How Does Fear Affect Our Lives?

Fear is one of the most fundamental feelings of unhappiness.

And yet, we have a seemingly conflicted relationship with fear. On the one hand, there is not a person alive who is not well-acquainted with the intensity of this emotion. On the other hand, fear is a highly criticized emotion-much more so than, for instance, anger. We use words like coward, yellow, chicken and wimp to refer to people displaying fear.

How The Option Institute Can Help

Although many people judge fear, we do not. In fact, although we help our participants move beyond their fear, at no point are we critical of their fears or phobias. Why would we criticize people for trying to take care of themselves?

It seems that most of us tend to judge what we most hate to see in ourselves. This is ironic, considering most of us view fear as something that comes upon us without our say-so.

At The Option Institute, we see countless examples of people whose fears have debilitated them. We see even more examples of those for whom fear, while not totally incapacitating, at least is a constant, ever-present hindrance. And while many talk of controlling, managing or facing one's fears, few speak of fear as something we can choose to discard, like an old coat.

We believe that discarding your fear is not only possible, but doable on a day-to-day basis.

Although it may sound preposterous, we choose fear as a strategy to take care of ourselves. We have been systematically schooled to use this strategy from a very young age.

How does this work? We are taught-and consequently adopt-perspectives which fuel fear. How many times have many of us heard that fear keeps us from doing something stupid or dangerous. It is as if, without our fear, we would walk headlong into danger and behave in an imprudent, unwise manner.

We are also taught to view the world as hostile and our role in it as precarious. So, on both a macro and a micro level, we adopt and hold beliefs which precipitate a fearful and phobic experience.

We can teach you how not only to uncover these fear-generating perspectives, but to change these beliefs-and, consequently, banish the fears and phobias they produce.

In fact, Thomas A. Richards, Ph.D. of The Anxiety Network International, writes in "Panic Disorder: What You Fear the Most Cannot Happen," that working with people cognitively (i.e., dealing with how people think, which is what we do) has been shown by research to be the most effective means of dealing with fear and anxiety problems.

So many of our participants report that our process of uncovering and changing fear-fueling beliefs has far-reaching benefits for them. Indeed, our programs can assist you in tearing down the self-created cages that may have restricted you and held you back from living your life to the fullest. We can help you to achieve freedom from fear.