Legolas said:
Fear as Mouravieff explained is a reaction of the moving center (so not really an emotion), which could get explained with mobilization as Purges (Polyvagal theory) discussed it: fight or flight. The sympathetic nervous system provides energy for this mobilization and fear is a survival signal. In light of Purges, we cannot be able to think clearly cause our main energy is drained for muscles and not the thinking part, which is active when we are relaxed.
Yes and now? As I understand the concept, there is NO fear IF and as long one can fight or flee - you just fight or run away. Fear comes with immobilization, especially when prolonged. Levine writes:
It can be said that the experience of fear derives from the primitive responses to threat where escape is thwarted (i.e., in some way—actual or perceived—prevented or conflicted).' Contrary to what you might expect, when one's primary responses of fight-or-flight (or other protective actions) are executed freely, one does not necessarily experience fear, but rather the pure and powerful, primary sensations of fighting or fleeing. Recall, the response to threat involves an initial mobilization to fight or flee. It is only when that response fails that it "defaults" to one's freezing or being "scared stiff" or to collapsing helplessly.
L said:
It is important to have fear, that our stress responses really respond, but it is important that we react on real -fear/stress- motives and that is crux imo, to decipher what is a real threat and what not.
This type of fear we talk about here is fed by imagination. You [general "you"] imagine some dark, dangerous future and wind up your fear. The problem is, there is no imminent threat to your existence, there is nothing to fight with or flee from. The body and mind get confused, trapped with an impossible task - to deal with an enemy that isn't there. As an old saying goes, that's like paying interests of a credit not taking yet.
Paraphrasing Levine's thoughts: "Fear" simply does not really exist as an independent entity. The actual acute fear that occurs at the time of a traumatic event, of course, does not exist now. What happens, however, is that one
provokes and perpetuates a fear state (one literally frightens oneself) and becomes one's own self-imposed predator. What is frightening is our imagination and imaginary resistance to feeling paralyzed or enraged. And that which we resist persists. We might best heed the words of the 1960s jug band Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks: "It's me I'm afraid of ... I won't scare myself."
But it's all not that easy. We do have imagination, we can "see" (sometimes accurately, sometimes not) upcoming danger. How not to feed fear? There are a few things you can do, I think. First off, you can ask yourself how accurate your reading instrument is, and work on tuning it in (best, with the network's help). Next, try to live in the present. What can you do? Thinking about yourself only doesn't help much. But when you shift your focus (stop internal consideration) and begin to think of what you can do for OTHERS, things usually change dramatically. That's the best way I know to counterbalance fear, or negative emotions in general.
Levine again:
Trauma could appropriately be called a disorder in one's capacity to be grounded in present time and to engage, appropriately, with other human beings. Along with the restoration of dynamic equilibrium, the capacity for presence, for being in "the here and now," becomes a reality. This occurs along with the desire and capacity for embodied social engagement. The capacity for social engagement has powerful consequences for health and happiness. ...
In addition, the social engagement system is intrinsically self-calming and is, therefore, built-in protection against one's organism being "hijacked" by the sympathetic arousal system and/or frozen into submission by the more primitive emergency shutdown system. The social engagement branch of the nervous system is probably both cardio-protective and immuno-protective. ...
And, finally, to be engaged in the social world is not only to be engaged in the here and now, but also to feel a sense of both belonging and safety.
