The Fear Of Taking The Leap
Fear exists as an emotion because it is useful to us. It is an emotion that accompanies us since we are born to ensure our survival in real contexts.
However, today we do not reside in the middle of a forest together with other potential predators. In reality, many of the elements that generate fear in us today do not constitute a threat or, at least, a threat from which we can run away. Today we will talk about one of these family fears: the fear of taking the leap.
As María Dolores Pérez says in her study Fear and its disorders in childhood. Prevention and educational intervention “fear is a normal response to real dangers or threats, which can become maladaptive when it occurs in situations that are no longer dangerous, even if they had been in the past.”
Therefore, fear becomes maladaptive when, instead of “saving” us from a potentially dangerous situation, it locks us in circumstances where there is nothing to fear. Consider those who are afraid to speak in public. Is your life in danger? Are they at risk of dying? The truth is, no, however, your body reacts.
When fear prevents us from growing
It is natural to have maladaptive fears like those already mentioned. Although there are many others such as losing money, partner or social status. All of them are not fears that hide a real threat or at least a threat correlative to the intensity of the emotion they produce us.
The fear of taking the leap is one of those fears that only exist in our minds and never come true. But it is so disabling that instead of participating in the life we want and thus growing, we stagnate, noticing how we fade as time passes.
The fear of jumping is sometimes strongly influenced by what our environment expects of us. Let’s imagine that what others expect is that we acquire a fixed residence, but we never do it because in reality what we want is to buy a van and travel the world. Because of this, we may always be immersed in doubt, with our foot raised but not daring to take the step.
Do you live your life or the life that others have designed for you?
In psychology consultations, professionals often meet people who have been marking one by one all the steps they have taken. Studying a certain career, finding a stable partner and job, having children… But what if their aspirations went the other way?
In addition, this, in many cases, occurs in a subtle way. It is not that they tell us “you have to do this”, but that we ourselves are orienting ourselves to one side or the other depending on how others look at us.
Thus, we may want to undertake other studies or look for an alternative job to the one we have, however others admire us for what we study or for the work we do in our work. These are the reasons that echo and mediate our decision.
Take risks or stagnate
Faced with the fear of taking the leap, we only have two options: risk or stagnate. If we risk leaving our parents’ home, we may not have as much contact as we used to. If we change jobs, maybe in the end we don’t like that new job.
However, all this will allow us to learn and get out of our comfort zone. If we don’t, we will constantly ruminate on that “what if…” so painful and so disabling that it will prevent us from growing, experimenting and, ultimately, living. But as Voltaire well said:
The feeling of blockage is still more than an illusion, because in reality, there are fewer obstacles than we see. This is not to say that we have no real limitations or problems, but we can always adapt them to move forward.
In case of not trying, anxiety will begin to be more and more present, increasing the feeling of not having any direction in which to go. Although this is not true.
