Fear Narrows. Peace Restores Sight.
We often assume fear keeps us safe. In reality, fear usually narrows perception and increases error.
Peace does something different. It restores sight.
Two ways of responding when identity
feels threatened — or secure.
This short interview captures what the chart is describing.
The climber isn’t denying danger. He’s explaining what happens to perception when fear takes over — and why clarity requires something else. Fear collapses attention, exaggerates threat, and causes us to miss what’s actually there. Presence restores accuracy.
The following is a link to an incredible climb…
Alex Honnold: Free Solo Climb of Taipei 101
What’s striking is what comes after the fear.
He describes recognizing what he almost missed — the holds, the options, the reality that was still available once fear loosened its grip. That recognition isn’t shame. It’s clarity.
Moments of fear aren’t failures.
They’re moments of recognition — I could miss something essential here. What matters is what we anchor to next.
“I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.” — Psalm 16:8
This isn’t denial of exposure. It’s remembering what you’re clipped into. And often, only after the moment passes do we see it clearly.
We notice that what carried us through was already there.
That we were not abandoned.
That the training, the wisdom, the provision, the quiet help we needed did not disappear — fear only made it harder to see.
That recognition gives rise to gratitude.
Not gratitude that danger wasn’t real, but gratitude that we were not alone in it.
Fear collapses the field of vision in the name of protection.
Peace widens perception — and afterward, allows remembrance.
Peace isn’t the absence of danger.
It’s the remembering of what holds when danger is real… and giving thanks when we finally see how we were brought through.