The Irrational Fear Cure: In Four Miraculous Steps

By Teri Smith-Pickens

The Fear Cure in 4 Miraculous Steps by Teri Smith-Pickens, tells what happens to a mind already filled with irrational fears and chronic anxiety when it encounters the rational fear of a Pandemic. It unmasks the myth of addictions and gives a deeper understanding of what you face and how to cure it. This prophetic book tells that it is not God’s plan for you to live in your primal brain and remain in bondage to your fears. He wants you to put on your Spiritual anchor which will liberate you from all fears and anxiety and take you out of living in Survival Mode.

The Fear Cure is about childhood fears gone awry and teaches parents the restorative qualities of parenting in a new way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Flying Enigma Press
• Release date: Jan 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9780976159636

Book preview

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Chapter 1

Irrational Fear—

The Invisible Enemy

"No passion so effectually robs the mind of all

its powers of acting and reasoning as fear."

—EDMUND BURKE

Because fear is primal, it is not always rational. In fact, when we begin to feel afraid, our mind shifts into Survival Mode, triggering our Fight/Flight or Freeze response. In this Mode, brain activity moves from the rational problem-solving part of our brain (pre-frontal cortex) to the Primal/Reptilian Brain (the cortex). It is true that fear drives us to action, but it is not necessarily rational action.

Children might be afraid to go to sleep because they fear ghosts in the closet or under the bed. Parents can reassure them there are no ghosts by showing the empty closet but sometimes this is not enough. Just because your child can’t see the thing that they fear, doesn’t make it any less real to them, and the more a child experiences these lingering fears, they can become embedded in the mind taking on a life of their own. There is a learned association between fear and the thing feared. Fear triggers anxiety which is a warning signal of a threat to our well-being and the primitive brain must react to whatever it perceives as threating us. But what if the threat is imagined or irrational?

Rational fear is visible to the mind’s eye and to the outside world; it is the man with the gun climbing through your bedroom window at midnight, or the pit bull running at you as you walk through the neighborhood; you see the threat, you get an adrenaline rush as your brain prepares your body to Fight, Flee, or to Freeze—but you must act because it is a threat to your survival. When the threat is over either you lay dead, or you survive to live another day. If you survive, the adrenaline backs down and you step out of Survival Mode.

Irrational fear is imaginary, only visible to the mind with no existence in the outside world. The faculty of our wonderful imagination, which helped Van Gogh create those beautiful paintings, is the same faculty that creates or dresses our irrational/imaginary fears; it creates a picture and makes it real to you and it is worse in childhood. You might experience panic attacks, inability to sleep, excess worry, become fidgety, etc. In other words, fear triggers anxiety which re-triggers our survival response system in the brain even if that fear is irrational. When this happens, the amygdala, the fear center of the brain, throws the survival switch on to signal a threat to your survival and what happens next, is an incredible process to keep you alive:

Adrenaline is released, blood pressure rises as your body prepares to Fight, Flight or Freeze. Hormones flood the body: the heart rate and breathing rate increase, blood pressure elevates to help deliver more oxygen to your muscles, blood vessels in the muscles dilate to prepare the body for action, blood sugar is mobilized from the liver, hormones are released from the adrenal gland, the pupils of the eyes dilate, the peripheral blood vessels of the skin are constricted, and the muscles tense.

However, if the threat is not resolved, if there is no end phase, if it is never over, it simply dims and waits for the next memory to trigger it as you begin to live permanently in Survival Mode.

The more you use the faculty of the imagination to build your irrational fear, the bigger it becomes and the greater the prospect that with time it becomes real. It may sound cliché but what your fear must eventually appear. The more emotional energy you invest in your irrational fear the bigger it grows, even if the thoughts are unconscious.

We unconsciously speak or confess what we believe. If we talk sickness, it’s because we believe in sickness, if we talk weakness and failure, it is because we believe in weakness and failure. It is surprising what faith people have in wrong things. They firmly believe in the pandemic and other incurable diseases and their faith in it rises to the point where it utterly dominates them, rules them, and they become absolute slaves to it The more you speak/confess your fear of the pandemic, the pandemic grows under the confession. It could continue to grow for years.

Some will say, but the virus is real, and it is dangerous! The virus is measured by its effects on people via sickness but when added to a mind already controlled by irrational fears the virus superimposes itself upon people already living in Survival Mode and the outcome must be disastrous.

The use of face masks, gloves, and other body shields best demonstrate our levels of fear. It gives us an opportunity to look irrational fear dead in the eye (no pun intended). Do not look at where a simple face mask is mandated for safety, like in the supermarket; rather, look where people become excessive/obsessed, they idolize face masks by making them fashionable, wearing them all the time. They would rather compromise the supply of oxygen rather than go without. Case in point—in flu season if someone has the flu, one of the best remedies after a few days of being locked inside is to open the windows for fresh air to circulate, getting rid of the infected air. Wearing a mask excessively recirculates the stale air you are breathing, including re-circulating any illness you might already be suffering from. Would you put a mask on your infant? On your pets? If not, why? If the air is unsafe to breathe so you have to wear a mask, why is the same air safe for your 4-year-old child you are pushing in the stroller? Just because there is a pandemic doesn’t mean you should bypass your rational mind. However, if you live in Survival Mode, you are living in your Primal/Reptilian Brain, which is irrational.

Are you putting your faith into an inanimate object like a face mask for your survival?

If so, this is idolatry. Look to Jesus who already took away your sin and sickness at the cross. When you fear something, confront it and learn as much about it as you can because knowledge is power.

Fear—A means of social control

While some of these imagined fears are trauma-based and thus of one’s own making, many are the consequence of the narratives created by the outside world, i.e., the media, people in power, marketing gurus, individuals looking to take advantage or manipulate others due to their fears. When we are gripped by fear or any threat, pandemic or cancer, real or imagined, our rational, higher cognitive mind shuts down and the primitive brain takes over making us targets easily manipulated by anyone that promises us safety from the threat. Remember that all threats are registered by your brain as a threat to your survival. More importantly, because we have creative power, being created in the image and likeness of God, our brains are programmed so that the more we dwell on what we fear, the more our imagination builds and the more power we give it to create outward manifestations.

You can minimize this invisible enemy by turning off the media, staying away from constant reports about the event. Even in a pandemic, you don’t need more news than you can manage, or that you have solutions for. Even the health authorities are still guessing when they tell you what is going on and what to do; it is not absolute. The more you plug into the fears of the outer world, the more you feed the inner faculty of your imagination and it makes the event bigger and scarier than it really is. Be prudent—don’t overdose yourself on information and knowledge that does not infuse you with God’s life and power. Choose what gives life because to be politically correct is to be Biblically incorrect.

Are we creating a fear epidemic?

We create a fear epidemic when large numbers of people—the collective consciousness, begin to dwell on what we fear. This is powerful enough to manifest what is focused on. One of the symptoms of living in Survival Mode is the polarity of exhibiting a herd mentality, where you fail to question, or oppose things that are absurd or ridiculous. Instead you adopt your behavior on a largely emotional, rather than rational basis—if everybody is wearing a mask, then I must wear one. But this is ridiculous, for example, at an outdoor restaurant you must wear a mask for 3 to 4 feet to your table until you are seated, then you can take it off, sitting around lots of people who are engaged in chatting, laughing, etc. How are you avoiding the virus? Another example, you are jogging or walking in a crowded park on a hot day where you are the only person wearing a mask and people all around you go without. With that level of fear, you would be better served staying out of public spaces where masks are not mandated.

The dangers of isolation

A sad example of irrational fear is when you start to treat family members, especially the elderly, like they are lepers, refusing to visit or have them visit you, refusing to take a glass of water from them because you fear the glass is infected; worst case scenario—having them die without your touch. Isolation is a lack of social relationships and support; it is the experience of being separated from others. It can lead to more solitude and loneliness. We are social animals and we need human contact to thrive and also to survive—especially human touch.

The extreme isolation of a pandemic can have catastrophic effects on a person’s physical and mental health, from creating new symptoms to exacerbating symptoms already in place like, depression, low self-esteem, paranoia, social anxiety, dementia, medical conditions, etc. Research shows social isolation may even increase a person’s risk of premature death by about 30%. In our prisons and jails, inmates are punished by being held in solitary confinement, sometimes for extended periods of time resulting in serious mental health issues.

How can true Christians challenge this herd mentality? Obey the law of the land but don’t get comfortable with sin or absurdity. Stop calling evil good and good