Fear sucks, so let me tell you a story. It was a humid summer morning when I ventured outside to begin my day. The sun was still making its ascension, preparing to brighten the world even further. The air smelled of summer—that unmistakable blend of dew and possibility. Birds were singing their morning chorus. Squirrels scurried about playfully. It was a memorable and beautiful morning, the kind that makes you grateful to be alive.
As I captured this mental snapshot of the glorious dawn, I suddenly noticed something else quite amazing. It seemed to appear out of nowhere, briefly interrupting my thoughts and breaking my stride toward my car. I knew it hadn’t been there the night before. It was a spider’s web—and I had walked straight into it.
I reacted frantically to remove the sticky strands from my face. It’s a most unpleasant sensation! I knew full well I wouldn’t be on the spider’s menu. There was really no need for this exaggerated reaction, but I just felt compelled to get this stuff off my face immediately.
I couldn’t see it, although it was clear and bright outside. I had walked into this snare completely unaware.
After clearing the strands of sticky substance from my face, I looked around to see if any more of the web remained intact. As I glanced over my left shoulder, I noticed a wonderful construction. I must have only caught part of the web that was anchoring it on one side.
In the web, I noticed a singular, desperate fly. I imagine it was newly entangled because it was still buzzing with fight. It couldn’t move much. No progress was being made in its struggle for life. It was amazing to behold this thing of beauty in its utility. This world wonder, magnificent in its detail and beautiful to observe, was nothing more than a trap—a sticky, powerful, inescapable trap.
The Architecture of Entrapment
As I sit here reflecting upon that memorable event, something profound hit me regarding that web. A spider’s web is dangerous to insects. It can scarcely be detected. It’s comparatively as strong as steel. And most importantly, it’s constructed with deadly purpose by its architect, the spider. Things end badly for any creature unfortunate enough to end up in its clutches.
Everything about that moment now raises thoughts of something else we can’t see, something incredibly strong, and once in its grip, there’s slim chance of escape. I’m thinking of fear and what a tangled web fear can be.
According to Webster’s dictionary, fear is to be frightened, to have reverential awe of, to be afraid of, or to expect with alarm. It is an unpleasant emotion caused by the anticipation or awareness of danger. It can be an instance of this emotion or a state marked by this emotion. It is anxious concern or reason for alarm.
Therefore, we can deduce from its definition that fear is quite presumptuous. Fear is primitive. It’s instinctive. Fear is always responsive and reactionary to some threat of danger or peril. Now, I’m not attempting to insinuate that fear is unnecessary. Healthy fear literally saves lives! However, this reveals that fear can be unprecedented and frequently subjective.
The Invisible Stranglehold
Fear is sticky and powerful in its grasp because it torments. Whoever finds themselves caught in the web of fear, if not careful, could be devoured by the pending danger of the web’s architect. Fear provokes tension, anxiety, worry, struggle, stress, unrest, and uneasiness. Fear convinces its prey that destruction is inevitable. It invokes our most terrifying imaginations, rendering us emotionally and sometimes physically paralyzed.
Just like the spider’s web, we can’t see fear, but when trapped, we feel it all about us. It seems to constrict our breathing, and our hope dims as we ponder our imminent doom.
It would actually seem manageable if fear only clouded our thoughts. But fear can overwhelm our thinking faculties and pervade the entirety of our thought life. It begins to influence our actions and inaction. When fearful, we can become disorganized, disoriented, unproductive, lethargic, slothful, uninterested, distracted, indecisive, unfocused, irrational, and even dishonest. This state is a horrible place from which to make critical decisions, but fear causes speedy resolution to seem necessary.
The Interconnected System of Fear
Interestingly, webs are systems of interconnected, intertwining, and interdependent strands of the spider’s silk. Some of its branches are sticky, yet some are not, making it possible for the spider to navigate the web without being ensnared in its own trap. They construct the web this way because of their keen sensitivity to vibrations. The spider can actually locate its prey via the vibes in its web system.
The web of fear is similar in that it spreads to multiple areas of our lives with its tentacles of interconnectivity and interdependence. Fear wouldn’t be all bad if it didn’t have this far-reaching feature. If we could totally isolate it to a single context of our lives, it might not be so debilitating. But we cannot, so fear alters our vibrations, bringing them low, dictating the vibe people pick up from us.
As Jim Rohn wisely said, “Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.” Fear prevents that change by keeping us vibrating at frequencies that attract more of what we don’t want.
Unfortunately, because this is the case, fear builds momentum. It can begin as a faint feeling or idea of discomfort and mature into hysterical paranoia. In building momentum, we find ourselves falling into emotional unrest and, at times, depression until we’re sometimes emotionally bankrupt. And it’s ironic, but that which we fear is totally separate from the web that has us in our emotional death struggle.
Fear Is Effect, Not Cause
Here’s the truth that will make you free: Fear is not cause—it is effect. Fear is the result of our perceptions, our beliefs, our misunderstandings, and sometimes our ignorance. That which we fear sits free of the struggle of the web. It figuratively watches us as we struggle in futility to escape. Fear is instantaneously constructed the moment we focus on some belief we hold, and it’s our certainty of this belief that manifests as fear.
Fear isn’t complex—it’s simple. For example, we grow afraid when we learn there is the threat of layoff at our jobs. It’s not the loss of our job that provokes a fear response; it’s the fundamental fear of poverty and its effects that we struggle with. Our mind begins to imagine us being homeless, starving, naked, and desperate. With this movie footage running repeatedly, we have sufficient proof that this is inevitable, so we have flown into the tangled web of fear.
Then, in this state of fear, we unknowingly and often unconsciously begin creating the dynamics of this poverty reality. Therefore, fear is also procreative. Fear spawns supporting ideas that result in creative acts, and these acts are many times negative in nature. These acts are the seeds from which our results and outcomes are born.
The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Fear
For instance, when one fears rejection, they act in such a way that would insulate them from the pain of that feared rejection. Ironically, in doing so, they create the disposition that is unpleasant and off-putting, and in this weak and repulsive state, they emit the vibrations necessary to be rejected. Frequently, these persons do the rejecting first in a desperate attempt to avoid the sting of rejection, and they inadvertently create the resulting feeling or actuality of isolation and loneliness.
Tony Robbins teaches that “The only thing that’s keeping you from getting what you want is the story you keep telling yourself.” That story is often written in the ink of fear.
Adding insult to injury, the process deteriorates into feelings of guilt and shame. The culmination of their fear synthesis leaves them emotionally depleted due to the constant nagging of their subsequent guilt over being fearful. The guilt dynamics often spiral downward into shame, in almost disbelief that one finds themselves in their present condition. There are few who find comfort in having to admit they are fearful of someone or something. This is especially true where the fear issues surround personal identity, ability, capacity, or self-worth.
Sensitivities are heightened at this stage, and then the fearful become creative in a most self-deprecating way. We begin to drift into the practice of justifying our fears and making unreasonable and sometimes illogical excuses for ourselves. The development of this habit relegates us to a season of cyclical dysfunction.
Persons drifting into this state of hypocrisy and inauthentic behavior tend to grow ever more creative, constructing the scenarios they will have to defend, justify, make excuses over, and at times flat-out lie about.
The Exhaustion of Struggle
The tangled web of fear effortlessly draws its unfortunate prisoner more securely into its sticky hold by way of its victim’s relentless struggle. The struggle can ensue for only so long before the prey is exhausted and without any fight remaining within them.
Now, the victim of the web has been transformed from a free-flying creature, going about its life or routine, to a helpless, horrified, stationary meal for the architect of the web.
All of this, while seemingly complex, is actually quite simple. I’m not trying to insult anyone here by oversimplifying the matter of fear, so I’m not saying dealing with our fears is an easy proposition at all. However, I am saying fear is a matter of great simplicity.
The Origins of Our Fears
Many of our fears are learned, adopted, and shared. Some of our fears we learned because they were taught to us; others we learned because we observed them in others very close to us. Some fears are social norms being programmed into our psyches by the many forms of media pervasive in society today. Even deeper are the fears we share through our corporate social consciousness.
Many live unconsciously. Therefore, there are many fears influencing our lives that we aren’t even aware are at work and in control of our actions and thoughts. Some of us never give any thought to what we’re thinking about. Some of us never really think at all. Life is happening to us. We are merely existing, waiting for the next good or bad thing to take place.
As Bob Proctor taught, “Thoughts become things. If you see it in your mind, you will hold it in your hand.” The question is: what thoughts are you allowing to become things in your life?
The Path to Freedom
We must awaken to our fears if we would have any chance of reversing them, of breaking free from the web we find ourselves in. It’s a violent prospect! Admitting we bear fear is painful to our fragile or superimposed egos. But it is essential to the possibility of freedom.
Ownership of our fears can be a beautiful revelation, a virtual resurrection from the dead. Upon recognition, we can come clear on the source of our fears. We can work at uprooting the causes of our fears. We can earnestly determine if what we fear is real. We can embrace and realize an irreversible emancipation.
We must simply let go of our justifications. We must let go of our guilt and shame. We must harness, refocus, and guide our imaginations. We must let go of our presumptions of failure, rejection, disappointment, conflict, and injury.
We must realistically address the influences our fears have on our actions, thoughts, and responses. We must recalibrate our belief systems about who we are, what we’re capable of, our boundless power, and our perceptions of personal worthiness. We must thoroughly examine that of which we’re certain. This is true because, as Earl Nightingale declared, “We become what we think about.”
Practical Steps to Break Free
We must think, think for ourselves, and think clearly about what we want, what we want to do, where we want to be, and what we intend to have. We must let go of the idea of scarcity and lack, which puts us in unavoidable competition with others fighting for scraps.
We must let go of the sense of desperation regarding love and our hopes for meaningful relationships. We must reckon with our phantasms of loneliness and disconnection, for we are never alone. We are a singular part of an interconnected and interdependent whole.
We must let go of our ideas that evil could triumph over good, that darkness could overwhelm light, that injustice could eradicate justice, that inequality could diffuse the constant power of equality.
We must let go of our “shoulds” for the world around us, our presumptions that we know what’s best for others’ lives. We must consider the possibility we don’t know it all, that we could be wrong or limited in some things. We must consider the possibility there’s a better way than ours.
We must understand and embrace the power of humility, gentleness, kindness, patience, long-suffering, faith, peace, joy, equality, and self-discipline.
The Ultimate Solution
Simply put, we must create and allow the perfection of love in us, for perfect love casts out fear.
You want to be free from the tangled web of fear? Love yourself, because you are created from Divine spirit, which I know as God. Then, love others, because they come out from the same source and are therefore great, just as you are. This equality is the source of all freedom, including freedom from fear.
So, let webs apply to insects. We are not insects! We are much more! And we have no business tangled in the web of fear.
As Les Brown powerfully reminds us, “You have greatness within you.” Don’t let fear convince you otherwise. The web only has power if you believe in its strength. The moment you recognize that you are the architect of your own reality, the web dissolves.
Your freedom awaits. Will you claim it?
Related Articles:
- Building Wealth Through Strategic Financial Planning
- The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Securing Business Funding
- Personal Finance Fundamentals: From Paycheck to Prosperity
- Business Management Strategies That Actually Work
