The Evolution of Fear & Why we Fail!

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Dylan Wentink, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

FEAR!

A note: If we wish to overcome our fears we can not look at it from a subjective view point but must look at fear from an objective view point. The opinions and views of men change with time but the laws of nature stand the test of time. Thus I shall not appeal to your subjective mind but will lay out a series of logical statements leading us to a fundamental perspective on fear. A new perspective from which you will be able to make clearer decisions in your life, based on unwavering laws.

In this article we’ll take a look at the evolution of life, from the very first single celled microbes to humans, the most complex form of life.

More importantly what drove the evolution of life from a single cell organism to a multi cell organism, how did we get here.

First let us take a look at the definition of fear. It is:

“An unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain, or harm”.

I think we could all agree that we fear what is a threat to our health, our survival. Something that will cause us pain. But there is more in this definition than avoiding pain. You see, in this statement lies Newtons Third Law of motion.

“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”.

How does this apply to our definition of fear. What do you think is the action and the reaction?

Put more clearly, what is the cause and what is the effect?

The cause: a THREAT of danger, pain or harm.

The effect: an UNPLEASANT EMOTION.

The problem with the above is that it is still subjective. What may be a threat to you may be a challenge to me. However an unpleasant emotion to me, sadness, is the same to you.

What is an emotion.

“a conscious mental reaction (as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body”.

In simpler language, an emotion is a feeling we get which is caused by a specific object. To some extent I would agree with this definition however it is flawed in some aspects. Here’s why.

It assumes that feelings are the cause of specific objects. Yet if I ask you to close your eyes and recall a happy, joyful, moment from your past your emotional state would change. True?
It states that feelings are typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body. I want you to recall any emotional state from your past, sadness, confidence, joy, love, fear. Step back into the experience. View it from your own eyes again. Now step back. Watch yourself in the experience. What is happening to your body language. How is you breathing. How is your focus. Are you hands shaking.

In each of the emotional states you experienced I can guarantee that your physiology changed. Here’s a new definition on emotion:

“An emotion is a description of our physiological state”.

The word happiness on an objective level means nothing to us. Imagine you are a travelling in foreign country were no one speaks your language and you said to someone in a monotone non-expressive manner, ‘I am happy’. They would probably have no idea what you meant. However if you felt happy (had a smile, felt at ease, took deep breaths, moved smoothly) and said ‘I am happy’, they would probably understand you better by being able to relate to the physiological state you are in.

Coming full circle, a threat creates a physiological state within us that makes us feel uncomfortable!

So what does this have to do with evolution.

Well, what supported growth, the evolution of species. Why did some organisms manage to survive whilst others perished.

What would be the result if you took a fish out of water, removed the sunlight for a plant or lived in a room without oxygen. It would cause extinction.

One of Sigmund Freud’s most well known principles, dating back to 1985, is the pleasure principle,

“The instinctual seeking of pleasure and avoiding of pain in order to satisfy biological and psychological needs”

Relating this to Mazlow’s hierachy of needs, published in his 1943 paper ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’, our most basic need as a human being is physiological security. The requirements for survival: air, water and food.

These physiological needs do not only need to be met by humans but need to be met by all life on our planet.

They are the fundamental drives of all life.

What drives evolution from the most basic single celled level is firstly the ability for an organism to satisfy the fundamental physiological needs it requires to survive, and second the ability for its environment to support reproduction.

As we move from single celled life to more complex multi celled life, what is required for survival does not change but what does change is the brains structure. A physician and neuroscientist by the name of Paul D. MacLean proposed in the 1960’s that as we evolved, our brains too evolved and can be seperated into three specific regions, known as the Triune Brain model. These regions are: the reptilian, limbic and neocortex.

As life on earth became more complex the functions of our brains became more complex, forming the basis of the Truine Brain model.

With each part being responsible for its own independent functions;

Reptilian: Responsible for the bodies vital functions (heart rate, body temperature, balance and breathing)

Limbic: Responsible for recording behaviors which produced desirable or undesirable experiences

Neocortex: Responsible for learning languages, imagination and abstract thought

Keeping in mind Freud’s Pleasure Principle, that we seek what gives us pleasure and move away from what gives us pain, how do the three parts of the brain relate to fear and why do we fail.

It is clear by relating the Pleasure Principle to the three brains that in the Reptilian Brain and the Limbic Brain we instinctively (Reptilian) and intuitively (Limbic) move away from undesirable situations. Which leaves us with the Neocortex, the part of the brain responsible for abstract thought.

I would now like to introduce you to another model, the three levels of awareness. Whilst watching an interview with Peter Sage he mentioned that there are three levels of awareness. That there are three primary perspectives in which we make decisions, or live our lives from: Intellectual, Emotional and Personal. Here is how these three perspectives align with the three different areas of our brains.

Intellectual: Making decisions from a logical (numeric) viewpoint

Emotional: Making decisions from an emotional (intuitive) viewpoint

Personal: Making decisions from an identity (instinctive) viewpoint

This leads us to why we fail! To the cause of what holds us back, why we make bad decisions and to the root of our fears.

The cause of all fears is rooted in the association we make between objective information and emotions.

Think about it.

We all experience the same emotions, happiness, love, sadness, excitement, jealousy etc. And,

we can all think the same thoughts.

What makes the difference in the quality of peoples live is how we respond to different situations: what thoughts + emotions we associate to that situation.

For many of us we have shifted our fear from being based on physiological safety to based on psychological safety.

From safety of our survival to safety of our identity, our self-worth.

A simple question to start moving you away from crippling fears to making better decisions is to ask yourself:

‘What is the worst that can happen?’