Life Unlocked: 7 Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome Fear

Winner of a Books for a Better Life Award

Many people who find themselves "stuck" in life are vaguely aware that fear is responsible for holding them back. Whether it's a fear of intimacy, mortality, success, or failure, the majority of us experience an inhibiting fear at some point in our lives. Naming these fears and examining them is critical to becoming aware of and, eventually, overcoming them. Life Unlocked - by Srinivasan S. Pillay, MD - draws from cutting-edge research in human psychology and neuroscience to illuminate the ways in which fear applies a brake to our movement through life.

Informed by the latest breakthroughs in brain imaging and psychiatry, Dr. Pillay offers readers an enlightening understanding of how our brains work and physically process feelings of fear and anxiety. Based on this research, and his extensive clinical experience with patients, Dr. Pillay has developed 7 essential lessons to help move people past their fears:

1. What you don't know can hurt you
2. Dread is not something you feel; it is something you attend to
3. If it's hard to change, it is not unchangeable
4. We all know that we fear failure, but fear of success is equally relevant
5. Attachments are not just crucial to survival; they affect your physiology
6. Fear-based prejudice may register entirely outside of awareness
7. Trauma can impact the developing brain

In Life Unlocked, Dr. Pillay examines a wide breadth of issues and shares real examples from his practice to show readers that when they are able to move past the things that limit them, they can truly unlock their potential, and their lives.

SRINIVASAN S. PILLAY , MD, serves on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and is the director of the Panic Disorders Research Program at Harvard's McLean Hospital. He lives in Boston.