Learning to recognize fear was a huge step in learning to keep myself and my children safe. If you haven’t read The Gift of Fear, by Gavin de Becker, I highly recommend it.
At the end of this article is a list of the intuitive feelings that indicate real fear. How does fear show up for you? I’d love to know. Please comment below.
Audio version: Recognizing Fear
In 2008, when a friend gave me a copy of Gavin de Becker’s book, The Gift of Fear, I was at the beginning of one of the most difficult periods in my life. I had gone to a domestic violence shelter with my two young children and we had a long and uncertain road ahead of us. In the book, I learned that violence could be predicted; that for every violent act, there was at least one sign, if not many that preceded it. If you knew the signs and if you knew what real fear looked like, then you could make confident choices and decisions based on that evidence alone.
Fear is not worry. That’s the first distinction. In the book, he describes worry as something you’re thinking about. Family, friends, work, health, business, finances, etc. If you are thinking about it, that’s a sign that it’s not happening in the moment. If it was happening, you would be reacting instead of ruminating. Worry happens in your head. It’s not reality. It’s not fear. And the distinction is important, because while you’re worrying, you’re not present to recognize your instincts and real fear.
So what is fear? I wanted to know all I could about this process, but I was worried that I was ill-equipped, that I wouldn’t be able to recognize fear because most of my life, people told me I was fearless.
Here’s a smattering of family stories that somehow proved I was fearless:
I was 18 months old when I decided to walk to the grocery store. The store wasn’t far, but I crossed a busy intersection on my own.
I was two when I climbed on top of a six foot fence and walked along the top.
I was four when we moved to Denver. I wanted friends so I went door to door to see if there were any kids to play with. It never occurred to me to tell my mom I was leaving.
I was six when we lived in England and even though they didn’t celebrate Halloween, I insisted on going door to door, saying trick or treat, explaining the holiday, and waiting for them to go get me and my 4 year old brother a treat.
I was 16 when my family took a day trip to the Matanuska glacier outside Palmer Alaska. It was beautiful and in the distance there were crevices that were a brilliant aquamarine. I wanted to reach the blue ice so I took off running. I was in jeans and tennis shoes. Jared was right behind me and dad yelled at us to stop. I yelled back, “we’ll be fine, we’re going to the blue part.”
He took off after us. I knew if he caught us it was game over. My dad’s athletic (baseball, basketball, cycling & now pickleball) In his 60’s he would work a full day of construction then go for a 50 mile bike ride. He was 39 and we had to sprint to stay in front of him.
When the glacier started to rise, I ran up one of the ledges. The aquamarine crevices were still out of reach and the closer I got the less sure I was I could reach them. By the time dad arrived, I was well up a steep incline with the ice dropping off on either side of me. The piece I was walking on had narrowed and was now only a foot wide with a wall of ice at hip height. The one foot ledge I was walking on dropped straight down 30-40 feet. The ledge that was at hip height sloped back to the ground at about 75 degrees.
“Get down right now,” dad said. He wasn’t happy.
“Okay, okay.” I couldn’t go up any further as the one foot ledge was getting smaller and it didn’t lead me to the blue ice.
“Slide down,” said Jared. He was talking about the 75 degree slope. I could, but the stop at the bottom wasn’t a gentle curve, more like blunt steel. No, I’d get hurt that way.
“WALK down now! And be careful,” said dad.
“Okay, but just a second. I have to do something first.” I was a gymnast. The ice was hip height, so I just leaned on it and rested my hips on the edge of the ice, like resting on the uneven bars, and took my feet off the ground.
“Look, no hands, no feet,” I said waving to them.
I think Jared clapped. I’m certain dad didn’t.
Maybe that’s why the guns in Alaska didn’t scare me as much as they should have. (See Negotiating with a Crazy Person)
So, when people would say, “aren't you afraid?” I would say no and think, why would they ask that?
So, fear, I feared, wasn’t going to help me. This book said that fear and listening to my gut instincts would allow me to predict and thereby avoid violence. But what if you’re missing an ingredient. What if I couldn’t feel fear?
I kept reading. My life was a mess. I was five years sober and when people typically get sober, life may be rough for a while, but it’s supposed to get better. I wondered if/when that was going to happen for me. I was five years in and things were unraveling fast. I needed help. If I could predict violence, if I knew what fear really was, it would definitely help.
A few chapters in, Gavin de Becker wrote that people experience fear in a variety of ways. It’s not just capital ‘F’ Fear. Gut instincts and intuition that indicate fear, come in different forms. He listed the ways. As I read through the list, I was overjoyed to see a word that made sense. Curiosity. Fear shows up for me as curiosity. It’s why I would often go toward fear instead of away from it. As I learned to recognize fear, I began to see subtleties. When fear showed up, I realized that I talked a lot. If I was a character this would be my ‘tell’. Talking and talking, over sharing and overly engaged in the conversation. What I thought I was doing was showing that I wasn’t afraid by acting normal. It’s not normal. It’s telling.
As for the things I did when I was younger. The things that labeled me as fearless. That wasn’t real fear. I knew my limits and they were different from other peoples. The gift of fear that predicts violence isn’t about limits. Fear is a feeling. It’s an instinct. It’s a sense. It’s an intuition. And it’s quite quiet sometimes.
Self awareness gave me options. When I was curious, I saw it as a sign of fear and I learned to disengage and avoid. When I over-talk, I become aware of it and I remove myself from the situation as soon as possible.
Knowing how fear shows up for each of us is vital. Here's the list from the book. It’s under what the author calls, The Messengers of Intuition.
Nagging Feelings
Persistent thoughts
Humor
Wonder
Anxiety
Curiosity
Hunches
Gut feelings
Doubt
Hesitation
Suspicion
Apprehension
Fear
How does fear show up for you?
If you, or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence or sexual assault, help is available. I don’t recommend figuring out how fear shows up as your first step. When you’re in an unhealthy or dangerous situation, it’s difficult to see how bad it is until you have distance and time. In those situations, the fear instinct has been numbed and the focus is survival. First, reach out, get help and get a support system. You don’t have to do it alone.
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-7233
RAINN: Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network Hotline: 800-656-4673
Locally you can call 211 and get a list of shelters and resources.
So informative & well written!
Well done! This is such an important message, and one that should be shared, particularly in the school's. Both Hollywood and the media know that fear is captivating, it holds attention. In fact, that's what makes it so inticing for curious young people as shown in the essay, as well as for perpetrators of violence. And yet we give little thought to what fear is, and isn't. I particularly like the way the writer makes the distinction between worry, which is located in the mind, and fear, which is instinctual and visceral. It shows up in a variety of ways, with physical, mental, emotional and behavioral cues that we don't always recognize.