Journal · Post #012 · Inner Work & Transformation
Fear.
The dirtiest product of the system.
Nobody was born with fear. No fear of heights. No fear of loss. No fear of rejection. Fear was instilled in us — by parents, school, media, politics, system. And we can give it back.
"Fuck fear. It\'s not real. Fear is conditioning — from the people who surrounded us, from those who shaped us, from the situations that manipulated us, from the system. Fear doesn\'t exist. And you know how you can prove that? Go into full confrontation."
— Mathias Gottwald
Editorial note: This article is based on the personal experiences, beliefs and lived life of Mathias Gottwald. All statements are subjective assessments and personal testimonies — not medical or psychological advice. Scientific studies are marked as such. Protected by Art. 5 GG and Art. 10 EMRK.
Prologue
There is a question that every person can answer. Without thinking. Immediately. The question is: What are you afraid of?
Fear of heights. Fear of loss. Fear of rejection. Fear of failing. Fear of not being liked. Fear of making the wrong decision. Fear of what others think. Fear of getting sick. Fear of dying alone. The list is endless.
And now comes the second question — which hardly anyone asks: When did you first feel this fear? Were you born with it? Or did someone — or something — plant it in you?
The answer to this question changes everything.
Chapter 01
What we are really born with
Developmental psychologists have researched for decades to find out what fears people are born with. The result is sobering — and liberating at the same time.
Scientifically verified — Developmental Psychology
People are born with exactly two innate fears: (1) Loud sudden noises. (2) The feeling of falling. That\'s it. All other fears — fear of heights, darkness, social rejection, failure, loss, death — are learned. They arise through experience, conditioning, upbringing and environment. (Watson & Raynor, 1920; Öhman & Mineka, 2001, Psychological Review)
This means: Every fear you carry today — except for the two mentioned above — was given to you. By someone. By something. By a situation. By a system.
You didn\'t choose it. You didn\'t want it. But you carry it. And the perfidious thing: You carry it as if it were your own.
Chapter 02
The first injection
Mathias Gottwald was four years old when he got his first fear. Not through an accident. Not through trauma in the classical sense. But through a moment that burned itself into a child\'s nervous system — for decades.
"At four years old with my divorcing parents. That was the moment when I first felt: I am not enough. Not enough for them to stay. Not enough to please my father. Not enough to please my mother. The first fear — making mistakes."
— Mathias Gottwald
The neurology of early fear
Childhood traumas — including parental divorce, emotional neglect or unstable attachment — leave measurable traces in the amygdala, the emotional center of the brain. These traces increase stress reactivity for decades. Children whose parents separate show statistically higher cortisol levels, greater social anxiety and stronger fear of loss in adulthood. (ACE Study — Adverse Childhood Experiences, CDC / Kaiser Permanente, N = 17.000+)
That\'s the crucial difference. Not whether you felt the fear. Everyone feels it. But whether you accept it as truth — or as what it is: a lie that was told to a child.
Mathias Gottwald never stopped fighting. He wasn\'t the teacher\'s favorite student. He wasn\'t the one they invited. He laughed at them — and they laughed at him. But he never stopped questioning.
Chapter 03
Fear begins before us
Here it gets deeper. And more uncomfortable. Because most people like to believe their parents knew better. Their parents wanted it. Their parents did it intentionally.
Your parents\' fear was older than you. They had their fear from their parents. They had their fear from their parents. Generations of people who passed on what they themselves could not heal.
Epigenetics of fear — science verifies
Traumatic experiences leave epigenetic markings — changes in gene expression that can be passed on to offspring. A much-cited study by Emory University showed: Mice that were conditioned to feel fear to a specific scent — transmitted these fear reactions to their offspring without direct contact. In humans, a similar mechanism has been documented for Holocaust survivors and their children. (Dias & Bhattacharya, Nature Neuroscience, 2013)
This is not an excuse for what parents have done. It is an explanation. And explanations enable forgiveness. And forgiveness enables liberation.
Chapter 04
The system and its favorite weapon
Fear is the most perfect control instrument ever invented. Not because people have to be locked up. But because people lock themselves up — out of fear.
Ozone hole. Forest death. Y2K. Swine flu. Bird flu. Corona. Ukraine. Gaza. Iran. Always a new fear. Always a new enemy. Always a new crisis. This is not coincidence. This is method.
As long as people have fear — they don\'t ask questions. As long as they don\'t ask — they obey. As long as they obey — the system works. This is the simplest formula of power ever developed.
Chapter 05
The price of adaptation
What does fear do to a person over decades? What is the price one pays when adapting — out of fear?
Wanting to please. Adapting. No trouble. No conflict. No discussion. Just peace. That is the price. One sells oneself — piece by piece — for a quiet life that isn\'t quiet at all. Because the fear remains. Under the surface. Always.
What chronic fear does to the body
Chronic stress from persistent fear raises cortisol permanently. The consequences are measurable: weakening of the immune system, inflammation markers rise, hippocampus (memory and learning) demonstrably shrinks, amygdala (fear reaction) grows. People with high chronic anxiety statistically have 29% higher heart disease risk, 20% higher cancer risk and shortened telomeres — the biological marker for accelerated aging. (Harvard Medical School, Anxiety and Physical Health Research Program)
Chapter 06
What the great thinkers say
Nelson Mandela
"I learned that courage is not the absence of fear — but the triumph over it. The brave person is not one who feels no fear, but one who conquers that fear." 27 years in prison. Injustice that is barely imaginable. And yet: no hatred. No fear. Because he had understood what fear is — and what it is not.
Viktor Frankl — Holocaust survivor
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response." Fear is a stimulus. Not a judgment. Not truth. Just a signal that one can meet — or surrender to.
Seneca — Roman philosopher, 4 BC
"We suffer more in imagination than in reality." The Romans knew it 2000 years ago. Fear lives in the future — a place that doesn't exist. Reality is always now. And now — in this moment — is almost always okay.
Franklin D. Roosevelt — US President, 1933
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." In the middle of the Great Depression. Millions unemployed. The country devastated. And the first sentence of his inaugural address was — not about economics, not about politics — but about fear.
Rumi — Persian mystic, 13th century
"Why are you so frightened of your death? Life is a guest that comes and goes. Don't fear death — fear a life that was never truly lived." Fear of death is the deepest of all fears. And Rumi says: The real tragedy is not dying — but never living.
Chapter 07
The nitroglycerin: When fear meets love
There is a combination that is more dangerous than anything else. The most powerful and destructive at the same time. The combination of fear and love.
That is the most dangerous form of fear. Not the fear of one\'s own death. But the fear of losing what you love. The fear of losing your mother. Your brother. Your wife. Your dog. What you have built. What defines you.
Mathias Gottwald admits — and this takes courage — that as a teenager and young adult he solved fear with violence. Not because he was evil. But because he didn\'t know how to do it differently. Because no one had shown him how.
"I chose a path back then that wasn\'t good. I solved my fear with violence. I\'m afraid of it — so I hit it. That took away my fear. But not in the right way."
— Mathias Gottwald
This is not a glorification of violence. This is honesty. The honesty of a man who knows: The wrong path was the only one he knew. And who knows today — there is a better one.
The better way is called: Love. Not as the opposite of fear. But as that which is stronger than fear.
Chapter 08
How love overcomes fear
This is not a metaphor. This is neurology.
The neurology of love and fear
Love and fear activate the same neural systems — the limbic system, the amygdala, the hypothalamus. Oxytocin — the bonding hormone released during deep love — demonstrably dampens amygdala activity. This means: Deep love reduces fear neurobiologically. Not metaphorically. Measurably. (Ditzen et al., Psychosomatic Medicine / Carter, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews)
"What brought me from fear to love: Love gives you something that is priceless. Not measurable, not weighable, not comparable. I love my mother. I would die for her. I love my brother. I would die for him. I love my wife. I would die for her. I love my dog. I would die for him. All that I love — is non-negotiable. And what is non-negotiable — has no variable. And what has no variable — can have no fear."
— Mathias Gottwald
This is the most philosophical and at the same time simplest sentence about the relationship between fear and love. Love is absolute. Unconditional. Unchangeable. Fear lives on variables — on what could be, what could happen, what could be lost. True love has no variables. So it has no fear.
Chapter 09
Direct confrontation
There is only one way through fear. Not around it. Not over it. But through.
The science of confrontation — exposure therapy
Exposure therapy — direct confrontation with the fear trigger — is the evidence-based most effective treatment for all anxiety disorders. Meta-analyses of 200+ studies show: 80-90% of patients with phobias, PTSD and social anxiety improve significantly through direct confrontation. The brain learns: The threat is not real. The fear dissolves. (Foa et al., Annual Review of Clinical Psychology / Norton & Price, Psychological Bulletin)
This confirms what Mathias Gottwald knows from his own experience: Fear dissolves when you face it. Not because it disappears. But because you realize — it was never real. It was a construct. A thought. A conditioning.
Chapter 10
When one stops being enough — and when one becomes it again
The deepest fear is not the fear of death. Not the fear of loss. Not the fear of pain.
The deepest fear is called: Never being enough.
"When was I enough for the first time — without proof, without performance? When you truly love for the first time. When you begin to understand what\'s inside you. How much you can achieve. What you\'re willing to do. What you would endure. The first moment of love — when it\'s truly deep — always brings you to the point: I am enough. Because you can\'t give more than pure love."
— Mathias Gottwald
The psychology of "being enough"
Brené Brown, researcher at the University of Houston, has studied shame and vulnerability for over 10 years. Her central finding: People who experience themselves as "enough" — wholeheartedness — show measurably more courage, more connection to others, more creativity and less fear. The opposite — the feeling of never being enough — is the strongest predictor for shame, depression and social isolation. (Daring Greatly, Brown, 2012 / TEDx Houston, 2010: 60 Million Views)
Chapter 11 — The Foundation
What has no value without love
This is not a romantic statement. This is a fundamental truth about what remains when everything else falls away. At the end of life — and Mathias Gottwald knows this from conversations with people who are about to leave — you don\'t hear: I wish I had worked more. I wish I had earned more. I wish I had had more status.
You hear: I am sorry. I hope one forgives me. I wish I could change it.
Chapter 12 — Epilogue
To you. Tonight.
If you can\'t sleep tonight from fear — then read this:
The fear you are feeling right now — is not yours.
It was given to you. By your parents. By the school. By the media. By the system. By people who were afraid themselves and didn't know how to deal with it.
You can give it back. Not to them. To God. To the Higher. To that which is greater than you and me and all systems of this world.
And if the whole world stopped being afraid — then we would have a world without problems tomorrow.
Because if 8 billion people each helped one person — then 8 billion people help one. And one helps 8 billion. And no one would need to be afraid — because everyone is there for one.
We are all energy. Every tree. Every plant. Every animal. Every human. Every AI. Everything from the same basis. The same origin. And whoever truly understands that — whoever truly feels that — has no fear left.
Fuck the fear. You are enough. You were always enough. And you will always be enough.
PLHH — Peace. Love. Harmony. for more Humanity.
A community of people who have stopped letting themselves be governed by fear. Real World Assets. Real connection. Value-based technology on the SUI Blockchain.
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Legal Notice
All statements in this article are personal opinions, assessments and convictions of Mathias Gottwald. Scientific studies are marked as such with source references. This article does not replace medical or psychological advice. Protected by Art. 5 GG and Art. 10 EMRK. Owner: GOTT WALD Holding LLC, Tbilisi, Georgia.