3 Roles Fear Plays in Our Lives

Fears we face in the external world are actually providing insight into our internal worlds. If we listen to fear’s messages, we can turn what appears to be negative into a positive experience by allowing fear to help us recognize the moments it comes into our lives and why.

Fear has a purpose. Its purpose in your life may be different from its purpose in someone else’s life, but it is always useful if we take advantage of what it is trying to teach us.

Consider these three important roles fear plays in each of our lives and how we can work with it in positive ways:

Fear as a Healer:

A healing can take many forms and have many healers. Believe it or not, fear is one of them. When you experience a fearful situation over and over again, the fear is trying to get your attention. The situation is going to keep coming up until the fear that it evokes is gone. Feelings of fear come to the surface in order to bring to our attention the places inside of us that need healing.

As soon as we become aware of this phenomenon, we can utilize fear as a motivator to move us beyond the situation that is causing it, and hence, move beyond the fear once and for all. A positive and profound way to do this is to approach every aspect of your life with a childlike sense of wonder — having no preconceived notions or assumptions of how your life can work.

Fear as a Creator:

We have been given free will to help create our realities. Most of the time, we are creating our realities without even realizing it through our feelings of fear. Fear of not having something will create its absence; while fear of having something will create its presence. Many people live in fear of both.

Some may argue that fear of being in danger helps us to avoid dangerous situations, but I am suggesting that putting energy into avoiding situations that you fear, in fact, draws those very experiences to you. On the contrary, I believe it is our intuition, that little voice inside our head, not fear, that helps us avoid danger… when we listen to it, that is.

Fear as a Comforter:

Ironically, fear can be quite comforting to some. When one has felt fear of this or that for so long, their attachment to it becomes natural to them. This familiar energy feels good. Fear can act as an escape, a hiding place, a retreat from the unknown. It can distort one’s perception to the point where fear can feel safer than really living life to the fullest. Freedom can be quite scary, so retreating in fear may bring comfort.

No emotion, be it positive or negative, is ever wasted. There is always a purpose of some kind. It is our job as human beings to figure out what that purpose is. So next time you feel fear, really feel it, and ask yourself what role that fear is meant to play in your life at that moment… you may just discover invaluable information you never knew about yourself.