Fear As Our Teacher

5 Feb

Illness, especially when chronic and invisible, can be profoundly life-debilitating. Our instinct is to believe we need fixing, often from a place of lack or self-rejection. We battle symptoms as problems to be eradicated, and in that state of resistance, we frequently create more suffering than relief.

Invisible illnesses are particularly isolating. Because they are imperceptible to others, we assume we must endure them alone. Anxiety lives here often - quietly, persistently - and nearly everyone encounters it at some point in their lives, if not as a constant companion.

It took me years to understand that what I was experiencing did not have to become my identity. The shift came when I stopped seeing symptoms as rulers over my life and began relating to them as messengers - sometimes even as unlikely allies.

The more intensely we experience something in the body, the more easily we cling to it as who we are. When that experience is painful or uncomfortable, we label it a problem and work tirelessly to eliminate it. Along the way, we unconsciously attach stories to our symptoms - stories that often cause more harm than the sensation itself.

A subtle but profound shift occurs when we stop treating symptoms as enemies and begin relating to them as parts of our life - not us - to be met, understood, and integrated.

Anxiety as an Evolutionary Intelligence

Anxiety is not a malfunction. It is an evolutionary response designed to protect us, preparing the body to detect threat and move toward safety. The real question is not why anxiety exists, but what it believes it is protecting us from.

As a teenager, I experienced years of breakdowns and severe panic attacks. They began to dissolve only when I stopped trying to control or escape them. Instead, I learned to stay, keeping the sensations company without urgency or judgement, trusting their impermanence.

I met them with detached awareness and gentle curiosity.

Today, when discomfort, fear, or anxiety arises, I move toward it rather than away from it. I welcome it with interest. This has changed everything.

Leaning into fear, however it manifests, is the only way to learn its language. Anxiety reveals its roots only when it feels safe enough to be seen. Through understanding, kindness, and patience, its grip loosens.

Anxiety Is Not the Obstacle - It Is the Path

I do not believe anxiety is in the way of life. I believe it is the way.

Rather than trying to eliminate it, we must learn to work with it. This means approaching anxiety with curiosity instead of resistance, feeling it fully, and listening for the beliefs and narratives that keep it alive. Often, anxiety feeds on outdated stories - protective mechanisms formed in response to past threats that are no longer present.

Transformation happens through patient deconstruction, not force.

Practising Presence With Fear

The next time anxiety arises, resist the urge to spiral into mental narratives. Instead, pause.

Get still.
Breathe deeply into the areas of tension.
Allow the sensations to exist without trying to change them.

Listen beneath the noise of thought.
Be in your body without fidgeting or escaping.

Being embodied means allowing both pleasure and pain. Beneath sensation, there is always a dialogue unfolding—one that asks for your attention, not your avoidance.

Ask gently:

What are these sensations asking me to see?
What are they afraid of?
What are they trying to protect me from?
Are these threats present, or remembered?

Write everything down.

Often, anxiety is not responding to the now but to echoes of the past.

Reassuring the Body

Remember: the body holds the subconscious. In times of trauma, it can remain frozen in outdated states of alert.

Bring reassurance.

Sit upright. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply until a sense of calm settles. Imagine a younger version of yourself and speak inwardly:

“Dear body, I see your fear.
You have endured so much, and you did the best you could.
I am here now.
I am capable.
You are safe with me.
will take care of you.”

When repeated in a regulated state, these words gently rewire subconscious beliefs. Safety becomes embodied rather than imagined.

Befriending Fear

When you allow anxiety the space to teach rather than torment - when you listen, breathe, and remain present - you begin releasing outdated coping mechanisms that no longer serve you.

With time, fear loses its power to hijack you. You understand why it appears. You recognise discomfort as a necessary part of growth. You stop fearing fear itself.

And in that intimacy with yourself, anxiety becomes what it always was beneath the noise: a signal guiding you toward deeper awareness, presence, and wholeness.

Salma Helal