He who has awakened his spirit to the Light is free from fear. Fear lies in illusions in the mind. (from Maxim VIII)

The Psychology of Fear: Dr. Harvey Robbins

There is a system in the old part of the brain called the amygdala. It controls, in part, our fear factor (fight or flight). In the Neanderthal days it would alert us to real physical dangers that we could respond to with a big club. Once the source of our fear was dead or incapacitated, we could relax once again. As our civilization progressed, it became unacceptable to club the source of your fear inside your organization - although about 1400 people were killed last year in workplace violence from people clubbing others. So, without an outlet to eliminate the fear, we build up the fear as internal tension/stress that gets converted into anger at oneself and others. We need to get angry at someone/something as a release mechanism.

Fear is a gut response. It causes irrational reactionary thinking. The solution (barring beating someone with a club or using an AK-47) is to use your head - the rational part of your brain, the cerebral cortex. Think and act rationally.

There is a concept that drives human behavior called "closure". Simply put, when there is some missing data in our environment, we tend to fill in the blanks. The only problem is we tend to fill in the blanks with negative information, not positive. Worst case scenarios, for example. It's a protection mechanism that keeps us from getting hurt too badly. We fill in the missing information with negative possibilities, then react against these negatives. Prepare for the worst, lower your expectations. These are both irrational thoughts that prevent us from moving forward. The good news, though, is that simply knowing about this concept can change your behavior. Rather than looking at the dark side of every situation, look on the positive (or at least the most realistic) side.

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QJa