Many years ago, I saw a man in a black t-shirt with “Know Fear” written across the t-shirt in white. I said to myself, “Yes!”

Some say fear is the mother of all emotions. This is true. When you think about the other emotions such as sadness, anger and worry, we often feel fear about experiencing them

Fear triggers the autonomic fight or flight response. Fear can save our lives. Fear can also ruin our lives. When stress is not released while it is being experienced, the stress, tension and behavioral patterns collide to create a constant state of fear. We usually do not experience ourselves as being continually afraid In most senses of the word we are not. Yet, in the background of our unconscious and in our bodies, the effect of fear is accumulating. Neurologically, the reptilian brain, or as some like to call it, our lizard brain, becomes the ruler.

We may know this when a new situation occurs and we feel an emotion that we wish not to feel. It could be that we are just speaking on the phone and our friend starts speaking about walking home at night alone. The next thing we know, we are tense. We may be emotionally experiencing fear, supported by the fact our heart and breathing pick up. Our mind tells our other parts to cool it – he is only telling me about walking home.

What our mind does not realize is that our unconscious and our body were triggered in some small way to re-experience an incomplete or unsuccessful prior event. As we become aware that we are experience something unpleasant, we become afraid.

I know for myself that these subtle moments of fear can occur numerous times in a day. Sometimes I attempt to ignore them, sometimes I make some deal with myself to come back to them, and other times I take them on. When I address them in the moment, I continue doing what ever I was doing as I experience the emotion I am afraid of experiencing.

In those situations when I allow the moment of an unpleasant emotion just to be in my mind and body, I may experience an increase intensity of the emotion. Inevitably, once the intensity increases it subsides to a place more relaxed than before the awareness occurred.

Knowing fear, as you know hunger, thirst or any body urge, frees us. When we begin to accept fear, even irrational fear, we begin to free ourselves from a huge cause of stress.

What to do

Ok, you get the concept, but you are not convinced it is that simple. Let’s try an experiment. The next time your spouse starts going off on that ridiculous issue, listen, and feel what is occurring. I am not speaking about your thoughts, your counter arguments. I am talking about the emotion behind your breath being restricted. I am talking about that tightening in your stomach. The clenching of your jaw and those images in your head of you standing up and yelling “shut up.” I know these irrational feelings are not typical. Nevertheless, we both know that something is happening, often disproportionate to the situation.

You have a choice now. You can proceed has you always have, check out, and talk to yourself. Or, you can step into knowing the fear (or call it resistance) to experience what is behind these sensations. In this one moment, you must decide if you will allow the fear to direct you back to your well adapted coping behaviors, or if you will allow the fear to be. If you choose the door to the fear, it is scary. You can’t be sure of what will be revealed.

Assuming you practice this act of courage, of opening this door and feeling fear, or any other emotion, there will be a moment when it will get intense. This moment is frequently a split second. As intense as it may feel, your partner will not know you are having your mystical experience. He or she is too involved in his or her process to be aware of your shift in consciousness.

Developing this practice of knowing fear sets us free from fear. “No fear” only puts us in a state of denial and opposition. Knowing fear permits us to become neutral around fear. We evolve to a place where fear is our ally. Fear becomes honored for what it was meant to do – save our asses.