Let’s go back to the first night your wife told you she wants a divorce. How did you act or what did you do?
You had thoughts racing through your head like, She’s going to take the house. I am going to have to live in an apartment again. She is going to take the kids away from me. Followed by tons of questions that get answered with scary thoughts.
That first night and the rest of the week were pure hell. You were wondering where she was going each night while you stayed home with your mind cranking out thoughts and feeling scared of the future.
Because of that fear, you were not taking action. You sat on the couch and kept thinking of more scenarios that ended in disaster and created more fear and anger and resentment in you. So what do you do? How do you get out of fear so you can take action?
What is fear?
Fear is an emotion and if you look at an emotion wheel you often see that fear is the opposite of love. It is a base emotion that builds other feelings. Fear builds out to be anger, jealousy, resentment, bitterness, anxiety, and more negative feelings all coming from an element of fear.
The thing is when we really look at it fear is us resisting a feeling. We are afraid that we might be humiliated. we fear being called out and feeling like an imposter. We fear the emotions that may rise up if we are rejected. We avoid it because the feeling might be unpleasant. However, emotions are nothing more than a vibration we feel throughout our bodies. Our life is 50/50 as is.
Why is fear avoided?
It doesn’t feel good. Who wants to be afraid
We want to use fear as an excuse and that’s all it is. A story you are telling yourself.
You living an unintentional life. Brooke calls it a mismanaged mind
Some say that fear is your mind and past experiences telling you that you are in a place that will get you killed. And that isn’t the case at all. Fear is going to happen. Fear is the opposite of love and it destroys. Fear will keep you away from your dreams. Fear will keep you playing small.
All because you are afraid of what someone will think. What someone will say. Or how someone will act. We will tell ourselves all these stories about why something won’t work when we are operating out of fear.
I have written and talked about fear before and needs to be reiterated from time to time. From why fear is actually a compass to what fear means to your goals. There are a lot of thoughts about fear. Fear is what keeps us from finding contentment and fulfillment in our marriage. Why we find ourselves missing opportunities is thanks to fear. It is the 400-pound gorilla in our life.
Fear is an emotion that keeps us from success. However, all of these are invalid reasons. Why? because if you want what you desire you have to pierce that veil of fear. and it actually is a very thin transparent opaque veil. We can’t fully see the other side so we don’t know how hard we need to go at it. what if there is a hole in the floor? Maybe a bear under the table? We don’t know so we had better not try to get to the other side of the veil. Let’s sit here till we have more information. What more info do you need? What you desire is on the other side of that fear. All you have to do is pass through it.
Will it be uncomfortable? oh heck yeah! but that discomfort is the currency for your dreams.
Does fear actually help you? Yes. It keeps you from jumping off a cliff. It keeps you from stepping out in front of the bus. Fear is used by your brain to keep you safe. The problem is that it has overdone it. We are afraid to even try to go for our dreams because we have been told it is hard. We can become horrible monsters when we are faced with fear. Look at the germans from the 20s to the 40s The fear in Germany caused them to actually blame their own shortcomings on a group of people. A madman was able to pour all the fears the bavarian people had into the Jewish population and people turned their brains off and performed the holocaust.
So how do you overcome fear?
You first have to understand what fear is and when you are in a state of fear. This could be a point of inaction or you making excuses. Now, this fear isn’t when you are in a state of panic. Your amygdala has wrenched control away from the thinking part of your mind and you are in Fight flight or freeze. So that is when you need to have your after-action report run.
1) Recognize when you are in fear. Write out all your thoughts you are having about the circumstance you are in doesn’t matter if they are thoughts or feelings just get them all written down.
2) Separate the thoughts from the feelings
3) Examine each thought you had and ask if that is really true. Get to the bottom of why you think that thought. When you understand the why, then you can start to change that thought and be able to move forward
4) If you are feeling fear at the moment allow it to flow through you. Just stop what you doing if you can and just name the feeling and state that is what you are feeling. You can even take the time to describe what you are feeling though out your body.
As you do this you will notice that the feelings are not as intense and they are fading away. Emotions only last about 1-1.5 minutes. The reason you keep feeling fear or other emotions for longer is that you keep having the same thought over and over. Change your thought and you change your results
Now I would like you to do me a favor and write down what it feels like when you are fearful. Describe your fear to me. then send it to me
