so on. For happiness we might also include contentment, harmony, love, ecstasy, etc. And within these spectrums a particular emotion might be injurious or even beneficial. For example, no one would probably argue that feeling love is bad. But one could easily see that feeling ecstatic for too long isn’t a natural way to be and could lead to mania, burnout, anxiety, or other injurious psychological states.

Fear, as an emotional spectrum is no different from the above examples, and in fact we have already briefly visited two subsets of fear - literal life and death fear as triggered by the evolutionary fight or flight response (which might at times be helpful); and fear as existentialism (not so helpful and not very pleasant). 

Great thinkers throughout the ages have also wrestled with “fear.” In classical yoga philosophy fear of death, or to put it another way, clinging to life (Sanskrit: abhiniveśa) is one of yoga’s five afflictions (kleśas), along with ignorance, ego, desire and aversion, that are obstacles to achieving liberation from the cycle of death and re-birth.

Overcoming the fear of “death” - ie, realising that all living things must eventually die, or to say it another way, that everything is impermanent - is also key to finding liberation according to the Buddha.

So here we see two more subsets of fear. The yoga view that the self you think you are - ie, this body, this mind, these roles I play in society - is not ultimately real, but just a stage of development that includes a physical form and an ego. The real Self is something way beyond this. It is pure consciousness, without form. It has always existed and is never changing; ie, it is permanent; and it is immeasurably blissful. We just don’t realise it in our current confused, egoic state of being. But, we can obtain / return to our permanent Self through dispelling ignorance. The method for achieving this is yoga - the philosophical framework that explains the universe and our place in it, as well as the methods offered to “re-achieve” permanent bliss.

The Buddhist view shares with yoga the idea that what we think of as our “self” - this body, this ego, etc - is not ultimately real, and that everything in this realm is impermanent. But where it differs is that Buddhism does not proffer a permanent Self at all that one can realise and return to. In fact the opposite is the case. The way to escape impermanence and the suffering that goes with it is to realise that there is no permanent anything, including a Self. Once this has been realised one is not born again and nirvana (lit. “extinguishing of the flame”) is achieved.

Yoga and Buddhism offer two opposing outcomes for overcoming suffering and therefore fear. Yet within each of these solutions reside fears of other kinds - though possibly not for practitioners with true faith and diligence who take the practices and methods outlined by Yoga and Buddhism to their ultimate ends.

But for us normal folk, within both of these traditions it is easy to see further subsets of fear. When I teach my yoga philosophy course I can literally see the fear on my students faces when I tell them that yoga ultimately leads one to a permanent Self that is independent from all other things, and therefore forever insulated against any form of suffering. How wonderful! How immensely blissful! And yet I know that in the back of their minds they are joining the dots to see that this ultimate state of being means being on your own eternally. It is no Heaven in a Christian or even Hindu (Kṛṣṇa) cosmological sense, where one communes eternally with God and all the other happy souls as the ultimate reward. No, it is an internalised, self-aware bliss. And for one who is still in an egoic state that is interpreted as “I’m going to be alone forever!”

When, in my courses, we inevitably look at Buddhism as a counter view to yoga - though they share the same process ontology of karmic retribution and re-birth as being the mechanism for being stuck in suffering - the method for obtaining freedom from that suffering; ie, through realising that nothing is permanent, which includes the idea that one does not even have the permanent “lonely” Self of yoga to aspire to; I again see the looks on the faces of my students as they internally scream, “I am going to be annihilated?!”

And so we see that - taking aside the fact that both Buddhist and Yoga adherents truly believe that each of their separate solutions to ultimate happiness / release from suffering does indeed work - even these great systems of thought and practice lead most of us to more fear. The fear of either ultimate loneliness (Yoga) or ultimate annihilation (Buddhism). Now, before you write in and argue the semantics of this evaluation I would hasten to say that yes, I do realise that Buddhism isn’t ultimately suggesting or promoting a nihilist outcome for each of us; and that yes, Yoga does tell us that the ultimate bliss of the permanent self-aware Puruṣa (True Self) is akin to comparing what we currently think of as bliss as like comparing the difference between the light of a candle to the light of 10 million suns, and therefore how can gaining independence (alone-ness) ever be considered as an unworthy goal?

The broader point I am making is where does fear begin and end? We could equally make an argument that Christianity can lead to fear, for in Christianity there is ultimately a battle between light and darkness, between “good” and “evil;” and unlike Buddhism and Yoga with their beliefs in re-birth; with Christianity each of us only gets one shot at redemption. It’s a (tongue-in-cheek) YOLO religion. You Only Live Once! And failure to compete and win in the battle for good over evil will either result in eternal happiness or eternal damnation. No pressure (or fear) there?

To sum up the above…

We can experience fear through perceived physical danger. Let’s call this “fight or flight fear” (though this instinctual response can arise through a situation that isn’t literally life or death yet evokes the same physiological response).

We can experience fear caused through feeling helpless against impersonal forces that are seemingly much larger than ourselves. Let’s cause this “existential fear.”

We can experience fear through disconnection, or feeling isolated / alone. Let’s call this “yoga fear” - though it has a little existentialism thrown in for good measure.

We can experience fear of annihilation; ie, there is no permanent Self at all. “Buddhist fear.”

We can experience fear of eternal damnation; ie, that we won’t make it to heaven / we will end up in hell. “Christian fear.”

We can also experience fear in other ways - eg, fear of failure / not realising a goal(s); fear of not living up to expectations within our career, relationships, etc (whether that fear is induced by our own expectations, or through worrying about what others’ expectations might be).

In fact, we can find sources and types of fear almost everywhere we look.

Which brings us around again to the question raised earlier. With all this fear - literal, existential, and every thing in between - what is to be done about it? Is everything we do and think about; is every action we can potentially take fatal or futile?

What all of these types of fear have in common is that they are based on both a feeling of separateness from what is around us; as well as being based on events that haven’t happened yet. Even with fight or flight there are the moments before the cave bear attacks, if it does at all. Even if we think our fear is based on something real that happened in the past, we are still projecting that past experience into the future - ie, it happened like this before, therefore I can expect such and such to repeat.

So fear is in one way unavoidable. But does that means it’s a problem or something we can’t overcome? 

The answer is no. Fear does not have to afflict us. We can do something about it.

Let’s do a little thought experiment. Ask yourself, in this moment what do you feel? Happiness? Sadness? Something else?

Let’s assume you felt generally happy in the moment. That feeling of happiness is a present moment experience. Perhaps it was triggered by the smell of your morning coffee, or the sunlight kissing your skin as you read this, or the warmth and softness of the blanket you are huddled under. Whatever the trigger, the feeling is a present moment experience. 

Now. In feeling happy do all the sad things that have ever happened to you disappear? Are bad things still happening somewhere in the world right now?

Now turn this thought experiment around. What if you were feeling sadness in the moment? Does this cancel out every happy moment you have ever had? If you went outside would you still be able to breathe in the sweet scent of a flower, the rawness of freshly cut grass? Are picnics still happening? Is someone experiencing their first kiss in this moment? Is a baby being born right now?

The reality is that all things exist at once in the here and now. Every moment that has ever been or will ever be is tied to this moment. Because all things feed into and define each other. All things arise mutually - we are born out of the universe and arise as an expression of it, in this form, in this moment. 

In terms of our thought experiment how can you have happiness without sadness? What would you be measuring “happiness” against? But just because you are feeling something does not mean it has to define the present moment; and worse, produce the next moment, and the next moment, and…

It’s true that we can’t always change the external situation in the moment. But, situations change. All things change. It’s happening all the time even if you can’t notice it. Your life breath changes from inhale to exhale. Your cells are changing. The day is changing into night (or vice versa). Earth is turning. The continents are evolving. Suns and being born and dying. Even the whole universe is transforming as it expands. And we are not separate from all of this. It is us and we are it.

So what exists in the present moment is EVERYTHING! All of it - the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly? It has always been so because all is one.

All your happiness is tied up in your sadness just like all your sadness is tied up in your happiness. And isn’t that wonderful? Because it means that the emotion of the moment is a choice. This is not to say that the “feeling” isn’t real or challenging. But in understanding that all is one and that everything is present all at once, we can make a choice. We can choose where to rest our attention. We can choose to revel in our sadness, let it pervade our every cell so that we can really experience the beauty and richness of it; how it makes us feel in our bones. Because we know that at the same time we also have access to all the immeasurable joy the universe has to offer.

So where, then, is the need to fear?

Practical Steps

I want to finish with a practical exercise because it is easy to forget what we’ve been talking about; and if we just rely on our intellect (brain) then we can quickly tie ourselves up in knots again and find ourselves outside the present moment.

You won’t need anything for this exercise, just yourself. Sit or stand exactly where you are. Eyes open. Relax into yourself. Feel the weight of your body merging with the ground beneath you. 

Now notice your breath; the in-breath and the out-breath; a representation of all the universe, all the contractions and expansions, the transformation of the condensation of energy into matter and the dispersion of matter into energy.

Let your senses be alive. Forget your thoughts. Just take in what is around you. The chirp of the birds and insects. The noise of the office. The traffic. Smell the air - the sweetness, the sweat, the rancid; the rotting that is the source of the next generation of life.

Taste your own mouth. Feel the juices as they arise, mingle and then gently flow down your throat and into your belly.

Be alive in the moment.

This pause you have created to step into the present moment is always there. And it is rich in the vibrant experience of all there is. Revel in it, and in every moment that follows.

Love & Light 

Jamie