Responses to Fear and the Three Basic Fears

Ever since fear became a part of our reality, we've had three responses to it: trust, fight, or evade. We've also had three basic fears: physical pain, emotional pain, and loss of control. Listen in to see how these fears and responses play into our lives.

Show Notes:

Today we are talking about the responses to fear, the three basic fears, and one of the first steps in combating fear.

Ever since fear became a part of our reality, we've had three responses to it: trust, fight, or evade. Evasion includes both fleeing and hiding—basic avoidance.

The phone call comes that your mom is in the hospital. You hear through the grapevine that your boss wants to talk to you. Red flags start popping up that tell you your boyfriend might be cheating on you. Fear starts to take over, and your mind begins whirling in circles. What do you do? The instinct for most of us is to evade.

Evasion can take a few different forms. For physical danger, evasion is pretty self-explanatory. You look for the best escape route or something big to hide behind. For emotional danger, evasion becomes more complicated. We might avoid seeing or talking to the person we're afraid of or who is most closely related to what we fear.

A few years ago, my grandma was dying of cancer. I was afraid of two things: that she was going to lose the battle and that I would only be able to remember her in her cancer-ridden form. After it started to really turn bad, I never went to see her. I hid behind excuses. That was a fear-dictated decision, it was wrong, and I regret it.

Another way we try to evade what we fear is by pretending that what we fear isn't happening or won't occur. I've seen this in marriages a lot. Spouses ignore warning signs and go on as though life is normal, when it's obvious that something needs to change. They're afraid of what the other person will think if they bring it up, afraid of change, afraid of other people finding out they're not okay, so they just ignore it. It never ends well.

Putting on masks is another common form of evasion. Wearing masks is all about burying who we are and instead displaying who we think others want to see. We might try to be happy all the time because we're afraid of seeing those around us in pain, and that's what we think will help. We may change the way we act around different people because we're afraid of rejection or not fitting in. We might go through life wearing the "I'm busy" mask, so that no one will be able to get close enough to hurt us. We may try to be perfect on social media, so that people will like us and envy us. We think hiding will keep us safe, but it is a lonely existence.

The fight reaction is a little tricky to understand. The reason we fight is not always because we are afraid, and our response to fear is not always fighting. Sometimes fighting can mean we are pushing past our fear and trusting. So how do we tell the difference?

The answer lies in our motives. Are we fighting to hide some deeper fear? If I lash out at someone for a comment they made that caused me to feel incompetent, I am giving into fear. However, if I stand up to a bully at school to protect the little guy, I might be fighting against fear. The questions is: is my choice to fight fueled by trust or fear?

Not too long after I moved to work at a Grace Adventures for the first time, there was a night when I stayed out late for work. I had forgotten my flashlight and was forced to walk home in the dark. The route was still somewhat unfamiliar, and I found myself assailed by a number of fears. What if I get lost? What if a cougar or a bear jumps out of the woods and attacks me? What if a skunk walks out and I don't see him before it's too late?

As the thoughts mounted and my blood pressure spiked, I heard one of the things I was dreading—growing and barking. It was a low and vicious sound. I wasn't aware that any of the staff families had dogs, and I was afraid that it was a wild mutt, willing to tear me limb from limb at the slightest provocation.

At that moment, I had a choice: turn around and run for my life or stand and fight. I chose the latter and pulled my knife from my pocket. For the life of me, I can't remember why I stayed. It might have been because I was too scared to walk back through the dark to find another route home, in which case my decision to fight was only a choice between two fears. It might have also been that I had a brief moment of God-given trust that either He would not let me be attacked by a wild dog or He would use such an attack for my good.

Either way, I pressed on, edging slowly along the road as close to the tree line as I could in the dark. The dog continued to growl and bark, but I guessed at that point that he was either on a leash or unwilling to follow through on his threats. After what seemed like forever, I finally made it far enough down the road that I could tell the dog was behind me, and I ran home faster than the fifth little piggy.

Whether we fight or evade depends on what we fear and how close the source of that fear is to us. Without God's help, if we think it's possible to escape our fears, we will attempt to hide, cover up, divert, deceive, and run until evasion is no longer an option.

The dark, spiders, driving off a bridge, public speaking, camping, apologizing, singing anywhere except the shower, snakes, disappointing people in authority, people finding out our deepest secrets, drowning, clowns, being attacked by wild animals, needles, and being unable to help those we care about. These are just a few common fears. Do you share any of them? Even though these fears are wildly diverse, they can all be boiled down to three basic fears: physical pain, emotional pain, and loss of control.

Like we saw last week, every fear really comes down to a loss of control. When we don't trust God and believe that He is in control, we either take our safety and well-being into our own hands or put our trust in the control of others, like government, insurance, or parents. Fear comes into play when we realize that our control or that of those we trust is insufficient.

I am afraid of the dark because I don't know what is out there and whether or not I can handle it. I am afraid of making close friends because they might leave or hurt me, and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm afraid of the future because I don't know what is out there and if it is beyond my abilities. It's all outside my control, and that is terrifying.

You might have felt safe at school, because you were trusting the security that was in place. But then you hear that there was a shooting at a school with the same security measures as yours. Suddenly your trust in the system is gone, and you're afraid. You thought they had control, but now you realize they don't.

The second type of fear is emotional distress. These are fears we have because we are ultimately afraid of things like embarrassment, criticism, or anger aimed toward us. I'm afraid of public speaking because of what people might think and say about me and because I may mess up and embarrass myself. I fear praying out loud and making phone calls to strangers for the same reasons. I'm afraid of social interactions because I fear rejection and the pain that comes with that. I'm afraid of losing everything I own in a house fire and the emotional pain that comes with that. Other fears that stem from this include: abandonment, being alone, failure, commitment, and intimacy with others.

Perhaps the most obvious type of fear is physical pain or injury. I am afraid of spiders, heights, driving in traffic, snakes, and my car door opening on the highway all because they have the potential for physical pain.

Most fears are a combination of at least two, if not all three of these basic fears. Death is a good example of this. Many people are afraid of death. Why is this? Firstly, they are afraid of what will come after. That is a huge unknown that elicits the fear of loss of control. Secondly, people are afraid of the process of dying. This can be an emotionally difficult and physically painful time, especially if there is a long, drawn-out illness involved.

Another example would be doing something adventurous or physically demanding you've never done before, especially with other people. I went skiing for the first time last year with some friends. I am not the most physically capable person on the planet. Throwing and catching a frisbee is difficult for me. I was afraid that the friends I was going with, who are all quite athletic and had been skiing before, would ridicule me for my ineptitude or leave me to do more intense hills. That's emotional pain. I was also afraid that I would not be able to stop and would crash. That's both loss of control and physical pain.

When we are afraid, there is one thing we convince ourselves that we cannot do. We can't ever let anyone know what we are afraid of. If we admit that to anyone—even ourselves sometimes—we are convinced that our fear is more likely to become reality or that people will think less of us because of it. In fact, one of your fears might be that people will find out what you're afraid of.

But that is a lie. Keeping our fears secret is not in our best interests. Our fears are always built upon foundations of lies. When we start to open up about them, we realize these foundations are false, and we start to become free. When we are happy and free, we are incredibly useful to God. That is the last thing that Satan, the father of lies, wants.

I cannot emphasize this enough. You have to let people in. You must let them see the deep fears, the socially unacceptable ones that you think you're the only one who struggles with. Only then will you recognize the lies for what they are and be able to believe the truth. Letting people see the darkness is the first step in becoming free from fear.

In order for lies to continue, they need more lies to back them up. If you've ever lied, you know this. It's not enough to tell one little "white" lie. Someone will see through it if you don't add more lies to it. The only solution for the mess we make is truth.

The same is true when it comes to the foundations of lies beneath our fears. If we allow people we trust to know the things we're afraid of, they will spread truth into our lives and dismantle the fortress of lies that surrounds us and builds our fears.

I hope this week you take a chance and tell someone you're close to something that really frightens you that you've never told them before. See what happens. Thanks for joining me on the podcast today. Next week we are going to talk through a process I call funneling and how we can use that to fight against fear in