Turning fear into favour - Mastering fear for growth

 

·        What is fear?

·        Should we be afraid of fear?

·        Can I use fear instead of being crippled by fear?

·        How can I use fear for my favour?

 

Have you heard the saying, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself?”

After reading this article, you will understand this statement and how to overcome fear. As well as to have a better understanding how to manage your fear emotion and make it work for you.

 

Let’s dive in.

We will never be able to rid ourselves from fear completely. Fear is part of the cycles of life. (i.e. There is no happiness without sadness, there is no courage without fear.)

 

Let’s break down fear a bit.

Fear is an unpleasant emotion/feeling caused by the perceived threat of danger, pain, or harm, real or imagined.

Fear is a response.

Fear is an instinctive response to protect us from a perceived danger.

It is a strong emotional response to a perceived threat or danger.

Danger is real, Fear is a choice

 

Makes sense? Fear is coming from withing, not without. A danger can be on the outside, but does not mean you should feel fear on the inside. In order to be courageous in a dangerous situation, you can not allow fear to overpower you. An example are soldiers or the police. If they were crippled by fear in a dangerous situation, the outcomes would look a lot different.

 

When we say ‘perceived’ threat, it means that there might be a real threat or not, it depends on the meaning we as an individual give it.

For example, some people are afraid of dogs while others are not. The dog fearing person will avoid dogs and trigger a fear response in their body while the dog loving person will not have that fearful response or feelings. The dog stays the same, it’s the meaning we give it that change.

 

Fear is thus a learnt response. We can say, fear is an emotional response due to a mental thought. Can we go as far as to say that fear is a learnt response? Let’s say something happens to you that you do not like and you want to avoid it in the future, like a dog or a type of person, so you teach your body to feel fear in order to avoid the perceived pain(Dog or type of relationship).

 

 

Becoming aware of fear

Fear is an emotion/feeling. When we refuse to feel or acknowledge fear, we suppress it. Supressing any emotion never did us any good, even if it is something we do not like or want to feel. Suppressing fear is like spring loading fear, eventually it will pop up all at once.

 

Here are some questions to become more aware of fear.

·        You do not have to accept fear or let it overpower you, however you must be aware of it, notice it.  Where did it come from?

·        What thoughts created this feeling of fear inside me?

·        Is it necessary to feel it?

·        Is it necessary to allow it to overpower me?

·        What do I rather want to feel and experience?

·        What actions can I take to feel a better emotion that is more aligned with my goals?

·        Do I have clear goals? Not having clearly defined goals and plans tend to lead to fearful and uncertain feelings.)

 

If you can identify the thought that made you feel fear, then you can stop, notice and change the thought.

 

Here is the “stop, drop and roll” of fear.

 

Stop – Stop what you are thinking

Drop – the emotion from your body

Roll – turn the emotions around into a favourable feeling and experience

Remember, thoughts create emotions. Manage tour thoughts and your emotions will be your servants.

 

How can I start to control my fear emotions and thoughts?

 

Train your brain with awareness exercises.

By far one of the best methods is solitude. Briefly, how do solitude work? By sitting alone for 30minutes to an hour in a quiet and undisturbed location and only observing how your body feels. Be aware of it. Use your breathing as a focus point the entire time to bring you back from your thoughts to the present moment of feeling. 

 

When you start noticing thoughts that trigger fear inside you, you are then able to change those thoughts. To what do I change them? You might ask.

To what you really want. That is the reason clearly defined strong goals are so important. If you do not have proper goals, then any fear will overpower you.

After you have identified the fear, create a strategy to change the fearful thoughts to courageous thoughts instead. When that fear thought pops up, immediately change your thoughts to that of your goals, to that what you rather want to experience, and feel your desired emotion instead. It will take work and effort, but the payoff is life changing.

Let say it will take you 6months to make these changes inside you to have no fear for that thought anymore. 6 months sound long, but what is 6 months of the rest of your life? 6 months looking forward is very long, but 6 months looking back after 20 years, is a drop in the ocean.

 

Make the decisions that is important for your future self. Trust the process and enjoy the change.

Your future self will be very grateful.

 

Remember, Fear is a choice, choose wisely how.

 

Live SourceFull

 

Francois