Introduction

Everybody has some fears and worries – as humans, we’re programmed to feel fear as a natural response to threats in order to protect and look after ourselves.

But, what happens when your fears begin to take over? Fear can control your life and keep you from following your dreams, prevent you from taking risks, and stop you from living the life that you want and doing the things which you desire.

But...

It doesn’t have to be this way! Fear can hold many people back, and one of the biggest mistakes that you might be making right now is taking your fear at face value.

What you need to understand is that fear can be both real or imagined, and it’s hard for your body and brain to differentiate between the two. Let’s look at two different situations to put this in perspective.

Imagine that there’s an angry bull racing towards you, and you’re wearing a red t-shirt. This would be real fear. You have every reason to be scared if you’re being charged at by a furious horned animal!

Now, imagine that you’ve just turned the lights off after watching a particularly scary horror movie. You know that you’re absolutely safe in your home, but you still can’t shift that nauseous feeling in your gut when you think about some of the scenes from the movie. This fear is imagined.

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Fear can be a product of two different things – it’s either due to reality, or a product of your imagination. In general, real fear will be felt by both you and others around you, and imagined fear will be personal to you alone. Imagined fear is generated by your beliefs and individual perspective of the world, which is why some people have fears which are completely incomprehensible to others.

For example, a person who fell into a lake as a small child may have a fear of water even into adulthood, whilst somebody who’s never had a scary experience with water could be a professional swimmer with absolutely no fear of scuba diving in the sea. This is because water in and of itself isn’t something to be fearful of, but your personal experience could make it scary for you.