“Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here”  Unknown

How do you respond to doubt, fear, and anxiety?

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18; NKJ)

Three weeks ago now I said that I was going to do an extended series of DGs on the human brain.  Right now, I’m thinking that this will be the last in the series–at least for a while.  If you missed the introduction to this little series, I encourage you to take a couple of minutes and go back and read that introductory material. (Access “Your Amazing Brain” by clicking here.)

The amygdala is “an almond-shaped mass of gray matter in the front part of the temporal lobe of the cerebrum that is part of the limbic system and is involved in the processing and expression of emotions, especially anger and fear,” according to the American Heritage Science Dictionary.  I don’t want to get too technical with this series on the brain, but there is this one part of the brain, that has a Latin name, but which you must understand to be able to avoid the kind of thinking traps we’ve been warning you about throughout this series.  (BTW, amygdala is simply a Latin word based on Greek that means “almond.”  As you might suspect, the amygdala is shaped like an almond.)

This paranoid little guy has awesome power over your perceptions and actions because it senses real and potential stress and causes the release of chemicals into your system triggering feelings of doubt, fear, and anxiety.  The amygdala stores the emotional perceptions that occur each time a memory is built.  Memory and emotions are inseparable.  The amazing thing is that the amygdala stores all the emotional perceptions you have developed while building memory from the time in the womb until today as you read this DG.

Now, anytime you grow and move to another level in anything in life, you are obviously stepping outside of your comfort zone.  The doubt, fear, and anxiety that the amygdala triggers because of real or potential stress is perfectly normal.  When you understand that this is absolutely the way it’s supposed to work, and that the brain is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing, you can use that understanding to make rational decisions, rather than misinterpret the feelings to mean that you should stop the activity. 

Even the most successful people you can name have those same feelings of doubt and anxiety, but they make the choice to push on through rather than bow to them.  This understanding of how the brain is supposed to work puts a whole new perspective on doubt and fear.  Now you can see that the absence of doubt and fear is a warning signal of status quo, i.e., there’s no growth going on.  That’s OK for a season, but should not be what we strive for on a steady basis.

Prayer Power
Lord, we thank You for this understanding of what the signals of doubt, fear, and anxiety really mean.  We ask for the courage to step through that False Evidence that Appears Real.

Link of the Day
Emotions and the Brain: Fear

Blessings on you as you face your fears and step out of your comfort zone.

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