by Christyl Rivers

Created on: September 10, 2010

If you know it or not, your greatest fear is separation. 

You may call it a “fear” about the surface event, or object; things like fear of dark, heights, spiders, public speaking, or what have you. Yet, when you come down to the core of the thing, what we all fear most is separation, separation from life, separation from acceptance, fear and anxiety that others will think we have lost control.  When these fears cross over into phobia, we have lost control.  Then the fear comes in an endless anxiety loop.  We fear the fear itself, so to speak.  It is not a trivial thing, or something to feel shame about, fear may lead to squashing an ant, or going off to a world war.  Humans are motivated by fear.

Let us look at some common fears.  So much uncertainty in the world is fueling xenophobia, fear of the “other” he/she/it that is foreign to us.  This is why we are seeing, in uncertain times, scape-goating of Muslims and Mexicans.  If you are Muslim or Mexican, or another historically blamed minority, your fear is of the fear mongers themselves, and rightfully so.  But only true lunatics use these fears for extremism.

Other, seemingly lesser fears, such as fear of crowds, of cramped spaces, of insects, and more, directly reflect our disconnection from our evolved senses which originally protected us through our more primitive brain.  We have an inborn startle response.  We “start,” or startle, when we see snake-like motion, or a spider, which may or may not (usually NOT) be venomous.  When we repress it, as we are told and programmed to do, such as when we're told: “Don't be silly, it's only a bug” the fear is internalized, and is our secret inadequacy.  This fear, of losing control, and of losing acceptance, is what fear is made of in our mind.  It is separation.

We all have a fight or flight mechanism.  Some of us simply have it tuned into over-drive, because instead of living outdoors as we once did, we are programmed to think that if we are in a crowd, or in a small space, or see an insect, we are in mortal danger.  The fight aspect from our primitive response to our neo cortex is to shut down because of “civilized and polite society”.  But the other aspect gushing into our brain, “Get away! Get out!” has switched over to intense adrenaline fueled panic. Cortisol floods your system. It does not take that

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