The subliminal colors of fear

Fear is a highly underestimated emotion due to its slight association with our daily life. We always think as it to be scared or terrified, but believe it or not, it is one of the emotions with greater presence, what happens is that we live without discovering the depth, shades that entails. we live as if there were only three primary colors and their mixture, giving us only six emotions, limiting our vocabulary and confusing what we are really feeling.

Lets find a little more variety to the violet color in this article (as many of us would be associating if they saw a children's film about emotions).

The origin of emotion is primitive, that is why it is associated with the reptilian brain, where people had three predetermined responses for any encounter between species: reproduce, kill or run. So much history has the emotion that it could be said to be a core emotion. How was it evolving over time? What are these colors?

With the development of the societies and dialogue, the concept of fear happened to take a perspective of facing new adventures, to put ourselves in uncomfortable situations to be able to stand out and if we did not achieve them, it is because we were overwhelmed by this same one, but we don’t realize what was the true origin of this fear, which is the instinct to protect what we consider most important, first was our life, now it is our present situation (often known as the comfort zone).

Just as the interactions between species evolved, our perspectives and priorities changed. The confrontations stopped being so physical (and when they reach that level the police are usually called), and they went on a verbal and virtual level, giving birth to many other emotions, which could be called descendants of the same.

Human beings confront the possibilities of losing his social life, losing the ladder in which he belongs, making his instincts and emotions to awaken. Now we can feel humiliated (ridiculed, disrespected) putting ourselves at risk of falling down the ladder of the social pyramid, rejected (alienated, marginalized) giving us a primitive fear of death (where previously if one did not belong to a group meant to perish ), submissive (insignificant, useless) and insecure (inferior, insufficient) struggling to belong at least to the lowest rung, anxious (worried, burdened) and frightened (scared, terrified) thinking of the prospects that anything can happen that completely alters your comfort zone.

Procrastination is often generated by the fear of failing in the tasks to be done, either because we do them in a way that will not be accepted by others or because we know that they will lead us to new tasks that represent a greater challenge.

Anger and violence are in many cases the answer to this emotion. Not wanting to keep feeling this insecurities, resorting to the basic answer, physically defending what we fear losing.

Fear is something that is really everywhere but we no longer see it so much because we associate it with adrenaline, not so much with this colors, but then, what is it really that we can do to overcome this emotion?

First of all, we need to remember why fear is part of us, what function it fulfills. Fear and its children are a reminder of the things we have and do not want to lose, it is the call to action, it is the security alarm that jumps with different tones according to how we are feeling. It is an opportunity to know what makes us human and enjoy life, allowing us to take actions to defend them.

Many may continue reading this article thinking that the next thing I will write is about is courage and how to acquire it, but what exactly is this?

Some will call it the action of facing all adversities without hesitation, but the thing that is a challenge for me, is not for others. There are people who enjoy bungee jumping and go thousands of times but that does not mean they are more courageous than someone who loves the earth and only threw himself once to face their fears. A public presentation will be a very different experience for an extrovert than for an introvert.

In an American film the main character answered this question in a clear way that follows me to this day. Courage is not the absence of fear, it is the presence of it with the will to go on. Courage is not a roar, it is often a whisper that says I am going to change things little by little, trying again tomorrow.

Fear helps us to realize what we have, appreciate it and tells us that we would be willing to fight for it, but the problem is when we do not make a path of self-knowledge and we fight for things that are not worthwhile. The environment and culture that we grow up in generate needs that we interpret as vital for our survival, causing anxiety attacks to be activated because we are not being the people we "want" to become, gain things that we "need" to get to belong to a group when in reality the things that really matter can’t be truly found by these assumptions.

Whenever you hear about transcendental people it is mentioned that they left something in the way to get where they are now, their imposed points of view were abandoned in order to reach happiness and fight for what is important. Fear never abandons them, it simply guides and liberates them.

We are beings of limited time and energy, what chains are we binding ourselves unnecessarily? What activates your fears and how do you plan to cope? What are you going to do when these emotions overwhelm you?