Two Kinds of Fear and What to Do with Them

Emotions: Choose Well

Fear: A Spiritual Matter

Fear indicates a threat to our life. As such, it is a spiritual matter. How so? Since our spirit is that which makes us alive and fear indicates a threat to our life, fear is spirit-related.

Fear is an acute condition of our spirit. It is a thumological rather than psychological event.

There are two kinds of fear: life-denying and life-affirming.

Life-Denying Fear

Life-denying fear hinders or prevents us from fulfilling the life-affirming desires of our hearts. It is mind-based. Our thoughts (self talk) and imaginings provoke it. 

It's past-oriented in that memories of our own experiences or other's stories of harm inspire our thoughts and imaginings. We speak to ourselves and imagine scenes about things that are not actually happening. They're happening only in our minds. Even so, they provoke fear in our spirit and thereby deny us acting in ways that fulfill the life-affirming desires of our hearts.

Life-Affirming Fear

Life-affirming fear preserves and sustains our spirit and life so that we can fulfill the life-affirming desires of our hearts. It is based in our immediate experience, instincts, and intuition.

It's present-oriented but also about our immediate future. There is a real threat to our spirit and therefore our life. Our life is at risk. There is someone or something that could harm or kill us. 

Taking immediate action to protect and keep our spirit affirms our life. We either freeze, fight, or flee. Since we keep living, we can act in ways that fulfill the life-affirming desires of our hearts. 

We do well to recognize and banish life-denying, mind-based fear. We do well to recognize and develop life-affirming, spirit-focused fear. It sustains our life and enables us to fulfill the life-affirming desires of our hearts.

Emotions: Up-stirrings of Our Spirit

Etymology of Emotion

To understand our emotions it can be helpful to explore the etymology of the word:

Our word "emotion" comes from Old French emouvoir "stir up" which comes from Latin emovere "move out, remove, agitate." Emovere is the sum of ex- "out" + movere "to move." 

The image of emotion is of something being stirred up and moving outward rather than inward, upward, downward or any other direction. 

The first recorded use of "emotion" to refer to a strong inner feeling was in the 1650s. It was used to refer to any inner feeling by 1808..

In other words, "emotion" originally referred  to external movements and stirrings and was applied metaphorically to the inner up stirrings we now call our emotions. Its metaphorical use is relatively recent and modern.

What is Stirred Up and Moves Outward?

So, what exactly is moved and stirred up when we feel emotions?

Is it our mind that is stirred up? I don't think so. What gets stirred up in our mind is our thoughts. 

Is it our body that is stirred up? I don't think so because we can experience the up stirring we call emotions and remain motionless. 

I think it's our spirit, that which makes us alive. Our spirit is stirred up, moved, or agitated and moves from within us outward to be expressed in our words and physical movements.    

Stimuli of Our Spirit

What stirs up our spirit? I suggest that our spirit responds to stimuli that either affirm or deny it. 

Stimuli that affirm our spirit support and sustain our spirit, our aliveness. We welcome such stimuli and call such stirrings joy, happiness, gratitude, excitement, fear, guilt, and sorrow. When we feel such stirrings we feel more alive, more spirited.

Stimuli that deny our spirit suppress and threaten our spirit, our aliveness. We resist such stimuli and call such stirrings fear, anger, sadness, guilt, loneliness, and despair. When we feel such stirrings we feel less alive, less spirited.

So, in my view our emotions are less about our minds and psychology and more about our spirits and thumology.

Religious Belief a Thought Virus?

As far as we know, we human beings are the only animals on Earth that have religious beliefs.* Dogs are not religious. Cats are not religious. Neither are crows nor catfish.

Does having religious beliefs make us superior or inferior to other animals? I wonder...especially since we, like other animals, are not born religious. We humans are made religious by other humans- parents and others in positions of power over us.

Religious belief is not natural. At best it is artificial. It consists of stories we humans make up and tell to help us cope with the challenges of life. At worst it is a serious, life-denying thought virus spread by word of mouth and reinforced by guilt and fear- guilt about our natural instincts and fear of divine rejection and punishment. Guilt and fear, expressed in words of divine love, join in our hearts and give birth to a bad conscience, the symptom of a sick spirit.

If religious belief is a serious, life-denying thought virus, we do well to cleanse our hearts and minds and cure ourselves of it. When we are clear, we will be free. We will be free to live spirit-related lives in which we love and celebrate spirit as that which makes us and all the living alive.

* Those who are "spiritual but not religious" may replace "religious" with "spiritual."