Fear - Succumb to It or Use It

Fear tends to come from ignorance, it comes from not knowing or understanding the unknown. Think of that strange place with a door that leads into a totally dark, black, lightless room, do you feel fear or at least the precursor to fear, apprehension? When walking in the woods on a hiking trail and your vision picks up a long, slender, squiggly shape, do you jump and feel the adrenaline, etc., hit you? Do you feel your breathing become rapid, your hands fly up, your eyes go wide and you take this sudden huge intake of air? 

Once you know what the problem is, it is just a problem, nothing to fear. When you realized that the long, slender, squiggly shape is nothing more than a fallen branch don’t you feel suddenly better while your body and mind re-adjust back to normal? Your knowing what the problem is and if you knew what it was before you saw it would that have relieved your fears and apprehensions? 

Professionals like Marc MacYoung, Rory Miller, Wm Demeere, Kris Wilder, Loren Christensen and many others work diligently in their businesses to provide us with the knowledge we should have to reduce or eliminate our fears when it comes to things like conflict, etc. This is why I sometimes preach that this type of stuff should be a major part of self-defense training. 

Knowledge is power and that power goes a long way to reducing or eliminating our fears. If nothing else, knowledge will provide us a means to train and use our fear, and anger, in a more positive and beneficial way and that would be even better. If you don’t know then like the black, dark, unknown room you will remain fearful and often frozen until you reach inside and “turn on the light.”