© T.H. Warrior – Tender Hearted Warriors
– S.S.P. & E.L.C.
FEAR, INTUITION, or GUT FEELING?
Fear is the first response to physical and emotional danger. Its roots go back to human evolution, as if it was an invisible unwelcomed organ. It is closely tied with pain. Pain alarms our body whenever a body part is in danger of physical damage; fear, on the other hand, is sensitive to a legitimate threat. Rational fear, also known as anxiety, is an excellent example of an alarm programmed especially in threatening situations. People have different ways of naming or rejecting their fears. Some fight it by ignoring its existence; some even picture it in their minds.
„Is fear to be fought or faced?“
When fear is at its primary shape and nature, it can sharpen our senses and prepare us to take on a challenge. But it’s a different story once it changes its behavior and begins to accompany us, but from the front, as an opposition. It becomes a hindrance rather than help. As it grows, it makes it difficult for us to take productive actions; it sets off a primitive response deep in our brains: the old „fight or flee“ response. Which has a third part: „Freeze.“
All three are protective mechanisms with significant evolutionary advantages when faced with danger, but fears of perceived danger are vastly different from those of an „actual“ danger. In this case, fighting, fleeing, and freezing are problematic. They trigger pain, prevent us from moving forward, and make our world insignificant. If fear is not treated as part of all our natural senses, it could turn into anxiety, dark and heavy. It will show its cruel, demeaning, paralyzing, and delusional self, opening every unhealed wound we might carry with ourselves throughout our life spans.
Being able to tell if what we are feeling now is a solid fear, or a gut feeling based on liquid evidence has always been one of the very dilemmas we have ever had to face. It’s funny how we can change different wording to affect the nature of a feeling. To most people, fear is as harmful as it gets, and a gut feeling or an intuition could be our savior: Something we feel before the actual danger has even approached us.
Truth being said, I have a different definition of these three.
Intuition is being able to absorb what’s happening around us effortlessly without the need for conscious reasoning; however, I believe it has a cognitive element to it. It is more about consideration based on already planted seeds in our brains than logic. Not knowing why we know what we know, doesn’t make it any less valid or accurate. Intuition uses prior knowledge. It is based on a „Déjà-vu“ or a flashback that runs before our eyes, once a situation seems a little bit too familiar. Our intuition provides us with a quick analysis of the present, based on hints, clues, and indications that may not be obvious to the rational mind, but are definitely there.
Intuition happens when the current sound mind cannot take in the truth, at a given moment.
I feel the same way about my gut feelings. They are our immediate reaction to a situation, and even without evidence, gut feelings are mostly to be trusted.
Come to think of it; these three aren’t that different from each other.
The main difference is that fear is the strongest among all our protecting senses. While our intuition is mostly neutral, assessing the situation not overly positive or negative, our fears knowingly or not, are affected by our past experiences and wounds. They are not free of emotions, therefore, they are more dangerous and much more powerful.
I remember whenever my grandmother didn’t want us to go through her cabinet looking for chocolate and candy, she would scare us of a thing called „Looloo“: „Looloo will punish bad children. Looloo will come to your dreams and will take your peaceful sleep away from you.“
And then „Looloo,“ even if imaginary, would come to my dreams and would scare me and would stop me from trying to reach that cabinet. And I would crawl into my grandmother’s bed, where I would feel safe and protected by her. Which brings me to my next point:
Fear has a self-fulfilling character to it. Whenever someone has an agenda, one smart way of reaching that is to create an imaginary problem. The next step would be injecting the fear of that problem into the targets. And then the very person who started that non-existing problem would be the very savior. If we play along, the issue that never existed in the first place will begin developing, and we watch how our fictional fear becomes reality.
„Fear has a self-fulfilling character to it. Whenever someone has an agenda, one smart way of reaching that is to create an imaginary problem.“
T.H. Warrior
I’ll walk you through another example to make my point even clearer:
Whenever the central bank wants the exchange rate to decline, they announce that the exchange rate will plunge to a great extent within the next two weeks. As a result, everyone is scared and starts selling their foreign currency, and surprise surprise: the exchange rate ends up declining significantly.
Do not let your fears define you. Define and then break their shapes by attacking them head on.
It’s ok to be scared. But it’s not ok to stay scared. Be afraid, but consciously. Always be aware of your surroundings and dig dipper into the truth. Find out and know why you are afraid of something. Ironically, that is exactly when you no longer will be frightened. The dark clouds will disappear. And you will see that “Looloo” was just your perception of reality – a fictional fear.
„Do not let your fears define you. Define and then break their shapes by attacking them head on.“
T.H. Warrior
We must do what we are afraid of while we are afraid.
The way, shape, or form of facing our fears is entirely irrelevant. I always compare facing a scary thought with going into a pool of ice-cold water. Some go in by first putting their toe in the water; then they go in up to their knees, then the chest and slowly they are entirely submerged in the water; the water’s temperature has become their own, and the water doesn’t feel that cold anymore. Some, simply jump in, start swimming a bit until their body adapts to the temperature of the cold water. In the end, no matter how or how long it takes, both groups enter the cold water.
Put a scary movie on mute, and it will not be that scary anymore. The background music in that movie is our fear. Yes, we can hear it, but we don’t have to listen to it. We don’t even have to ignore it. As I mentioned earlier, it’s good to be scared. That means we are aware of our surroundings and not doing everything so recklessly, but then again, that fear shouldn’t stop us from doing.
„We must do what we are afraid of while we are afraid.“
T.H. Warrior
Whenever facing a painful and uncomfortable feeling, it always helps to talk to yourself as a third person. When your mind goes beyond your body and witnesses the situation from above, scary dark clouds become cute compared to the magnitude of this world. Knowing that what your feeling is temporary, has been felt by many before you and will be felt by many after you, weakens that feeling automatically. Tell yourself: No matter what happens today, there will be a tomorrow. I will still have my hands, feet, eyes, and brain, and I will overcome this. Remind yourself of what Persian Sufi Poets said centuries ago: “This too shall pass.”
Once you let go of the heavy cloud, you’ll feel light.
You’ll be liberated.