The Fear of Fear: Why Avoiding Discomfort Makes Life Harder

I used to think my problem was fear itself. Heights. Public speaking. Difficult conversations. The usual list. But after reading Alan Watts, I think the real problem is something else: it is the fear of being afraid.

This distinction sounds small, but it changes everything.

Original Fear vs the Fear of Fear

Watts calls the first kind “original fear.” It is the natural instinct that makes a snail withdraw into its shell. It is the pleasure-pain principle. You touch fire, you pull away. You feel pain, you avoid it. This fear is healthy. Without it, we would not survive very long.

The second kind is something we add ourselves. We do not just feel fear. We feel ashamed of feeling fear. We think: “I should not be afraid of this.” Or: “What is wrong with me?” Or: “If people knew how anxious I am, they would think I am weak.”

This second fear is not original. It is a layer we pile on top of the first. And that is where the trouble begins.

Watts writes: “Man is not just afraid; he fears the tension caused by his original fear so that his fear is increased. The tension is also increased, growing all the more frightening until it becomes destructive instead of creative.”

Think of a string on a guitar. If you tune it to the right tension, it produces music. That is creative tension. If you tighten it until it snaps, that is destructive tension. The same energy, used differently, creates beauty or breaks the instrument.

When you feel fear and accept it, you can use it. It tells you something. It sharpens your attention. It prepares you for action. But when you add the fear of fear on top of it, you are tightening the string past its limit. The result is not better performance. It is panic.

The Fly in the Spider’s Web

Watts uses another image. A fly caught in a spider’s web. The more it struggles, the more it becomes involved. This is what happens when we run from our fear. We add one fear to another, one tension to another, and the process can go on forever.

I see this in my own experience with anxiety. If I feel nervous before a presentation and I just feel nervous, I can work with it. My heart is beating faster. Good. That means my body is ready. But if I start thinking “I should not be nervous,” the anxiety doubles. Now I am nervous about being nervous. Now I am worrying about worrying. Now I am in a bottomless pit of self-deception and misery, exactly as Watts describes.

The entrance to that pit is the refusal to admit that you are afraid. Watts says it plainly: “It would have been better to say in the first place, ‘I am afraid, but not ashamed.’”

That sentence changed how I think about anxiety. Shame is the real killer. The fear itself is manageable. The shame about the fear is what sends people into spirals.

How This Connects to Motivation

Thinking about what you do not want can motivate you. Fear is not the enemy. Fear is information. It tells you what matters. The problem is when you treat fear as a sign of weakness instead of a sign that you are onto something real.

Watts distinguishes between the two kinds of tension. Creative tension is the force that keeps the earth orbiting the sun. Centrifugal force pulls it away. Gravity pulls it in. The result is a circle. The earth is neither frozen nor burned. It moves.

Destructive tension is what happens when you try to pull away from one side of the orbit without accepting the other. You do not escape the fear. You add another fear to it. The string breaks.

This is also why the worst-case scenario technique works. It does not eliminate fear. It brings the fear into the open, where you can look at it directly. When you stop running from the fear of failure, the fear loses its power to drive you crazy. You can still act. You can still prepare. But you are no longer at war with your own nervous system.

The Two Kinds of Tension

Watts says there are two kinds of tension. Creative tension is when a string is tensed to produce music. Destructive tension is when it is tensed to be broken. Between the opposites there must also be tension if they are to produce life. Of their nature they must move in opposite directions, and yet they must be held together by a relationship and a meaning.

The movement of the opposites away from each other is original fear. The tie that binds them is original love. The result is creative tension.

But we do not just fear. We fear the tension caused by our original fear. Like a fly caught in a spider’s web, the more we struggle, the more we become involved.

When the tension of original fear is accepted, we can swing happily upon our orbit. But should we try to escape from that fear, we simply add one fear to another and one tension to another.

This is the core insight. Fear is not the problem. The fear of fear is the problem.

Practical Steps

Here is what helps me.

First, name the fear. Do not just say “I am anxious.” Say “I am afraid of failing in front of my team.” Be specific. When you name it, you separate it from the shame. The fear is just a fact. It is not a moral failure.

Second, accept the tension. Do not try to relax it away. The tension is not the enemy. The tension is the music. If you tighten the string too much, it breaks. If you leave it too loose, it makes no sound. The right tension produces the note.

Third, notice the difference between original fear and added fear. Are you afraid of the thing itself, or are you afraid of being afraid of the thing? If it is the second one, that is where your work is. That is the extra layer you can drop.

FAQ

Is fear always bad? No. Original fear is a valuable instinct. It protects you. It urges you to self-preservation. Without it, you would not survive. The problem is the fear of fear, which is a mental addition on top of the natural instinct.

How do I stop being afraid of being afraid? You cannot stop it by trying harder. You stop it by noticing it. When you feel the spiral of anxiety about anxiety, name it. “I am having the fear of fear.” Just naming it breaks the spell enough to give you some distance.

What if my fear feels overwhelming? That is the original fear talking, not the fear of fear. When fear is overwhelming, it is usually because you have been avoiding it. The avoidance makes it grow. The best approach is usually to face it in small doses. This is the principle behind exposure therapy, and it works for the same reason Watts describes: running from fear makes it chase you.

Does this mean I should seek out scary situations? Not necessarily. It means do not add the second fear on top of the first. If you are afraid of something and you have to do it, do it afraid. That is fine. The problem is not the fear. The problem is the shame about the fear.

The fear of fear is the only fear you can choose to drop.