Fear or Excitement: Which Would You Like to Call It?

Did you know that fear and excitement show up the same way in your body? If you were hooked up to a machine that monitored your response to fear or to excitement, your body would respond the same way to both experiences. That means the body can’t tell the difference between the two.

In Hebrew, fear and awe are the same word: yirah. When you feel awe, you have a sense of excitement as well. Imagine that you’ve just experienced an awesome sunset or waterfall or meeting with someone new. That awe comes with a sense of excitement. However, as far as your body is concerned, you could just as easily be afraid. That’s why awe of God and fear of God constitute the same emotion. If you find yourself in God’s presence, you might feel all three emotions — fear, awe, excitement. Yet, all three basically are the same emotion. They exist on the same spectrum of emotion. They body perceives the as identical.

Given this information, why not choose to feel excited — or awestruck — instead of afraid? Fear simply stops you in your tracks and keeps you stuck. It imprisons you and becomes your jailer. Excitement and awe, however, energize you and make you want to move forward. They provide you with the impetus to keep going.

So, today, choose excitement over fear. Choose awe over terror or nervousness. Move forward instead of staying stuck. Or, when you feel afraid, rename the emotion; simply call your fear “excitement” or “awe” and see if the way you feel doesn’t change along with the new name.