Uncovering the Disguise of Fear
By: Anwar Alkandari
Tags: Fear, Courage, Psychology

“But what are our stories if not the mirrors we hold up to our fears?” — Wally Lamb, “I Know This Much Is True”

I go to my bed and close my eyes, but I don’t see black. I see the shadows of my demons, coming closer and closer to me, until I freak out and open my eyes. These demons are pure cultivation of my wildly gifted imagination. It’s a vast of dark possibilities that can happen to me today, tomorrow, or could’ve happened yesterday.

Do these nights look familiar to you?

It’s okay to have fears, but we don’t want to end up walking in the streets looking like Edvard Munch’s The Scream guy, do we?

Before diving into the topic, I want to make an important distinguishment

Fearless Vs. Braveness

I get a bit afraid when I see a person proudly saying “I want to become fearless!”. It doesn’t sound very human to me. I remember Elizabeth Gilbert saying in TED Radio Hour interview: “I think the only truly fearless people that I’ve ever met were full-blown psychopaths or really reckless 3-year-olds.”.

Visualize the following scenario: You are climbing a mountain, and you see a rope that connects the mountain you’re standing on to another one far away. Underneath this rope, death. You run towards the rope, with zero training, and step on it. What happens? You fall off! No fear of height, failure, or death exists in you!

Does this mean everyone who has walked on ropes are fearless? Of course not, but they worked hard through their fears. It’s their fear of height, failure, or death that got them to this skills level.

Dear reader, I understand that your intention behind saying “I want to become fearless” is highly likely about becoming braver. However, fearless and braveness are not the same thing. You become braver by admitting your fears to yourself and facing them which is a huge part of your personal growth.

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How do our fears disguise?

Most common behavior that I have encountered when having discussions with people is their refusal to investigate in opinions that contradicts with what they already believe is true, it’s what I like to call “learning blockage”. Our minds are constrained with certain belief systems obtained from culture, religion, environment, past experiences, or society. And ANY thing that threatens their validation (even if those beliefs are actually harmful to us), we unconsciously block it. We are afraid of being wrong or believing in something for 30 years, and later on we discover that the entire thing is made up of false information (not necessarily false, but it could be anything that is considered as harmful, bad, or nonsense). What this does to you is slowly narrowing your mind, and trust me in the following statement: The narrower your mind gets, the more sure you are of being “the correct one” AND the more defensive you will be.

Am I suggesting to let go of your belief system? Absolutely not. All I am suggesting is to keep an open and accepting mind. Once you do that, you optimize your learning process from different realities. A big part of elevating your learning process comes with unlearning! And not everyone has the guts to do that.

Another place, my favorite one to detect in, where our fears like to show up is in our passion. This is not a surprise for people who are struggling with anxiety or perfectionism . In a bit of extreme cases, people would STOP doing what they’re passionate about for good because of their fear of failure. You don’t want to fail, so you don’t attempt it from the first place. However, keep in mind that you are neither failing nor winning in this case.

People around me thought I was talking nonsense when I tell them “because I love X so much, I am not doing it”. And for many years I have underestimated my potential because of avoiding what I love to do. This is the best timing to start asking yourself “What have I been procrastinating for a long time because of my fear to attempt it?”.

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Tips on managing your fears:

These tips are from my own experiences and what I think can work for most cases. Please if you are struggling with serious issues for a long time seek professional help.

1. Identify the types of fear

I know it’s not exciting to sit down with yourself and discover your fears (should I have really included this as the very first tip and freak the reader out?). However, identifying which fears you are deeply connected with will help you in understanding and reasoning your behavior and thinking patterns. Let’s take two examples:

-Assume Olivia struggles with fear of failure. She loves writing poems and aspires to be a well-known and great poet someday. Regardless of her aspirations, she avoids writing poems most of the time due to her fear of failure and what goes in her mind is something like this “I am not procrastinating, I am just waiting for enough inspiration that sets me ready to take an action.” “I only spent 1 year learning how to write. I am no Sylvia Plath, I need so much more time to even start writing a draft.”.

Is this fear of failure limited to her passion only? Not really. Because her fear of failure is buried deep down in her unconscious mind, it interferes with her relationships as well. She failed at maintaining relationships in her early childhood (I highly doubt that she is aware of this connection), so she is continuously seeking validation from others thinking she is not good enough. Or maybe it’s because she failed at meeting her parents’ expectations of her during her teenage years. Many events in her past have contributed to her fear of failure.

She views life opportunities as pure possibilities of failures.

-Assume Oliver struggles with fear of judgement. He prioritizes his social image and wouldn’t dare to take any risky movement that has a possibility of harming it (even if deep down it feels “right” to him). He suppresses all of his desires, emotions, and some goals. And mutes his inner voice if it’s going against the society’s voice.

He thinks that he is just doing the “right” thing which fits the society’s constraints. But until he is aware of his fear, he will start to notice that most of what he has done was actually in favor of pleasing others. He is continuously seeking acceptance, so that he wouldn’t be judged harshly by his society which will eventually stress him out because it’s impossible to please all of them. Do you think Oliver would be expressive if he didn’t manage his fear of judgement?

With every question coming to him whether it’s related to career, romantic relationships, or physical appearance, all of their answers will sound in the society's voice in his head, not his own voice.

He views life decisions as risks for tarnishing his social image.

Do you see how fears play a huge role in our intentions? Identify the types of fear you are struggling with, and that will allow you to become more aware of its patterns that keeps showing up in different circumstances. There’s a high possibility that let’s say 5 problems in your life are all coming from ONE root which is your fear of X. and once you “fix” this root, ta-da! You get a sense of control over these 5 problems.

2. Exposure to fear

I was having a conversation with a psychiatrist on fear and anxiety. He made this graph for me explaining how our brains deal with continuous exposure to situations we are afraid of.

The more you expose yourself to what you fear, the less emotional reaction you will have. You will gradually become less reactive until you reach a point in which you find your fear manageable.

I often get asked by musicians who haven’t performed (yet) about my fear towards performing on stage, and they always sound worried about how long does it take for the anxiety to go away. Unfortunately, I disappoint them by answering: it never goes away. I still feel my fast heartbeats and my hands still slightly shake when I start playing, however I am much better at managing it. I have an overall control over it which allows me to remain focused while playing.

Please note that I am not advising anyone to expose him/herself immediately to the situation they fear. It should be a gradual process that makes you face your fear, but not to an extreme level that will cause harms. I would suggest for musicians who want to perform on stages to start playing around groups of friends, musicians, or family members to get used to the feeling of playing in front of people. From there, they can slowly work their way up until they reach larger audiences. And you can apply this method of exposure in any field you’re in.

Wrapping this up, I have to say that your fear level might increase just a little bit once you clearly identify it. It’s completely normal that when you become more aware of it, you will notice it in more situations in your life. Generally speaking, I went to a downhill this year because I started to notice where my fears are popping up in my daily life. I am facing them every day, and I am aware of that. It made some days harder, but it also made me a braver person.

“Fear doesn’t prevent death. It prevents life.” — Naguib Mahfouz

Feel free to reach out to me through:

Email: anwaraalkandarii@gmail.com

IG: Anwaar.alk

Twitter: AnwarAlKandarii