This is one of my favorite personal quotes.

Out natural human reaction to anything unfamiliar creates a heightened sense of discomfort. I love this quote because it describes this natural phenomenon and I believe that, in recognizing it, we can reduce the discomfort that we experience in new situations.

The definition of ignorance from the Cambridge Dictionary is:

 ~not having enough knowledge, understanding, or information about something.

I contend that it is always a lack of understanding of something that is what creates fear in all of us. All we need is a bit of information, and our fear can be reduced or eliminated. When we lack understanding (knowledge and information) our brain continues to utilize the negativity bias and when we are in a negative “state”, we are naturally looking for the downside of an action, experience or feeling.

Let us look at some examples:

* You plan on taking a long flight. You choose to be worried….ie fearful and choose to focus on how awful it will be, even though you have never done it before. At the end of the flight, you acknowledge to others that it wasn’t “that bad”(since now you have knowledge about how it actually is). You managed to entertain yourself for 15 hours and perhaps actually enjoyed being “unplugged”. Next time you face a long flight, you won’t experience the same level of fear or discomfort.

*You have a big project due or speech to make and are fearful of not presenting well. In the beginning of your research, you feel ignorant (not having enough knowledge on the subject) but later in the process, as you attain the knowledge, you begin to feel confident about the material, how best to present it and prepare for any questions that arise. Your fear is diminished somewhat.

*You are going to begin a new job and are worried whether they will like you and you will be able to perform. If you knew exactly what the expectations were (had the information), you would enter confidently instead of fearfully.

*You are stressed about something at work and choose not to share how you are feeling with your partner. Your partner does not have any understanding or knowledge regarding the issues at work and begins to notice that you are acting strange. They then create a story surrounding what could be happening and how it will affect them. They created fear due to their lack of information.

In each of the examples, you will notice that a little information learned or shared could have prevented much of the discomfort.

 In what areas of your life are you seeking change but find you are fearful?

What could you learn about it that could diminish your fear?

In what ways do you share your feelings about what is going on in your life to ensure that you are creating more understanding with those people that are important to you?