My hands are sweaty. My heart rate has gone up. My mind is racing- is this fear or is it love?

From the time we first start watching and listening to media, we are assaulted with fear porn. There are many small assaults that affect us without our being conscious such as the fear you will stink and not be socially acceptable. Maybe your teeth will not be white enough for you to ever have sex. Maybe you have that dread condition, halitosis, which sends people you love six feet away from you as if you had a disease.

Of course, there are solutions for most of these fears, solutions that we may easily purchase to solve the problems, at least temporarily. So, you clog your pores with smell good, brush your teeth with whitening toothpaste, and carry breath mints in your pocket or purse. We push these fears into the subconscious. We don’t realize it, but they continue to affect our decision-making process. “Gotta buy some more breath mints.” “Can’t go out tonight. I’m out of deodorant.” I wonder what cave people did to allay these kinds of fear. Maybe they just accepted themselves as they were. Maybe they wished corporations with purchaseable solutions would be invented along with the money to buy them.

There are also a number of larger, more serious fears the media stirs up in us.

 “I just know this the night Freddy Krueger slices and dices me.”

“They are really going to drop the bomb.”

“They say I could die if it’s untreated.”

“Oh, God! Trump has been elected.”

“We’re all gonna die!”

These are shoved into the subconscious where they roil and boil without an awareness of how our fear affects us. Fear is used to manipulate us into buying a product. It is also manipulates our minds to do whatever the fear master wants us to do. Fear is such a good tool for manipulation because if you are able to make someone afraid, they will not be able to think straight and will be easier to manipulate.

When I was seven, Dad took me to learn how to trout fish on a little creek. We parked on the upper edge of a ravine that the small creek ran through. Dad told me to keep my pants on while he got our gear out of the back. I didn’t listen, as usual, and found myself sliding down the face of a huge rock. As I slid, I grabbed a small tree growing out of a crack. I was scared to death! Below was a long, rocky drop to the bottom and all that was keeping me from falling and cracking my head wide open was this little tree.

“Daddy, Daddy, Help me! I’m too young to die!” I screamed.

He just laughed and told me to let go. I eventually did let go and found my feet were only two inches above a path that had I not been so scared, I would have seen.

This is just one example of how fear clouds our decision-making process. It’s not aways as cut and dried as this. We’re not always aware of the end result of our being afraid. Sometimes fear after fear piles up on us and we never have an opportunity to deal with them individually. We may not recognize that the state we are in is caused by our fears.

The media is especially adept at creating these conditions to get us to bend to the will of the movers and shakers. During the Vietnam War, the Domino Theory was used to make men fearful enough of communism to join the military to go fight it so that Vietnam, an essential domino in controlling Southeast Asia, would be Communist free and democracy would be saved.

History has shown us that the Domino Theory and those who pushed it were full of horse patooey. It was just a tool to promote a war. People believed it. Yet long after it was proven to be false, there are still people affected by this bucket of rubbish.

Fear can affect the quality of life. Over time it can negatively affect both mind and body. Fear releases hormones designed to help you deal with a crisis. This is good if you are in danger and need an extra boost to your system, but releasing these hormones continually will cause stress to your body that will make you ill.  

How do we deal with it?

When I was in third grade, I was beat up every day at school and did not fight back. I was afraid fighting back would make the beating worse, and I was also afraid of hurting someone. That summer, a very large sixth grader punched me. I ran home crying to my mother who convinced me I had to stand up to this bully. I went back to him and beat him up. After that, those who attacked me were in for some hurt. Mom had made me face my fear and now I would never be afraid of a bully again. That is one way of dealing with fear: recognize it and face it.

Sometimes we face an immediate danger. Our fear puts us in a flight or fight mode. We can do something about this danger. Fear is healthy then. But it’s important for us to know when fear is used to manipulate us for only then may we face it and know how to deal with it. Constant fear is not healthy for any living being.