“Our lives are often turbulent. Each of us experiences some form of anxiety from time to time, we fear something. But what are anxiety, fear and dread? How do we define them? I have included definitions of these three terms in the glossary at the end of this book. They come from two websites: https://psychologia.edu.pl and https://sjp.pwn.pl.”

“It turns out that anxiety is necessary for us in some life situations, it serves a useful function. Maria Kerth writes: “We are afraid of what we have no control over because we have been taught to constantly control everything around us. We are afraid of the present because we are critical of ourselves and our capabilities. We are afraid of the future because the number of factors that shape it is so vast that we cannot predict them all.”

“According to Maria Kerth, anxiety has the following functions:

• it protects the whole human race from excessive bravado so that civilisation can survive
• tells us to consider all the circumstances and elements that make up a particular decision
• it informs about what is safe and what is not – it defines a personal comfort zone”

“So fear and anxiety are not the same thing. For example, when we are threatened by a dangerous dog we are dealing with fear, this fear empowers us to defend ourselves against the external threat, and when, for example, we are afraid of losing our job we are dealing with anxiety (‘an expectation rather than a fact’).”

“To better grasp the difference between anxiety and fear complete Exercise One now. Anxiety versus fear. Write down examples of anxiety (“an expectation rather than a fact”, “an imagined and unlikely possibility”) and then examples of fear (related to “the presence of an external threat”).’

The above extracts are in my third book entitled “Lek na lęk” (in Polish). The English title will be: “A Cure for Anxiety”. At present the book is available in Polish only on ridero.eu.

All my books are available here: ridero.eu, type the name of the author: “DARIUSZ ŁUKASIK”

Have a great day! And dare to live happily!

Dariusz Łukasik