SAFETY

Fear, not the irrational screeching that goes on in your head, but the other kind, the kind that feels like a cold chill down your spine, is the kind of fear that keeps you safe.  

While the lizard brain blows things out of proportion and compiles stories that make you feel anxious when you’re trying to do something that’s outside your comfort zone, this other fear, while also primal, sits in your body, often in your gut.

What’s interesting is that we, more often than not, listen closely and obey the fear in our heads even though it is telling us wildly improbable and unrealistic things.   On the other hand we ignore or rationalize the instinct in our body, the instinct that is telling us truth and showing us reality, the instinct that’s telling us that danger is ahead.  

Why do we do that?  

For women, we’re so socialized to be nice that we don’t want to offend, we don’t want to come off like a bitch that we acquiesce to uncomfortable, and/or dangerous situations, like getting on an elevator with a man we don’t know, while every nerve ending in our body is telling us not to do it.  Or, staying in a relationship and ignoring, denying or rationalizing the signs that tell us we're in jeopardy.  

The Gift of Fear, a book by Gavin de Becker explores this life-saving fear and why we so often ignore it.  The book is also a very practical guide to staying safe by listening to our intuition.  Like so many of us who rationalize and wait for proof of danger, the book points out that the feeling is the proof.

Check out this site for a review of the book: http://mortaine.hubpages.com/hub/The-Gift-of-Fear-Book-Review

This subject was inspired by Oprah’s Lifeclass on intuition.