There isn’t a person alive who doesn’t experience fear.
As a coach and teacher who has had the privilege of working fairly intimately with hundreds of people over the years, I get to witness the positive and negative effects of fear first-hand. Being able to experience and move past fear, nervousness, self-doubt and worry is a skill most of us could become much better at. When we successfully manage our fears we live courageously, make good decisions, participate fully in relationships and enjoy a fulfilling life. And we feel good about ourselves!
Yet if our fear isn’t addressed and well-managed, especially with the pace and complexity of modern life, it can easily become chronic anxiety with debilitating health, wellbeing and social impacts. Anxiety disorders have become the most common illnesses in Australia and the western world. According to Beyond Blue in Australia now one in every three women and one in every five men will experience anxiety – as will one in every six young people aged 16-24. That’s pretty staggering when you think about it.
So what exactly is fear? We know about the ‘genuine form’ of fear. It’s one of the four primary human emotional states along with happiness/pleasure, sadness and anger. Fear’s job is to let us know when things aren’t ‘quite right’, to guide us to be safe and to look after ourselves. Like making us wait on the kerb so we don’t cross the road in front of traffic. Healthy fear enables us to make good practical choices for how to live. Fear also has what I’ll call a ‘lesser form’ that causes us the most problems. These subtler, more common fears come in the form of niggling worries, self-doubt, negativity, criticism and even procrastination. They are fears that we ‘perceive’ to be true, yet aren’t.
Things like: fear of speaking-up worrying about what other people think fear of being rejected or not liked fear of failing fear of not being good enough fear of not being able to cope. Which ones do you relate most to? The impact of these lesser fears accumulates and puts us in a state of stagnation, confusion, defensiveness or makes us feel like we’re just surviving – none of which are helpful in the long-run. They keep us stuck from taking healthy risks and meaningful steps forward in our personal or professional lives – and prevent us from being the person we’d really like to be or from living the life we’d rather be living. When we take a closer look at our lesser fears we find they’re actually not that accurate, big or scary, its just that we’ve believed them and built-them-up to be that way. More on that later. Mindfulness and breaking down fear.
If we break-down each fear experience it actually has two components: a thinking or story component; as well as an energetic component of felt sensations in the body. Most often we pay too much attention to (and get lost in) our ‘story’ and not enough attention to simply ‘feeling’ the raw bodily sensations of our fear. By developing mindfulness or self-awareness we get much better at being with our fears as a way of releasing them. Again, more on that later. Fear also also tends to be a rather slippery emotion. Sometimes it hides beneath sadness or anger or even beneath the surface of our conscious awareness. We might strategically bypass or deny our fear but nonetheless it goes about sabotaging us and prevents us from being happy, without us even being aware of it. We all have the capacity to see through and overcome our fears. It’s about putting fear into a healthy perspective, learning to be brave, putting into place helpful skills and practices and believing in your ‘best’ self. How?
These five approaches will get you on your way.n1. Understand that the root-cause of fear is your mind.
At its fundamental level, the root-cause of fear is over-identification with the egoic mind (as well as the limbic system that controls our emotions). We believe that we ARE our thoughts or emotions. We believe (and give unnecessary power to) the negative stories and self-beliefs that we tell ourselves. We lose the ability to see ourselves beyond our thoughts. Know that there is an aspect of you that is not fearful, an aspect that is beyond fear and doubt. Although it might be awkward or challenging at first, learn to get in touch with and experience this part of yourself. Take three deep breaths to relax and begin to notice yourself as the ‘aware presence’ that just witnesses your fearful thoughts and emotions – that part of you that is free and beyond the fear itself. (If you’re having trouble relating to what I’m saying, don’t worry, just keep reading because one of the other approaches will probably resonate more for you!)
2. RAIN – recognise and accept yourself as you are.
The RAIN approach, developed by psychologist and teacher Tara Brach, is a simple way of befriending and overcoming all sorts of emotional states including fear. It reminds us that all emotional states are temporary, they come and they go if we give them the chance to do so. The power of this step-by-step approach is in accepting yourself just as you are and showing self-compassion. Recognize what is going on. You might say to yourself: ‘right now I am scared’ or ‘right now I am feeling anxious’.
Allow the experience to be there, just as it is. There’s no need to change anything.
Investigate with interest and care. Become curious about what’s going on inside you. Observe your thoughts and the sensations in your body. Nourish with self-compassion. Go gently with yourself in the process. Treat yourself kindly. Let go of expectations and judgments.
3. Adopt a life-long mindfulness practice – how yoga and meditation helps overcome fear.
Begin a regular yoga and/or meditation practice and stick with it over a number of years to experience its full fear-busting benefits. Yoga involves working mindfully with the body and the breath to enhance and balance our flow of energy. When we practice authentic yoga regularly over a period of time our energy flow increases and we become more and more attuned to noticing and accepting all of the various sensations, thoughts and emotions that dwell within us in any given moment. For example, we might notice when we become scared before attempting a new yoga posture. Our yoga teacher is there to gently encourage us to safely ‘feel and meet’ this fear rather than running from it, denying it or indulging in it.
Despite the fear, we give the posture our best and be happy with our efforts. A similar process happens in meditation. We train ourselves to be mindful, to focus and notice things that arise in us moment by moment. If fear or self-doubt arises we learn to gently ‘be’ with it and to give it time to dissolve. Over time as we become more skilled we become better able to experience fear and its impacts on us tend to lessen. By applying these skills we learn in yoga and meditation we become skillful in overcoming fears in our daily life. And when we stop resisting feeling fear, we give ourselves the opportunity to open to the deeper peace and joy that’s naturally within us. This is the ultimate goal of yoga and meditation.
According to Yoga Australia the peak professional body for yoga in Australia, there is a growing number of scientific studies that confirm the evidence of yoga and meditation’s positive health and wellbeing benefits on anxiety.
4. Get support with therapy or coaching.
When we are facing our fears we are really confronting ourselves. Getting the support and confidence of someone else is crucial if you are really serious about overcoming your fears – I know that I would not be who or where I am today if it wasn’t for the valuable support of both professions at different stages of my personal growth. I truly believe that it takes the support of someone else to allow us to grow into our fullest potential.
A good psychologist or therapist will support you to understand and be with your fear and anxiety. A good life coach or executive coach specialising in mindfulness will also help you to deepen your self-awareness, identify your unique vision, values and goals and take meaningful steps to move you forwards. Both professions will teach you invaluable skills that you can adopt and master for happier everyday living.
5. Choose LOVE over fear.
The opposite of fear is love. Fear cannot exist where there is love. By this I mean seeing the goodness in life and adopting the attitude, confidence and trust that life is ‘for us’ instead of ‘against us’. Choosing to live from a place of love means that you are ruthlessly committed to creating and finding goodness, hope, peace and harmony in yourself, in others and in the world – as opposed to competition, blaming, one-up-manship and the need to prove oneself – which are all fear-based. Love opens and expands. Love is courageous. Love is strength. Choosing love evokes our greatest human and spiritual potential.
Choosing love is however not for the faint hearted, but it is powerful beyond words! I recommend books and talks by empowering spiritual teachers/leaders such as Michael Beckwith, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Tara Brach and Marianne Williamson – and I’m sure there are others. Embracing life and overcoming fear are one and the same. At Momentum Coaching & Yoga we stand for, honour and support the best, most courageous and most loving version of you – always.
With love,
Natalie
