Dealing with Fear

Dealing with Fear: During his first inaugural address at the height of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt declared, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself!” The suggestion was that fear is primarily an internal issue, not an external one. During the same period in history, Edgar Cayce was giving readings that stated exactly the same thing about fear. We have all experienced fear, and it can be anywhere from annoying to unpleasant to downright paralyzing. Most of the time, it is an invisible influence functioning as a destructive paradigm that forms our misperceptions, misunderstandings, and maladaptive responses. By distracting us from our resources, sometimes it can bring about, paradoxically, the very conditions over which we have worried so much.