![]() We have too many emotions at one time to process or understand them.We could not escape danger at one time.Our fear felt or feels overwhelming and unmanageable.Our fear was unwanted or not permitted by others we needed.We were told or shown that we were bad or weak for being afraid.Why would we learn to push down our fear (or other core emotions)? Here are some reasons: For example, fear mobilizes energy for movement and anxiety pushes it back down. Anxiety is a stop-reaction to the impulses that fear and other core emotions create inside the body. While anxiety and fear feel similar, anxiety is a reaction to our emotions versus danger in the environment. Bypassing conscious control makes for speedier reactions. Nature designed us this way for a reason. It is worth restating, since many of us blame ourselves for having emotions, that fear and other core emotions are automatic reactions that we cannot prevent. All the physical changes that fear causes promotes a rapid response to danger. The mere surprise of a horn, for example, starts our heart racing and our breathing to get shallower and faster. Imagine for a minute what happens when we get startled. That is because fear’s “job” is to get the body ready to fight or flee. Core fear causes many changes in the body similar to that of anxiety. This happens automatically, which is why we can't control whether we have emotions, only how we react to them. For example, when we see a vicious-looking animal running toward us, hear footsteps approaching from behind, smell smoke in our house, or feel unexpectedly touched on the back, the limbic system, simply known as the emotional brain, switches on the fear response. When you feel afraid, the five senses of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and touch translate information happening in our immediate environment. It’s important to understand the difference between fear and anxiety because the way we work through these two emotions is different. In result, the child may feel anxiety instead of sadness. For example, if a child “learns” by experience that their sadness leads to mother’s withdrawal or impatience, the child will learn to suppress sadness. In general, the amount of anxiety we experience is linked to our early experiences with emotions. If we know we are not in physical danger in a moment, yet we are experiencing something akin to fear, we can assume we are experiencing anxiety. More specifically, anxiety results from the physical effort to push down emotions. Fear specifically makes us flee from danger.Īnxiety, an inhibitory emotion on the Change Triangle, results from avoiding core emotions and needs. The biological and evolutionary purpose of core emotions, like fear, is to help us survive. Anxiety and fear are words often used interchangeably, but they are not the same.įear is one of the seven core emotions on the Change Triangle, the practical tool I use to teach emotion education. ![]()
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