Is Fear from the Past Still Driving?

Where Does Fear Originate?

Fear can originate from many sources. Some of these sources could be from the past, a traumatic event, or a reaction to what you have been taught to believe about yourself or others. Fear can be short or long-term based on the factors involved, and the quality of the resources you had for resolution at the time of that fear-invoking event in your life.  If you had no opportunity to experience safety or connection with calm or healing at that time, you are likely still being driven by the emotions, beliefs, and thoughts from that fear state. The question is, “Is fear from the past still driving?”

Babies and children do not have the same capacity to reason through a threatening or fear-invoking incident as an adult. The developing brain of a child relies heavily on cues from the environment and caretakers from the perspective of the survival and emotional brain.

It can take the reasoning brain well into your mid-20’s to fully operate based on reasoning and ability to discern aspects of the situation, as well as to put distance between a past event and the present. No matter what or when an experience that provokes fear, creates a reaction in your Nervous System. This triggers the need for survival based on your thoughts, emotions, and lens of perception from past experiences.

Your internal sense of feeling or senses can be a source of conflict that feels uncomfortable. Based on your current ability to regulate being present with the discernment for what is happening and sorting through its meaning from a place of survival, emotion and reason are largely based on how your autonomic nervous system responds to an event or situation. This means that your body-mind system has an automatic, cellular, heart, muscle, nerve, muscle, tissue, emotional, and mental function in the process. Emotions, positive or negative affect your physical, emotional, and mental health.

What Causes Fear?

Fear can be personal, relational, or even cultural. Fear can be superimposed over one or all three of these areas of your life.

What you believe is true affects how you predict what will happen to you in the outside world. Shedding light on your limiting beliefs, thoughts, and attitudes about your life creates the possibility for positive change.

A major event in the world could affect how you travel, what you believe about other people and groups, and can affect how you look at the world politically.

In a recent telecast, I was listening to the ex-president of Mexico speak about the horrific event of 9/11. He attributed, in part, nationalism, and fear in the United States as a residual reaction to this event of terror. The Nervous System of a country can also be triggered into the stance of extreme protection, fight, flight or freeze in response to unresolved emotional and survival defense mechanisms.

The mechanism of fear can be activated by trauma in the world related to nature such as hurricanes, tornadoes, animals, insects, and large bodies of water. Fear can be triggered in situations like public speaking or going to the dentist. States of being and connection with spirituality can also evoke fear related to death, the concept of the Divine, the Silence, the unknown, or being alone.

Relationships can motivate fear response that leads to isolation, arguments, or intimacy based on earlier experiences, how you witnessed resolution of the conflict in your family or healing or lack of resolution of situations that provoked fear in your early life can still be at play in your life today. The idea of being in the world, or unable to set boundaries with the world, needing to feel like you have to be in control, or fear of losing control can be extremely frightening.

How Do You Know You are Still Reacting to Fear?

The common characteristics of fear include a change in heartbeat and breathing. You might hold your breath. Your muscles tighten and your thinking moves from reasoning to survival. This changes how your body responds to the world around you. Tension is held in your body so that even your vision and posture changes. Being in extended states of fear from the trauma that has not resolved creates a habitual alert response that over time takes its toll on how you interact and perceive the world.

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. ~Marcus Aurelius

From the Chinese Five Element View

Fear is the non-coherent quality of the Water Element related to your kidneys and bladder. When you are responding to the world through the lens of fear you are more likely to perceive yourself as a victim in your circumstances and life. Because your body-mind system responds to this stance even at the cellular level, the communication within the physical systems of your body moves into protection mode. This limits the capacity for systemic communication throughout the body.

Because it dedicates so much of its energy to the fear response. This leads to the feeling of overwhelming created by the sheer effort it takes to protect or defend yourself instead of being able to connect with other people and explore new ways of being in the world for health, relationship, and business opportunities.

When you move into the coherent aspects of Water Element in collaboration with the rest of the body-mind system possibilities, you expand your ability to connect with the vital essence of your body-mind system. This creates more optimal life energy for your own life.

In relationships, you have a better ability to connect with others in a way that listens to what others are communicating as you are in contact with your own needs for the ability to be able to respond with greater clarity in the present.

Imagine being able to shift into greater calm and resourcefulness. These are the resources that Water Element offers when you resolve fear so that you are better able to reflect and adapt to situations. This allows you to then pace yourself through different projects and situations while taking care of your own boundaries as well as greater perseverance so that your energy reserves are there when you need them. By resolving issues of fear you have a greater capacity to connect to your needs for love, nurture, safety, and trust. This allows you to move from fear to a greater feeling of self-love in the process.

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 Kimberly Rex, MS is an Advanced Resonance Repatterning® practitioner, a Master Wellness and Well-being Life Coach, and a Person-Centered Expressive Therapist.