Is your life driven by fear?
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Do you ever feel intense fear and worry about your kids? she asked.
"For most of my life, I was depressed and anxious about having an illness or being in an accident. "
"I fear to be alone."
"He cheated... Now I always have this feeling like he will do it again."
Are these thoughts familiar to you? Do you know how much of your life do you spend in fear or worry? How many of your decisions and choices are - fear- driven?
Photo by Thibault Valjevac on Unsplash
Most people agree fear is an unavoidable part of human experience. But how much of fear is "normal" before it consumes your life? For some, fear may get out of control and lead to different phobias and anxiety based disorders.
I am sure you have heard the term "fight-or-flight" which refers to the chain of the physiological changes in our body as a result of fear. In essence, your body is preparing either to "fight" the danger or run from it. Fight-or-flight is a healthy reaction when one finds himself in a dangerous situation.
But what happens when you consume yourself thinking about things that most likely will NOT happen?
Famous French Renaissance philosopher, Michel de Montaigne perfectly summed it up in his famous quote:
"My life has been filled with terrible misfortunes; most of which never happened."
The author Robert L. Leahy, Ph.D. of the book The Worry Cure: Seven Steps to Stop Worry from Stopping You, sheds the light on a study done at Cornel Univesity, where researches examined how many imagined catastrophes subjects had DID NOT actually happen.
The number came to 85%. So 85% of the time what subjects in the study worried about NEVER happened. And another important TAKEAWAY:
"For the 15% that did happen 79% of subjects discovered either they could handle the difficulty better than expected or they learned a lesson worth learning".
Which leaves us with "97% of what we worry over is fearful based on exaggerations and misperceptions"
Seriously 97%!!!!!!!!
I leave you to think about this number and pay close attention to how much of your life is spent worrying. Our next blogs will dive into the physiology of fear and what it does to YOUR body and the mind. Of course, will cover what can YOU do about it.
To You,