Between fear and anxiety

When we talk about emotions sometimes we get them blurred, as if there is not much difference between which emotion is until there is an extreme situation that explodes so we can identify what we are feeling. Nowadays this feeling has mixed 2 emotions: fear and anxiety.

Fear is the natural, biological, and appropriate response to an imminent threat. We are afraid of things in the present and in the future that shows us what is really valuable in our lives.

“When the fear-systems in our brain work properly, they serve a protective function, warning us away from danger and easing off once the threat has passed.»

«Anxiety is when the brain’s natural fear circuits get hijacked by something that isn’t an immediate danger or could even be good for us. We are anxious when we consider something that is coming towards us as a threat, without being one in reality.»

They are different emotions that we may confuse because we feel similar but have different origins, one goes to revalue what means the most to us, and the other one is a threat, a menace that keeps us from feeling safe. «In short, fear, as unpleasant as it may be, can be a great gift, a servant of our physical, emotional, and spiritual health and well-being. But anxiety represents a threat to our physical, emotional, and spiritual integrity that, left unchecked, can tear our lives apart.” It is important to know what is meaningful to us, but never to feel unsafe.

“The person experiencing fear reacts because they are having a genuinely protective, biologically pre-programmed reaction to an imminent threat to their safety or wellbeing… They are intended to preserve your life and safety. An immediate threat to your well-being provokes an immediate, defensive response.» We fear for our lives, but we respond by adapting ourselves to the needs we face.
«Anxiety, on the other hand, is akin to suffering a pinched nerve in the brain’s fear-threat system. The pain is real enough, but it’s the result of something happening inside.” That is why we cannot control it as a response, but we need to understand the origin of feeling safe and change that thought. “You feel anxious. Don’t act out. Don’t start thinking obsessively about what you can or should do to try to get control of whatever is happening around you. Instead, check the feeling. Ask yourself, “Am I responding to an imminent (not a past or potential future) threat to my life or safety?”
To understand fear and anxiety we can see that their origin is different, fear comes from the outside and anxiety comes from the inside. “Once you have determined (however tentatively) that the situation triggering your anxiety is not the source of any imminent, immediate danger, the second step is to relax your body. As I indicated above, instead of continuing to tell yourself that “I am anxious because X (non-life-threatening event) happened” you must reattribute the anxiety you feel to a “pinched nerve” in your brain that results in the misfiring of your fear-threat system. You can then intentionally shift your focus away from the concerning event for the time being (we’ll come back to it in a minute) and refocus on relaxing your body and getting your fear-threat system back under control.”

Once we see that there is a difference between fear and protecting our values and what matters most to act upon it, and anxiety is that feeling of being unsafe that comes from within; then we are able to control our response by questioning ourselves what is happening? and what can I do about it? If the answer is outside of us, we can act upon the threat; but if the answer is within, then we can be able to relax and focus on other things that make us feel safe. Understanding what is happening around us and what is happening to me is the first step toward emotional intelligence.
(Unworried, Dr. Gregory Popcak)