The Fear Of The Unknown: How To Prevent It From Paralyzing You
Fear is one of the most basic emotions related to human beings. Associated with the survival instinct, it has accompanied man for centuries to warn him of the dangers of the world around him. It is a primary emotion that derives from the natural aversion to threat, and all animals have it.
But what happens when instinctive dangers like being eaten by a lion disappear in a developed society? Today we explain what the fear of the unknown is and how to prevent it from affecting us negatively.
Fear invents its own dangers to continue functioning
Most of the fears we have in our society are neurotic fears, that is, fears based on mental constructions and not on real threats. Fears for what could happen, and not for what is actually happening.
It is not in vain that we people spend most of our lives suffering from things that will never happen to us.
Neurotic fear continually puts us on alert and causes us to live beyond our limits, depriving us of the enrichments that the unknown can provide us.
And most of us have an unjustified fear of what we don’t know We anticipate events and avoid new situations that we believe we will not be able to manage or solve.
This fear is mostly learned. The child, when he begins to walk, has the instinct to explore and continually perform different tasks to discover the world around him.
And that is where adults, eager to protect him, inoculate him with an infinite number of fears that will surely accompany him for much of his life. “Don’t talk to strangers”, “don’t open the door to strangers”, “don’t get up there or you’ll fall”, “don’t let go of my hand or you’ll get lost”, “don’t walk away because they can kidnap you” and a long etcetera of prohibitions that make the boy explorer become a child afraid of the world which will reduce its area of interaction until reaching the adult phase where its comfort zone will already be consolidated.
Safe or comfort zone
There has been a lot of talk in recent years about the “comfort zone”, defining it as that vital area known to the person, which does not always have to be comfortable, but which It is predictable and allows the brain to function on autopilot within it I say it is not comfortable because the comfort zone for someone can be a toxic relationship, a boring and poorly paid job or a sedentary life.
It is very likely that people show discomfort within this area, and yet do not dare to leave it.
Why don’t people leave their safe zone?
Due to lack of confidence in their own abilities. Some people do not see themselves as having sufficient resources to face unknown situations, so they prefer to stay in what is “safe”, in what is predictable, in that place that they see themselves capable of managing or controlling.
As they learned as children, it is better to avoid the unknown “because it may happen.”
So why is it advisable to leave your comfort zone?
It is the only way to acquire new knowledge and skills Doing different things or going to new places is likely to be a little uncomfortable at first. Like when you jump into the pool for the first time to learn to swim. However, it is the only place where new things happen. It is the way to expand the world and self-realize.
How to start leaving for the learning zone?
Experiment. “Every day do something that scares you.” It is advisable to stop living so much in the world of thought and move to the world of action, which is where things really happen.
It is not about losing fear, but about doing things despite it Do not let fear take the reins of decisions, without losing sight of the fact that the comfort zone is a mental state, and not a real terrain.
“Everything you want in life is outside your comfort zone”
