Are You Brave? Fear, Avoidance, and What Your Brain Does With Both
Recently, I was followed home by an aggressive truck driver. I was genuinely afraid: my heart was racing, my body was tense, and my thinking became much less clear. Sitting safely at my desk later, I could think of several things I might have done differently. In the moment, I used the resources I had and got myself home safely.
I was afraid, and I acted anyway.
That experience made me think about courage, fear, and the way the brain learns from both. It also brought me back to an important question for anyone living with chronic pain, anxiety, or trauma:
What if the goal is not to stop being afraid, but to discover what you can do while fear is present?
Fear is the brain predicting danger
Fear is not simply a feeling that appears out of nowhere. It is part of a protective learning system.
In classical fear conditioning, a neutral cue can acquire threat value when it is repeatedly paired with something painful or frightening. A sound, place, movement, bodily sensation, or social situation may initially be neutral. After being associated with danger, however, it can begin to trigger defensive responses on its own.
Joseph LeDoux’s work helped clarify the role of the amygdala in this process. The amygdala is not a simple “fear centre,” but it is an important part of a broader network involved in detecting potential threat and organizing protective responses. When the brain predicts danger, the body may prepare to fight, flee, freeze, tense, or escape before conscious reasoning has fully caught up.
This is why fear can feel so physical:
Your heart rate changes.
Your breathing may become faster or shallower.
Muscles prepare for action.
Attention narrows toward possible danger.
Complex thinking can become more difficult.
In a genuinely dangerous situation, this response can be life-saving. The problem begins when the brain continues to apply an old prediction to a new situation.
A movement that once hurt your back may begin to feel dangerous even after the original injury has healed. Eventually, movements that merely resemble it may also trigger guarding or avoidance. The brain is trying to protect you based on what it learned before.
The fear-avoidance cycle in chronic pain
The fear-avoidance model of chronic musculoskeletal pain, described by Vlaeyen and Linton, explains how pain-related fear can become self-reinforcing.
The cycle often looks like this:
Pain is interpreted as a sign of damage or danger.
Fear increases attention toward the painful area.
Movement or activity is avoided.
Avoidance produces immediate relief.
The brain receives less information about what would actually happen if movement occurred.
Strength, confidence, mobility, and daily activity may gradually decrease.
Pain, disability, low mood, and fear may increase.
Avoiding a painful shoulder movement can make sense in the short term. Avoiding every movement that might possibly challenge the shoulder can eventually reduce your options.
This does not mean that pain is imaginary, or that you should push through it. Pain is real, and some pain signals require medical attention. It means that pain and danger are not always identical. The nervous system can become protective even when a particular movement is no longer causing tissue damage.
You can read more about the relationship between movement, the nervous system, and chronic pain on our chronic pain and NeuroSomatic Therapy page.
Why avoidance feels so effective
Avoidance is maintained through negative reinforcement. This does not mean that avoidance is negative or bad. It means that a behaviour becomes more likely because it removes something unpleasant.
You anticipate pain, so you do not bend. The anxiety drops.
You expect conflict, so you avoid the conversation. The immediate tension decreases.
You fear being judged, so you do not apply for the opportunity. You feel safer for a moment.
The relief is real. It teaches the brain: avoiding worked.
But relief is not the same as new learning. When you avoid the situation, you do not get the chance to discover whether the predicted catastrophe would have occurred, whether you could have coped, or whether there were more possibilities than your nervous system expected.
Over time, the brain may become increasingly certain that avoidance is necessary.
Extinction is not erasure
A hopeful finding from fear-learning research is that new experiences do not necessarily have to erase an old fear memory.
When a feared situation is approached repeatedly without the expected catastrophe, the brain learns a new association. This is often called extinction learning or inhibitory learning.
The original memory may say:
“This movement has hurt before.”
New learning may add:
“This movement can also be safe in this context.”
Or:
“I can feel fear and still have choices.”
The old prediction and the new experience can coexist. This helps explain why fear can sometimes return after a period of improvement. Stress, fatigue, pain, a new context, or a reminder of the original event may reactivate the old association.
Bouton’s research showed that extinction is strongly influenced by context. Craske and colleagues later emphasized that exposure-based approaches are often more effective when they focus on building flexible, competing safety learning rather than trying to eliminate fear completely.
This is a subtle but important shift. A return of fear does not necessarily mean that you have failed or gone backwards. It may mean that the old learning is still present alongside newer learning.
Fear and avoidance are not the same thing
Feeling fear and avoiding something are related, but they are not identical.
A person can feel afraid and still approach. A person can feel relatively calm and still avoid. These behaviours may be influenced by different learning systems.
A 2024 study by Gatzounis and colleagues examined what happened when approach behaviour toward a previously pain-associated movement was rewarded after extinction. Participants had learned to avoid a particular arm movement associated with painful stimulation. After the pain association was removed, rewards for approaching the movement reduced the later return of avoidance.
However, the reward did not eliminate the return of fear.
This finding is encouraging. It suggests that action does not have to wait for complete emotional certainty. Fear may still be present while behaviour becomes more flexible.
In real life, the reward does not have to be money. It might be:
Returning to an activity you value.
Spending time with someone you love.
Moving with greater freedom.
Completing a meaningful task.
Noticing that you had more choice than expected.
Approach becomes easier to repeat when the brain experiences it as connected to something worthwhile.
A two-minute practice: fear is information, not always danger
Choose a very small, manageable action that you have been avoiding. This should not be an acutely dangerous movement or something that has not been medically assessed when assessment is needed.
You might explore turning your head slightly, reaching toward an object, standing up, or taking one step toward a postponed task.
Pause and notice. What do you predict will happen? What sensations tell you that fear is present?
Make the action smaller. Move at about 10–20% of your usual range or effort.
Notice contrast. Explore slightly more effort, then less effort. Move a little toward the action, then a little away. Hold briefly, then release.
Separate fear from danger. Ask gently: “Am I sensing actual danger right now, or am I sensing a protective prediction?”
Allow fear to be present. You do not need to make it disappear before acting.
Stop and reflect. What new information did your brain receive? Was there a moment of choice, variation, or ease?
This kind of slow differentiation is central to somatic movement education, including principles influenced by the Feldenkrais Method and NeuroMovement®. The nervous system learns through contrast: more and less, toward and away, effort and release. When we slow down enough to feel those differences, the message of danger no longer has to drown out every other signal.
The practice is not about forcing yourself through fear. It is about gathering accurate information with enough safety, attention, and choice.
The more useful question
“How do I stop being afraid?” can become another demand placed on an already protective nervous system.
A more useful question may be:
What can I do while I am afraid?
Courage is not the absence of vulnerability. It is the capacity to act with the resources available to you while remaining responsive to what is actually happening.
If fear, pain, or avoidance is limiting your movement or your life, a NeuroSomatic Therapy session can help you explore new possibilities gradually and respectfully. Sessions are available in Montreal and online.
You can also try a guided NeuroSomatic practice on YouTube, or explore the NeuroSomatic Lab library for practices supporting movement, regulation, anxiety, and safety.
Fear may be real. So is your capacity to learn.
References
Bouton, M. E. (2004). Context and behavioral processes in extinction. Learning & Memory, 11(5), 485–494.
Craske, M. G., Treanor, M., Conway, C. C., Zboznek, J., & Vervliet, B. (2014). Maximizing exposure therapy: An inhibitory learning approach. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 58, 10–23.
Gatzounis, R., et al. (2024). Rewarding approach behaviour attenuates the return of pain-related avoidance after successful extinction with response prevention. The Journal of Pain, 25(6), 104453.
LeDoux, J. E. (2000). Emotion circuits in the brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 23, 155–184.
Vlaeyen, J. W. S., & Linton, S. J. (2000). Fear-avoidance and its consequences in chronic musculoskeletal pain: A state of the art. Pain, 85(3), 317–332.
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