1. Fear
Before you read any further, here is the truth: nothing I write or you read will
free you of fear. The only ways to escape fear entirely are generally bad ways,
except in their own rare, true times. Death can free you of fear, perhaps: but to
choose death before its proper time is not victory over fear; it is defeat by fear.
Shock or trauma or drugs can temporarily burn the fear from you, but when that
happens, you lose the wisdom and knowledge fear offers. To choose that as a
life-decision is as self-defeating as to choose to destroy your sight or hearing, or
strip the sense of touch from your fingers. As a temporary solution, your body
and mind impose in the face of emergency or disaster, such numbness can be
useful. Otherwise it is just limiting.
Fear is natural, useful, admirable, and entirely normal. The few intelligent
beings humans know of who are without fear, we call mad, and for good reason.
Fear is the simplest and most universal expression of our natural love of life,
comfort, and affection, and our struggle to hang on to those good things. The
man or woman who is without any fear has already passed on life.
Fear guides us away from damage and warns us to protect our most treasured
relationships and our most vital advantages. Fear provokes us to plan ahead,
encourages us to strive for competence and control. The fear of being less
worthwhile than our least dream of ourselves keeps us struggling to maintain
our greatest dreams. The fear of disappointment in the eyes of those we admire
prods us into acts of greatness.
Fear keeps us driving within the speed limit, reminds us not to mix prescription
drugs, and suggests not-so-gently that we take a walk rather than eat an éclair.
Fear drags us to the doctor to learn what that unpleasant black spot on the back
of our arm is, and, just as nagging, fear insists we complete a homework
assignment for an online certification program. Fear is our good and faithful
servant.
Fear is not, however, a good master.
Therefore, while I can think of no helpful or desirable way to free you from
fear, I would love to help you free yourself from fear is bullying mastery. If you
would like to take some time to learn about fear, and how to live in good
balance with your fears, then, yes, I do have a few things to suggest, and a few
ideas to offer.
Letting Go of Shame

2. If ever there were a formula for failure, that is it. “The only thing we have to
fear is fear itself,” Franklin D. Roosevelt said – but he did not go on to deal with
the muddle created by being fearful of fear. Think about the long, silly chain it
can become:
I am afraid.
I am ashamed of being afraid.
I am afraid of being ashamed that I am afraid.
I am afraid of being afraid that I will be ashamed that I am afraid.
I am afraid of the fear of being ashamed that I am afraid of being afraid.
I am ashamed that I am afraid of the fear of being afraid of being afraid of being
fearful...
Enough! Stop right there! Not one more loop of this: the first thing to do is stop
being ashamed—and therefore afraid – of being afraid.
Normal people do not usually feel shame that they get hungry, or thirsty, or
sleepy, or happy, or cold, or any of a number of other ordinary, boring,
commonplace human experiences. Unfortunately, we reserve shame and a
feeling of failure about other equally ordinary and commonplace experiences;
and given a bit of a push, can even end up dysfunctional enough to start
expanding the list to even the ones we would ordinarily just let stand. With
some training and pressure, you can make otherwise sensible people say things
like, “Oh, I am so sorry I’m sick, I didn’t mean to be!” or “I’m sorry, I’m so
sorry, I know I shouldn’t be thirsty, but I am.”
Fear, like thirst or a high fever, is just an ordinary reaction to ordinary
occurrences. You lack liquid, you get thirsty; you get sick, you run a fever; you
face a threat, you get scared.
Learning to face the reaction itself with that level of acceptance removes the
first barrier many face in learning how to master fear, rather than struggle in
bondage to fear. Being able to accept it demands the discipline to claim the truth
over and over again: that fear is just nature’s way of telling you there is danger.
If you can slowly wear away the habit of guilt and the struggle to not feel fear,
you remove one layer of fear and anger at the very beginning of your process.
Those who feel guilt, anger, and shame over their own fears are fearful twice
over for every fear they face: one fear of their weakness, and one of whatever
frightened them to begin with.

3. Changing the Game
Instead of trapping yourself in shame and fear, your ideal act is to move from
the first sense of fear, to alert consideration and planning. Again, it may help to
recall that fear is a natural, ordinary response that serves as a mental and
biological “heads-up” when danger is perceived.
Consider a man walking through the forest: he hears a sudden crash and thud.
His head shoots up, his eyes focus. Even as he’s looking, his body prepares for
trouble. Special hormones are immediately surging into the bloodstream,
including adrenaline and corticosteroids, which serve to prime the body for a
classic fight-or-flight response, depending on what might transpire.
In an ideal response, however, the hormones do not take over – the mind does.
Fear exists, and the bio-chemicals are there to ensure that all the spooky
symptoms are felt, but the mind uses that rush to speed thoughts along, increase
observation rates and precision, and gun the logical engines, working out what
the threat might be, and what practical choices may be made. In this state, time
is often reported as seeming too slow. Those who have experienced a fear rush
may comment on the sense of incredible clarity, the ease of thought, and the
near effortless ability to put plans into effect almost before they are formed.
Overall, far from classic “fear,” people report an incredible sense of calm. Only
when the mind fails to engage with the threat does the fear reaction start to edge
into panicky symptoms, frantic loops of goal-free distress, and self-defeating
angst. A mind that is properly fearful is, in a very odd way, fearless.
That is because much of what we consider to be fear, is actually stress caused
by a failure to engage the mind and body to deal with a threat. Our common
understanding of fear is closer to being a looped panic response.
There are a number of things that cause this dysfunctional fear reaction. The
first, common problem we face is a “threat” that simply cannot be dealt with,
for any number of reasons.
For example:
I must admit, with shame, that I am decidedly phobic about dental work. I hate
it – simply hate it. I have had the usual collection of bad experiences in
childhood; I have faced the standard ongoing adult needs for care. I cope well
enough; not happily, though. The bottom line is that when I have to settle
myself in a dentist’s chair, a fear response begins.
Unfortunately, none of the appropriate reactions remove me from that dental
chair with any speed, and every reasonable, adult action I can take keeps me
right where I do not want to be. I will put up with a small but real amount of

4. pain, and quite a lot of stress. There will be pointy picks and whining drills and
all in all, I will not be a happy person.
Nature’s plan for me and for fear is that fear will kick in, my brain will race to
identify the threat, and then it will race faster to do something to end that threat.
If there is no threat, my body will stand-down. If there is a threat, I will either
run quickly to escape, or I will attack, or I will do something else to manage the
situation. But in nature’s rule-book, I should not be sitting in continued fear for
half an hour or more, still worried, still threatened, but doing nothing to end the
threat.
Stress is fear with no outlet: it is a continuing situation in which the body
continues to trigger fear thoughts and reactions, but in which the victim cannot
take control and end the distress. My unhappy seat in the dental chair is one
form of stress factor. Another might be a constant barrage of sights or sounds
my subconscious interpreted as indicating danger: some people cannot cope
with an urban environment, as their bodies and minds interpret the strangers, the
traffic, the sirens, the occasional back-fire, the slamming of doors, the fighting
of neighbors – the constant cacophony of city living – as indications of danger.
Bad marriages, dysfunctional workplaces, ongoing financial problems, legal
issues – you name it, we modern humans face things that do not go away and
which cannot be dealt with in the prompt, no-stress way that nature expected.
As a result, humans feel a huge amount of fear and stress they would never
experience in “the wild.”
However, that does not mean there is nothing you can do to manage your fear,
and what you do depends on first aiming for that calm, clear-headed, un-
panicked first reaction to threat. Even if you are starting after months, or years
of stress, you can attempt to regain that balanced, action-ready clarity of thought
and planning.
The Eye of the Storm
A few years ago I was in a hydroplaning accident. Coming up a familiar hill at
about 55 miles per hour – a full ten below the speed limit, and slightly slow for
the traffic around me – I hit a patch of water draining at an angle across the
road, invisible to me. My tires broke contact with the pavement of the road, and
the next thing I knew I was hurtling toward the shoulder, over the shoulder, and
into the chaparral, with the drop-off into a small canyon coming up quickly.
During that time I was, obviously, very afraid. I was also in the state of fear,
however, that is natural and effective. As the situation ran along, I made a series
of decisions, one after another, each aimed at increasing my chances of survival.

5. I tried to break out of the hydroplaning, and then struggled to make use of the
chaparral to break my progress. I worked to shift the car to maximize my
friction in the thin, sandy earth and shrubs.
Frankly, I am not sure it did any good. I still went over the edge. But I know I
lived. I will never know which of dozens of good choices not only saved my
life, but allowed me to walk away. What I do know is that the fear I experienced
during that event was simple, and relatively calm compared to my stress in a
dentist’s chair. In the dentist’s chair, unless I work very hard to master my fear,
it rides me. In the car, as I faced death, I mastered fear, riding it as a surfer rides
a wave, using the rush and thunder to move me from choice to choice along the
path to a conclusion.
Nearly dying was actually a heck of a lot less scary than living while awaiting
the dentist and his drill. The stress was less, the aftermath more quickly dealt
with. In a perfect world, all fear would be as simple and calm as the fear of that
accident.
Of course, the world is imperfect, and most of our fears are neither as fast nor as
finite as an auto accident. We can, however, try to achieve a similar state of
grace-in-terror, in a variety of ways.
The first is to simply confront fear, and figure out what is causing it. That may
be simple, or it may be very, very complicated indeed. In difficult cases, where
trauma and past abuse or injury feeds into panic and anxiety, you may need
professional help unraveling the various threads of fear all feeding into your
response. However, in most cases the causes are fairly simple, though.
When simple, you can begin to make some choices.
Consider the following situation: a rather ordinary panic attack provoking fear,
and often encouraging self-destructive choices. You know, let us say, that you
are likely to receive a nasty, painful goodbye letter from a former sweetheart.
You know it will arrive by email.
You fear the email will come any day now. You are afraid to check your
computer. Just thinking about it makes you ill. You avoid logging on for the
day, even though there is work you need to do online; even though you have
other vital emails on the way. Your hands shake when you open your laptop.
You skip fast over the emails when you do open them, and hurry away as
quickly as possible for fear the arrival chime will ring and The Letter of Doom
will be there.
Fear is mastering you. You may “think,” in the same sense that a hamster on a
wheel “runs,” but you are not making progress, and you are not solving any of
your problems; you are increasing them.

6. It is time to look for the still, calm eye of the storm; time to treat your situation
with the efficient, problem-solving portion of your brain, rather than resting in
the mere “feeling” portion. That is the portion that senses all the adrenaline and
corticosteroids, but which does nothing about them.
How do you break out?
Begin with a single question: if the longest journey begins with a single step,
the shortest path out of fear begins with a single question. Is there a “best”
question to start with? Not always, but there are at least a few useful ones to
help break out of a fear-cycle.
One of the best is, “How can I gain control?”
Do not ask yourself how you can gain control of anything specific: that may get
you stuck further. Instead, just ask yourself what you can do right now to gain
some control.
In the case of the emails, the first thought you may have is simple indeed: kill-
file the person who is likely to send you The Letter.
“But,” you may think. “That will not change anything! The letter will still be
written, and sent, and I will still have to read it eventually.”
Well, you are probably right. However, that is not the point.
The point is you now have some control over when and how you face that letter
that does not involve waiting helplessly for it to leap into your inbox. Your
former sweetie may well write that letter, and send it. It will likely arrive. But it
will not haunt your computer in the same way, waiting to pounce the minute
you go to check your mail. It will not keep you away from your mail – only
away from your spam or kill folder, and you can decide to check that when you
feel like it.
Instead of being the victim, waiting to be attacked, you are now the master of
the siege, in control of your timing, able to decide for yourself when to face bad
news, or ignore it. In the meantime, you can now go online without fear, do
your business without having to force yourself past your nerves, and you can
concentrate because you know where that letter will be, and you know you will
only look at it when you are ready.
What you have just learned is that the core of fear is a feeling of helplessness.
As long as you feel able to choose and control what happens, you are far less
likely to fear. The funny thing is that those choices can be so small as to seem
trivial, even to you – but having the power to choose can change an experience
from one of terror to one of calm courage.

7. Evaluation
If all has gone well, a question or two has led you to a point of at least
temporary calm and control in the face of fear. It may not be much right now,
and it may feel a bit peculiar, but with luck you have managed to temporarily
override fear for a moment or two. What next?
Next comes some serious thought and evaluation, as you take the time to work
out the nature of your fear, and decide what can and cannot be done about it. In
a sense, this is the big version of that first question: What can I control?
Fear, in its ideal mode, provides energy and focus to help your body and mind
deal with danger: all that edgy, twitchy, stomach-churning terror works
wonderfully well with simple, primitive threats. Direct physical danger
provokes fast choices, quick action, and prompt efforts to gain control. The
entire process is geared toward propelling a scared human from a moment when
he or she may be out of control of a situation, to a moment when control has
been regained.
Most of the fears we currently deal with, though, do not succumb as easily or
quickly to gut-reaction emergency-thinking. That means that rather than hoping
forlornly that if you wait around long enough, saturated with fear chemicals,
you will just come up with an answer, you have got to use advanced skills to
take you where reflexive thinking would have in a more direct situation.
In other words, if you cannot solve it fast, solve it slow; but aim for the same
outcome fear always aims for: control over danger.
When dealing with complicated, non-direct threats, you need to take time to
understand the nature of the threat, the sorts of skills you can bring to bear, the
limits of what you can accomplish, and in the end you have to set rational goals
for what control you can and cannot impose. We have already looked at a few
“dangers” in modern life that do not respond well to the sort of reflexive
thinking that our ancestors would have applied to lions and tigers and bears.
Turbo-charged, fear-driven decisions work well for car accidents, but badly for
more abstract problems, or slower, less direct threats. Scary emotional
challenges, legal and financial concerns, ongoing relationship problems, just do
not yield to seat-of-the-pants choices very often. Trying to use that sort of
thinking is more likely to create more problems than solve them.
But goal-oriented, analytical thinking can help a lot. So, let us begin with a few
more questions to help expand your control.
What elements of control matter to you in the situation that scares you?

8. In the discussion of the email, I suggested that at least to start the primary issue
of control might not be control over the unwanted email itself, but over the way
you received it, and dealt with it. Just as having even minor control over a shot
can change the entire situation in regards to your fear, so, too, can minor
changes alter your fear in regards to other issues. Taking back control over your
life is often the key to mastering your fears within that life.
Therefore, the first questions you want to ask in any fear situation have to do
with what can and cannot be controlled to your advantage. Obviously, in many
cases your first desire would be to make a problem simply go away entirely:
superb control!
Most of the time, that is not an option. However, you can then move on to the
next choice: can you put the entire problem itself within your control? If so,
how? Many problems can be put entirely in your control, though that may
mean breaking a problem up or understanding it in a new way. With some
mental jiu-jitsu, you may be able to convert a source of terror into a source of
pride and confidence – but to discover if that is possible you must take the time
to think, and evaluate.
When you face a difficult situation, it is time to evaluate whether your actions
and choices can “flip” the conditions to your advantage. Will a completely
unexpected smile turn a confrontation around? Will a pleasant and friendly
surrender and apology rip away months of ill-will? Can you turn the world
upside down with a few simple choices, and in doing so put the problem under
your own control?
So many of the fears we deal with are tied to being locked helplessly into
seemingly unchangeable conflicts. We feel under attack, so we defend
ourselves, never wondering what would happen if we simply gave up and quit;
even if the point we are fighting over is one we actually do not care much about.
Or we assume that some things cannot change, and never risk asking if they can.
Fear is aimed at putting you in control. You cannot take control if you do not
take the time to evaluate your situation well – and often re-evaluate it. You need
to understand the nature of the problem, and look for possible approaches to a
solution. Remember, you are aiming at control, because control helps you end
fear. That means learning what can change, and how to change it.
Problems You Cannot Solve
Fear aims at putting you in control. One way to fight fear is to take back control.
But what if there is no obvious way to take control, and no happy jiu-jitsu flip to
turn the tables on misfortune? What if practical solutions, sensible planning,

9. calm, clear-headed thinking all crash headlong into an immovable object? What
if a problem is big, scary, and not going anywhere regardless of what you do?
How do you deal with fear of the unavoidable? Heaven knows, there are enough
unavoidable things out there to scare us badly: disease, injury, death, disasters,
loses, and wars.
How can we deal with fear of the unswerving mega-monster realities that we
cannot change?
We change ourselves.
That may seem simple, or simplistic. It is not. The way of dealing with the great
fears involves becoming a great-hearted human: one who has changed and
grown enough to handle the knock-out blows life holds with grace and dignity.
Many people never manage: so many that some take the great fears as universal.
And, yet, somehow people do manage to live beyond the fears. How? What
changes? If fear is aimed at giving you control and you cannot take control, is
that not a sort of endless trap?
Only if you choose for it to be.
The truth is that, while fear does try to give us control in the face of threats, fear
only is useful for the threats that can be controlled. It is useless and damaging
when applied to the stuff that is outside our control – and fortunately, our minds
allow us to accept that, unless we refuse to let go of the problems.
Humans have always been small, and limited, and unable to control everything.
It is vital that we have fear to push us to take control when we can, but it is just
as vital to be able to accept a problem as outside out control, and let go. The art
of letting go is so great, and so profound, it sometimes seems like it is the
centrepiece of most religious disciplines, philosophical traditions, and many
self-help movements.
As a result, there is a lot of help out there to learn the skill, though. Whether you
read the psalms to learn wisdom, consider the great truths of Buddhism to find
enlightenment, or walk the “way” of the Tao, there is wisdom literature
available aimed specifically at helping you change yourself in such a way as to
be free of the great fears.
History would tend to suggest that in the religious or philosophical sense, fear
can be mastered and to some extent actually set aside. There is less convincing
evidence that one can ever be utterly, totally free of fear. But one can hope to
reach a plateau of self-control that allows people to function as saints and wise-

10. men are said to do, with courage, calm, and dispassion in the face of incredible
adversity.
Where do these traditions begin? Usually with a measure of acceptance – for
some, the acceptance of a God greater than the great fears. For others, simply
acceptance that the great fears need not be victorious over human disciple and
faith.
Fear as a Mental Construct
We have discussed fear as a real, sensible, sound thing; an instinctive response
to perceived danger, intended to support and encourage you to get control over
the threats that face you. We have thought about way to make use of it, and to
find ways around it. Now, though, it is time to look at fear from another
perspective.
Fear, looked at a different way, is nothing but a mental hob-goblin. A reaction
of the mind that can be rejected, built out of perceptions that can be
manipulated, supported by physical reflexes that can be disciplined. In this
tradition – a tradition strongly supported by many religious cultures and
philosophical arguments – fear is primarily a fiction we create in our minds, and
it is our own choice whether to “believe” in the fiction, or not.
In this approach, the question stops being one of a struggle with a real,
problematic “thing,” but a matter of whether you will let an illusion you created
yourself stymie you and warp your life. While serious materialistic sorts may
scoff and mutter that all those bio-chemicals and emotional cascades must be
“real” somehow, there is a lot of practical support for the “fear is just a big
fiction” school of thought. Certainly, there is plenty of evidence that the worst
fears can be managed and dispelled by steady and regular commitment to the
learned disciplines of many cultures.
The methods for dealing with fear-as-fiction are varied. Some focus first on
developing a strong sense of dispassion to your own situation: a sense of
perspective, at the very least.
What is one fleeting life and death in perspective with the billion-year life of the
universe? What is one person’s pain, when considered against the pain of
millions? In the face of inevitable change, what point is there to fear for your
own security?
Many traditions hold that fear loses its power when seen against the greatness of
the universe, or the infinity of God and God’s plan. The flickering concerns of

11. our life, the terror of death, all shrink to nothing in the face of such magnitude,
just as for a sensible person a couple of injections would have faded compared
to possible gangrene from a splinter of rotting wood.
These traditions often start you on the path to freedom from fear by encouraging
you to weigh and balance your fear against greater things, slowly eroding your
commitment to taking your fear very seriously. This is a powerful approach, if
only because the less seriously we take our emotions, the less they tend to
pound us. Feelings are least powerful when most firmly dismissed.
This is, in some ways, simply the other side of the technique of examining your
fear to determine its nature and source. Once you have examined your fears,
you move one step further, and examine them in context with all the rest of your
life.
In this approach, many fears just wilt away quickly. The fear of getting a Dear
John/Joan email? It seems blindingly unimportant when compared with killer
earthquakes, rebellions in the Middle-East, plague, pollution of the oceans, or
the extinction of an entire species. If you have any skill at this sort of
perspective work, you can easily move one step further, and shift from simply
dismissing your fears, to finding them a source of intense personal humor and
amusement.
Mind and Body
The second way these traditions deal with fear is through the management of
the body and mind together, to dismiss the fear response itself. Remember that
fear – the symptoms of fear – are caused by a whole series of physical reactions
to perceived threat? Cascades of bio-chemicals, the body primed for fight-or-
flight?
Well, there is a strong tradition of willingly, intentionally reversing those
effects, using focus, meditation, imagination, relaxation, and other techniques.
In most cases, the process begins with relaxation and breath management, as
these can reverse your body’s high-speed charge into reflexive fear.
Meditation and prayer are common methods for using the techniques. Both
involve focus on elements that are not the source of the fear, wilful relaxation of
the muscles, deepened breathing, and disassociation from fleeting sensations.
Each of these elements can help promote a state of true trance, outside fear or
other emotional reactions; and once you are outside of fear, relaxed, and
breathing deeply, you have come close to escaping the physical elements of
fear, also.

12. Your mind and body, both free from an immediate sense of threat, stop the
chemical cascade. The relaxation and deep breathing help convince your body
and your brain both that the causes of fear are gone. Regular practice can not
only allow you to develop extreme control over these reactions, but to enter a
low state of trance quickly, even when under stress. Those who become
extremely proficient can maintain a state of extreme trance in the face of
otherwise traumatic and terrifying events.
It is important to understand that, just as perspective weakens the “belief” in
fear, meditation, prayer, and relaxation methods weaken the mental and
physical support of the fear reflex. By carefully assuming the physical traits of a
relaxed person, you become relaxed. By behaving in ways that are calm and
panic-free, the mind and body both accept that there must not be any fear
present.
In a sense, there is not any fear present. Your instinctive reflex may be to panic.
Your trained, meditative self, however, steps out of that physical and mental
loop, and simply chooses another physical mode – one quite outside of fear.
We have a tendency to treat fear as a very real, almost as a human enemy, that
exists without us, fights us, functions by its own rules and wins victories
through its own strengths. In truth, “fear” does not exist – not when you
approach it through these traditional paths. Fear is just a word we use to
describe a mess of mental illusions and bodily responses. It has no separate
reality of its own, it wants nothing, it does nothing, and it wins nothing. Fear
can be altered by simply thinking and behaving in ways that cause the body to
stop producing fear components, and the mind to stop registering threats. In this
approach, fear is nothing more exotic than, say, heart rate, or body temperature:
things you can fairly easily choose to alter by jogging in place, or putting on a
sweater.
This strips away much of the mystery and awe of fear. That is not a bad thing,
in particular. Many people are owned by their fear as much because they forgot
it was just a part of their own mind, as because it had any true power over them.
Walking Away
We have discussed many ways of dealing with fear. In the end, though, the most
important method is simply to stop investing in fear. We give fear power over
our lives by making it our master, putting it over us, kneeling down to it. Each
method available to you to battle fear is really just a tool to allow you to turn
your back on fear and walk away.

13. The great philosophers and religious teachers of history have struggled to define
fear, put it in perspective, and teach us ways to cope with it. Whether they point
to meditation, soothing mantras, prayers and psalms, reason, discipline,
rationality, courage – no matter what they recommend, in the end the best
approach is to believe, with all your heart, that fear has no right to run your life.
You do not allow strangers to tell you what to do. You do not let fools make
your decisions. No one willingly allows themselves to be mastered by idiots.
Why, then, allow a set of feelings and bodily reactions make your choice and
pick your actions for you?
The ultimate technique, which honestly lies behind all the other methods,
involves fearing – then shrugging, admitting fear has touched you, and making
another sort of choice regardless. It is not a very romantic answer; it is not
cloaked in the majesty of wise words, or decked out in tradition. It remains true:
if you want to master your fear, you have to walk away from it, even when it is
shouting at you, and your body seems ready to explode with terror.
The thing is, fear is just fear. It is a lot of feeling, but feelings can be set aside.
When fear hounds you, and your breath comes short, take a deep breath, close
your eyes, and in your mind – walk away, down a long, silent road, into a
different land, where fear does not reside. Make your choices in that land, and
act on them.
Let fear go.
You will no longer be afraid, if you stop hoping.