“First fear” is the natural response to danger. “Second fear” is our reaction to the anxiety itself. Second fear is the food that anxiety lives on. If we starve it of this, anxiety slowly dies, and we recover.
By learning how to stop adding second fear when we feel anxious, we stop adding fuel to the fire. This allows our sensitization level and anxiety level to drop.
This isn’t something we can grasp instantly. It takes time and practice to change this ingrained habit of reacting to our anxiety.
Recognizing Second Fear
Adding second fear can be seen in our thinking. It is the “Oh, no!!” reaction we have when the anxiety feelings come back. This is a fear reaction to our anxiety. We can change our thinking by reminding ourselves that anxiety is not dangerous. It is just a feeling, albeit an unpleasant one, and with practice we can learn to reduce our reaction to one of just shrugging and saying: “So what?” when anxiety happens. This attitude of indifference to whether we are anxious or not can be developed.
Another type of thought that comes with second fear is the doom and gloom thinking: “What if _____?”, and the attempts to work out why we are anxious and how to feel better. We can change this thinking by accepting how we feel, allowing those feelings without resistance, and just letting it all happen. It is this willingness to experience anxiety (and any and all of our feelings), without fighting them that turns down the heat.
Making Changes
Changing our reaction to anxiety by no longer adding second fear is one of the critical steps in recovering from anxiety. This is one of the core principles of the acceptance approach to anxiety recovery developed by the world-renowned Australian MD, Dr. Claire Weekes. I explain how this is done in great depth in my book.
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