Fear and anxiety are an inescapable part of life.
There is a well-known saying: "Everything you have ever wanted is on the other side of fear." I do not know who said it, but it is entirely apt. And since we all long for what lies on the other side of that fear, fear and anxiety become obstacles that stand between us and the achievement of our goals.
What is Fear? Fear is an emotional state that manifests in specific behavioral patterns, enabling us to adapt to difficult or unexpected situations. It is an innate response essential for facing physical and psychological dangers, and has accompanied humanity since the dawn of history when people confronted life-and-death experiences on a daily basis. These emotions have a profound effect on our lives — extending beyond the psychological dimension alone to encompass physiological, behavioral, and cognitive changes.
What human beings fear most is rejection and loss of acceptance, and this is tied to their survival instinct. The human being, compared to many other mammals, depends on their parents for longer and across deeper stages, encompassing both basic psychological and emotional needs.
We often use the words fear and anxiety, but is there a difference between them?
Fear is generally defined as an intense and painful emotion arising from the belief that something or someone poses a danger to us and is likely to cause us harm and suffering.
Our experiences in early childhood shape our worldview; we developed fear in our youth as a means of expressing our emotions and as a coping mechanism for negative events — a form of the survival instinct. And when we reach adulthood, we continue to use this unconscious program in dealing with the events that confront us.
Yet the negative effect of this pattern lies in the fact that it is not always accurate — it narrows our horizons without limiting the harms of fear, leading us instead to create negative emotions and impeding our capacity for positivity and the search for solutions.
Fear is either justified or unjustified. Justified fear is beneficial — it protects us from harm and drives us to take behavioral responses that mitigate the threats we face. An example is the fear that grips us when crossing a busy street, though many people in some parts of the world have become so skilled at navigating traffic that it has become second nature to them.
This type of fear is innate and necessary for our survival and growth — a form of self-preservation. Unjustified fear, on the other hand, is the real problem, and it is always the offspring of imagination or memory.
Whether fear is justified or not, it is spontaneous — it appears suddenly to demand our attention when circumstances require. Yet one who lives in permanent fear inevitably experiences a deterioration in his/her quality of life, and the warning signal weakens or disappears entirely when justified fear would be appropriate.
Anxiety, on the other hand, is an internal process that works to alert our system to the possibility of harm. In this context, anxiety is useful when it motivates us to take action. Yet it leads to unbearable, repetitive negative thoughts and painful mental images, and consequently to escalating negative emotions. If anxiety does not stop, the intensity of these emotions will increase.
Therefore, unlike justified fear, anxiety remains in most of its manifestations an unjustified emotion that can be avoided — meaning that excessive prolonged anxiety cannot be channeled positively in any meaningful way. Has worrying about something ever led to an effective solution? The answer is generally no. And so we accumulate negative emotions without finding solutions to problems that do not actually exist.
Anxiety is a psychological emotional state of lesser intensity than fear, but unlike fear it is an extended process that ultimately leads to the same emotions. Anxiety at its core is a fear we create ourselves — it is a choice we make.
Therefore, one who chooses to live permanently with anxiety, or makes space for unjustified fears, does not bring themselves safety but the opposite; the imagined benefit brings no real value against the harms of fear. Anxiety is not a protective mechanism — it is its very antithesis, because it impedes and prevents constructive action.
Since fear and anxiety are a natural part of life, our real problems begin when we fear fear itself. How so? When we are unable to build tolerance for a natural and healthy degree of fear, we begin fleeing from it unconsciously — slipping into other behaviors that occupy and distract us, chief among them anxiety.
Anxiety will not help us in these situations; it is neither healthy nor constructive — it allies itself with our fertile imagination to amplify and feed our fears. All anxiety does is focus our minds on what might happen in negative scenarios, at the expense of focusing on solutions.
Dealing with fear requires both acceptance and positive reassurance. For example, someone who fears being fired from their job can address this fear in three steps: first, accept the situation without attaching an interpretation or preemptive judgment to it; second, enumerate all possible outcomes of being fired, including the worst-case scenario; and third, devise a solution for each possible scenario, contemplate the event with a positive eye, and even explore what potential opportunities it might hold.
This simple process is sufficient to reduce fear and anxiety, if not eliminate them entirely, and paves the way for clear thinking that reveals in most cases that the situation is not as bad as it initially appeared — enabling the person to formulate a sound solution.
The fundamental truth is: every mental process that involves the rejection of a future event generates fear — and the stronger the rejection, the stronger the negative charge.
Rejection is the hidden root of all our psychological problems. Think for a moment: when we feel depression, sadness, and anger, we are in fact rejecting memories from the past. And when we suffer from fear and anxiety, we are rejecting the future.
Consider this fact: the past no longer exists except in memory, and the future has not yet arrived — and will most likely not arrive in the way we expect.
All our psychological problems are born of the rejection of something, and the opposite of rejection is acknowledgment and acceptance. For this reason, God promises those who surrender and accept a comprehensive security and enduring happiness: "Yes — whoever submits their face to God and does good, they will have their reward with their Lord; no fear shall come upon them, nor shall they grieve." (Quran 2:112)
How do we address the matter of rejection? When we manage and reduce this rejection until nothing remains completely rejected in the mind, negative emotions become manageable and diminished. This is achieved by analyzing events rationally and questioning the (limiting) beliefs that produced these emotions.
Another example: a person who is asked to give a speech before an audience yet fears public speaking — a fear considered the most powerful after the fear of death and rejection. This fear may stem from the apprehension of making mistakes, stumbling over words, or having a trembling voice.
Here, the fear lies in the rejection of these imagined consequences, or in the rejection of the pain the mind creates for this possibility. It is also likely that this person has constructed an image of how the audience perceives them. The fear lies in the possibility that the audience might reassess this self-image they have created — and this is connected to the ego, which as I have noted before is one of our greatest enemies and the cause of our problems.
Dealing effectively with fear does not come through pushing it away and suppressing the accompanying emotions, because that inflames the anxiety that feeds the fear and may ultimately lead to the very worst speech imaginable.
God created instincts in the human being to draw their attention to what needs addressing and to propel them into action. When a person feels hunger, for instance, they do not reject it or suppress it, nor are they gripped by dread or panic from it — they simply eat, and the more they address the hunger the more it subsides until it disappears entirely.
Yet we do not deal with fear when it knocks on our door with that same logic. Nevertheless, it should be approached on the same basis: when fear appears, it is a message from the mind that a danger or situation requiring attention exists. The more we reject or suppress this message, the more intense the negative emotions become to urge us toward confrontation — either by accepting the situation or by facing it directly.
Fear is stored energy in the body that needs occasional release, and various circumstances allow for this release. Since it is negative energy, the methods of releasing it are by nature negative — such as crying, screaming, or hitting a wall. The habit of continually suppressing fear leads to panic attacks, and this amplified form of fear is generally disproportionate to the actual danger.
How we deal with fear — and therefore with circumstances — determines our outcomes. We utilize effective NLP techniques to reach the deeply buried causes of fear and address them at the root, including hypnotherapy.
As Rumi said: "Fear is the non-acceptance of uncertainty — if we accept it, it becomes an adventure."
From a spiritual and religious perspective, all religions warn against the causes of fear and offer reassurance for overcoming it. God Almighty says: "It is only Satan who frightens his allies — so do not fear them, but fear Me, if you are truly believers." (Quran 3:175). "Fear Me" here refers to God — signifying obedience born of love and reverence, while the first "fear" (of Satan) expresses the feelings of dread and self-doubt that everyone knows.
How do we deal with negative emotions, particularly fear?
Fear at its core is a signal you create yourself that affects your nervous system, warning of a danger that does not necessarily exist in the current moment. The nervous system then enters a state of readiness to confront this imagined threat.
What you need is to acknowledge that emotions are simply emotions — and to let them be, feel them, and accept them without rejection. There is no danger to you and no threat to your survival. Then name this fear clearly: I feel afraid. I feel anxious. Feel it in order to heal from it. This is how you stop your mind from summoning imaginary scenarios to amplify the fear and other negative emotions.
Each of us has fears accumulated since childhood, stored in the body as negative energy — even if in adulthood we are unable to identify their sources. The intensity of these fears may increase based on the negative experiences we went through in our youth, stored in the unconscious mind to influence us without our realizing their true source.
Fear does not only generate negative emotions — it touches the human being at three levels: physiological, behavioral, and psychological. Understanding these three levels helps us deal with fear:
First: The Physiological Level — the physical effects of fear. It is essential to prepare the mind to fully accept these effects: a racing heartbeat, tightness in the chest, trembling, sweating, dizziness, and others. These are natural expressions of the energy stored in the body, and once these symptoms are accepted and allowed to manifest naturally, they will calm and subside.
Second: The Behavioral Level. Many people resort to escape or retreat when facing what they fear — a behavior indicating that the person is in a reactive state due to an imagined threat. In this state, all vital systems are affected and disrupted: immunity, circulation, digestion, and other bodily functions. Beyond the negative health consequences of this disruption, this pattern leads to a mental state incapable of generating any solutions — and fear transforms into panic.
We must immediately stop fleeing from situations. Escape confuses the mind because it is not a rational choice — it opens the door for anxiety to ally with the imagination and multiply feelings of fear. And since escape only temporarily suppresses fear and its emotions, over the long term it may escalate fear to the level of panic. Whereas the habit of confronting difficult situations releases the stored energy from the body and generates a sense of psychological relief. Confrontation in most cases leads to the realization that the feared situation was not as bad as it appeared.
Sadly, many people abandon their dreams because of fear — fearing what others might say or fearing failure — and question their own worthiness and competence, and so dreams are lost and opportunities wasted that could have changed the course of their lives.
Third: The Mental and Psychological Level — thoughts and beliefs. We must evaluate the thoughts and beliefs we hold about situations that create fear. In almost all of these situations there is something we are rejecting — and what we reject is the result of unconscious programming stemming from incomplete, distorted, or incorrect information. We must review our beliefs and convictions, and draw on diverse opinions and information to help us view what we fear from a new rational angle.
Ten Ways to Confront Your Fears
Whatever the source of fear, here are 10 ways to help you deal with the fears and anxieties you encounter daily:
1. Take a break. Clear thinking is impossible when fear or anxiety overwhelms you, so begin by giving yourself a pause to calm down physically. Distract your mind from worry for fifteen minutes by walking, making a cup of tea, or taking a bath.
2. Breathe through a panic attack. If you feel your heart racing or your hands going cold, it is better not to resist it. Stay where you are and experience the panic without trying to divert your attention. Place the palm of your hand on your stomach and breathe slowly and deeply. The goal is for the mind to learn to deal with panic — and the fear will subside.
3. Face your fears. Avoiding fears only makes them more terrifying. Whatever you fear, confrontation will gradually diminish it. If panic struck you in the elevator today, take it again tomorrow.
4. Imagine the worst. Try to conjure in your mind the very worst that can happen — then try to actually make it happen, and you will find you cannot. Fear retreats the more you pursue it.
5. Look at the evidence. Sometimes it helps to challenge fear-inducing thoughts. If you fear being trapped in an elevator and suffocating, ask yourself: have you ever actually heard of that happening to anyone? And what would you say to a friend suffering from a similar fear?
6. Do not strive for perfection. Life is full of pressures, yet many of us believe everything must be flawless. Difficult days and setbacks are an inescapable reality, and it is important to remember that life by its nature is imperfect.
7. Imagine a happy place. Close your eyes for a moment and picture a place where you feel safe and at peace — perhaps a beautiful beach you walk along, or a warm moment from your childhood. Let the positive emotions flow and ease your tension.
8. Talk about what you feel. Sharing fears strips them of much of their weight. If a partner, friend, or family member is not available, cognitive behavioral therapy is an option. And if your fears persist, consult your doctor, who can refer you to a counselor or psychotherapist.
9. Return to the basics. Many people turn to alcohol and drugs to self-medicate anxiety, but this worsens things. Sufficient sleep, a healthy meal, and a walk on foot are generally the most effective remedies for anxiety.
10. Reward yourself. When you accomplish a call you were dreading making, reward yourself for this achievement with something that brings you joy — a massage, a walk in the countryside or the beach, a meal out, or a book you have been longing to read. What matters is that it is a genuine gift that makes you happy.
Khaled Quaider
Back to Who It's For
There is a well-known saying: "Everything you have ever wanted is on the other side of fear." I do not know who said it, but it is entirely apt. And since we all long for what lies on the other side of that fear, fear and anxiety become obstacles that stand between us and the achievement of our goals.
What is Fear? Fear is an emotional state that manifests in specific behavioral patterns, enabling us to adapt to difficult or unexpected situations. It is an innate response essential for facing physical and psychological dangers, and has accompanied humanity since the dawn of history when people confronted life-and-death experiences on a daily basis. These emotions have a profound effect on our lives — extending beyond the psychological dimension alone to encompass physiological, behavioral, and cognitive changes.
What human beings fear most is rejection and loss of acceptance, and this is tied to their survival instinct. The human being, compared to many other mammals, depends on their parents for longer and across deeper stages, encompassing both basic psychological and emotional needs.
We often use the words fear and anxiety, but is there a difference between them?
Fear is generally defined as an intense and painful emotion arising from the belief that something or someone poses a danger to us and is likely to cause us harm and suffering.
Our experiences in early childhood shape our worldview; we developed fear in our youth as a means of expressing our emotions and as a coping mechanism for negative events — a form of the survival instinct. And when we reach adulthood, we continue to use this unconscious program in dealing with the events that confront us.
Yet the negative effect of this pattern lies in the fact that it is not always accurate — it narrows our horizons without limiting the harms of fear, leading us instead to create negative emotions and impeding our capacity for positivity and the search for solutions.
Fear is either justified or unjustified. Justified fear is beneficial — it protects us from harm and drives us to take behavioral responses that mitigate the threats we face. An example is the fear that grips us when crossing a busy street, though many people in some parts of the world have become so skilled at navigating traffic that it has become second nature to them.
This type of fear is innate and necessary for our survival and growth — a form of self-preservation. Unjustified fear, on the other hand, is the real problem, and it is always the offspring of imagination or memory.
Whether fear is justified or not, it is spontaneous — it appears suddenly to demand our attention when circumstances require. Yet one who lives in permanent fear inevitably experiences a deterioration in his/her quality of life, and the warning signal weakens or disappears entirely when justified fear would be appropriate.
Anxiety, on the other hand, is an internal process that works to alert our system to the possibility of harm. In this context, anxiety is useful when it motivates us to take action. Yet it leads to unbearable, repetitive negative thoughts and painful mental images, and consequently to escalating negative emotions. If anxiety does not stop, the intensity of these emotions will increase.
Therefore, unlike justified fear, anxiety remains in most of its manifestations an unjustified emotion that can be avoided — meaning that excessive prolonged anxiety cannot be channeled positively in any meaningful way. Has worrying about something ever led to an effective solution? The answer is generally no. And so we accumulate negative emotions without finding solutions to problems that do not actually exist.
Anxiety is a psychological emotional state of lesser intensity than fear, but unlike fear it is an extended process that ultimately leads to the same emotions. Anxiety at its core is a fear we create ourselves — it is a choice we make.
Therefore, one who chooses to live permanently with anxiety, or makes space for unjustified fears, does not bring themselves safety but the opposite; the imagined benefit brings no real value against the harms of fear. Anxiety is not a protective mechanism — it is its very antithesis, because it impedes and prevents constructive action.
Since fear and anxiety are a natural part of life, our real problems begin when we fear fear itself. How so? When we are unable to build tolerance for a natural and healthy degree of fear, we begin fleeing from it unconsciously — slipping into other behaviors that occupy and distract us, chief among them anxiety.
Anxiety will not help us in these situations; it is neither healthy nor constructive — it allies itself with our fertile imagination to amplify and feed our fears. All anxiety does is focus our minds on what might happen in negative scenarios, at the expense of focusing on solutions.
Dealing with fear requires both acceptance and positive reassurance. For example, someone who fears being fired from their job can address this fear in three steps: first, accept the situation without attaching an interpretation or preemptive judgment to it; second, enumerate all possible outcomes of being fired, including the worst-case scenario; and third, devise a solution for each possible scenario, contemplate the event with a positive eye, and even explore what potential opportunities it might hold.
This simple process is sufficient to reduce fear and anxiety, if not eliminate them entirely, and paves the way for clear thinking that reveals in most cases that the situation is not as bad as it initially appeared — enabling the person to formulate a sound solution.
The fundamental truth is: every mental process that involves the rejection of a future event generates fear — and the stronger the rejection, the stronger the negative charge.
Rejection is the hidden root of all our psychological problems. Think for a moment: when we feel depression, sadness, and anger, we are in fact rejecting memories from the past. And when we suffer from fear and anxiety, we are rejecting the future.
Consider this fact: the past no longer exists except in memory, and the future has not yet arrived — and will most likely not arrive in the way we expect.
All our psychological problems are born of the rejection of something, and the opposite of rejection is acknowledgment and acceptance. For this reason, God promises those who surrender and accept a comprehensive security and enduring happiness: "Yes — whoever submits their face to God and does good, they will have their reward with their Lord; no fear shall come upon them, nor shall they grieve." (Quran 2:112)
How do we address the matter of rejection? When we manage and reduce this rejection until nothing remains completely rejected in the mind, negative emotions become manageable and diminished. This is achieved by analyzing events rationally and questioning the (limiting) beliefs that produced these emotions.
Another example: a person who is asked to give a speech before an audience yet fears public speaking — a fear considered the most powerful after the fear of death and rejection. This fear may stem from the apprehension of making mistakes, stumbling over words, or having a trembling voice.
Here, the fear lies in the rejection of these imagined consequences, or in the rejection of the pain the mind creates for this possibility. It is also likely that this person has constructed an image of how the audience perceives them. The fear lies in the possibility that the audience might reassess this self-image they have created — and this is connected to the ego, which as I have noted before is one of our greatest enemies and the cause of our problems.
Dealing effectively with fear does not come through pushing it away and suppressing the accompanying emotions, because that inflames the anxiety that feeds the fear and may ultimately lead to the very worst speech imaginable.
God created instincts in the human being to draw their attention to what needs addressing and to propel them into action. When a person feels hunger, for instance, they do not reject it or suppress it, nor are they gripped by dread or panic from it — they simply eat, and the more they address the hunger the more it subsides until it disappears entirely.
Yet we do not deal with fear when it knocks on our door with that same logic. Nevertheless, it should be approached on the same basis: when fear appears, it is a message from the mind that a danger or situation requiring attention exists. The more we reject or suppress this message, the more intense the negative emotions become to urge us toward confrontation — either by accepting the situation or by facing it directly.
Fear is stored energy in the body that needs occasional release, and various circumstances allow for this release. Since it is negative energy, the methods of releasing it are by nature negative — such as crying, screaming, or hitting a wall. The habit of continually suppressing fear leads to panic attacks, and this amplified form of fear is generally disproportionate to the actual danger.
How we deal with fear — and therefore with circumstances — determines our outcomes. We utilize effective NLP techniques to reach the deeply buried causes of fear and address them at the root, including hypnotherapy.
As Rumi said: "Fear is the non-acceptance of uncertainty — if we accept it, it becomes an adventure."
From a spiritual and religious perspective, all religions warn against the causes of fear and offer reassurance for overcoming it. God Almighty says: "It is only Satan who frightens his allies — so do not fear them, but fear Me, if you are truly believers." (Quran 3:175). "Fear Me" here refers to God — signifying obedience born of love and reverence, while the first "fear" (of Satan) expresses the feelings of dread and self-doubt that everyone knows.
How do we deal with negative emotions, particularly fear?
Fear at its core is a signal you create yourself that affects your nervous system, warning of a danger that does not necessarily exist in the current moment. The nervous system then enters a state of readiness to confront this imagined threat.
What you need is to acknowledge that emotions are simply emotions — and to let them be, feel them, and accept them without rejection. There is no danger to you and no threat to your survival. Then name this fear clearly: I feel afraid. I feel anxious. Feel it in order to heal from it. This is how you stop your mind from summoning imaginary scenarios to amplify the fear and other negative emotions.
Each of us has fears accumulated since childhood, stored in the body as negative energy — even if in adulthood we are unable to identify their sources. The intensity of these fears may increase based on the negative experiences we went through in our youth, stored in the unconscious mind to influence us without our realizing their true source.
Fear does not only generate negative emotions — it touches the human being at three levels: physiological, behavioral, and psychological. Understanding these three levels helps us deal with fear:
First: The Physiological Level — the physical effects of fear. It is essential to prepare the mind to fully accept these effects: a racing heartbeat, tightness in the chest, trembling, sweating, dizziness, and others. These are natural expressions of the energy stored in the body, and once these symptoms are accepted and allowed to manifest naturally, they will calm and subside.
Second: The Behavioral Level. Many people resort to escape or retreat when facing what they fear — a behavior indicating that the person is in a reactive state due to an imagined threat. In this state, all vital systems are affected and disrupted: immunity, circulation, digestion, and other bodily functions. Beyond the negative health consequences of this disruption, this pattern leads to a mental state incapable of generating any solutions — and fear transforms into panic.
We must immediately stop fleeing from situations. Escape confuses the mind because it is not a rational choice — it opens the door for anxiety to ally with the imagination and multiply feelings of fear. And since escape only temporarily suppresses fear and its emotions, over the long term it may escalate fear to the level of panic. Whereas the habit of confronting difficult situations releases the stored energy from the body and generates a sense of psychological relief. Confrontation in most cases leads to the realization that the feared situation was not as bad as it appeared.
Sadly, many people abandon their dreams because of fear — fearing what others might say or fearing failure — and question their own worthiness and competence, and so dreams are lost and opportunities wasted that could have changed the course of their lives.
Third: The Mental and Psychological Level — thoughts and beliefs. We must evaluate the thoughts and beliefs we hold about situations that create fear. In almost all of these situations there is something we are rejecting — and what we reject is the result of unconscious programming stemming from incomplete, distorted, or incorrect information. We must review our beliefs and convictions, and draw on diverse opinions and information to help us view what we fear from a new rational angle.
Ten Ways to Confront Your Fears
Whatever the source of fear, here are 10 ways to help you deal with the fears and anxieties you encounter daily:
1. Take a break. Clear thinking is impossible when fear or anxiety overwhelms you, so begin by giving yourself a pause to calm down physically. Distract your mind from worry for fifteen minutes by walking, making a cup of tea, or taking a bath.
2. Breathe through a panic attack. If you feel your heart racing or your hands going cold, it is better not to resist it. Stay where you are and experience the panic without trying to divert your attention. Place the palm of your hand on your stomach and breathe slowly and deeply. The goal is for the mind to learn to deal with panic — and the fear will subside.
3. Face your fears. Avoiding fears only makes them more terrifying. Whatever you fear, confrontation will gradually diminish it. If panic struck you in the elevator today, take it again tomorrow.
4. Imagine the worst. Try to conjure in your mind the very worst that can happen — then try to actually make it happen, and you will find you cannot. Fear retreats the more you pursue it.
5. Look at the evidence. Sometimes it helps to challenge fear-inducing thoughts. If you fear being trapped in an elevator and suffocating, ask yourself: have you ever actually heard of that happening to anyone? And what would you say to a friend suffering from a similar fear?
6. Do not strive for perfection. Life is full of pressures, yet many of us believe everything must be flawless. Difficult days and setbacks are an inescapable reality, and it is important to remember that life by its nature is imperfect.
7. Imagine a happy place. Close your eyes for a moment and picture a place where you feel safe and at peace — perhaps a beautiful beach you walk along, or a warm moment from your childhood. Let the positive emotions flow and ease your tension.
8. Talk about what you feel. Sharing fears strips them of much of their weight. If a partner, friend, or family member is not available, cognitive behavioral therapy is an option. And if your fears persist, consult your doctor, who can refer you to a counselor or psychotherapist.
9. Return to the basics. Many people turn to alcohol and drugs to self-medicate anxiety, but this worsens things. Sufficient sleep, a healthy meal, and a walk on foot are generally the most effective remedies for anxiety.
10. Reward yourself. When you accomplish a call you were dreading making, reward yourself for this achievement with something that brings you joy — a massage, a walk in the countryside or the beach, a meal out, or a book you have been longing to read. What matters is that it is a genuine gift that makes you happy.
Khaled Quaider