Fear has been a common emotion this year. I’m sure we can all recall a time in the recent months where we were experiencing fear. Although we all would classify fear as a “bad” emotion or low vibration emotion, we don’t need to avoid it. We often qualify emotions as “bad” and either try to avoid them, deny them or beat ourselves up for feeling them. However, all the human emotions are not only “not bad” but are necessary to experience the full human experience. Fear is definitely a necessary emotion as it is our internal warning system when we could be in danger. Our mind is wired to protect us from harm … whether that harm is real or perceived.
I feel strongly that fear can sometimes lead us to be clouded in our judgment (more easily influenced by others opinions), miss out on opportunities and keep ourselves small.
Fear is a necessary emotion but it doesn’t have to define our existence or control our decision making. We can check in with the fear, determine the level of actual threat and then proceed with action.
So what do we do when fear is creeping into our lives?
Below are some strategies for addressing fear and moving through it …
Mindfulness
Mindfulness can be the number one strategy for any situation. What it basically speaks to is our ability to slow down, tune in and raise our awareness of our environment, our bodies and/or our emotional state. There is significant power in being able to recognize our emotional state in the moment and just observe without judgement. Practice recognizing and just observing the feelings that are arising. When you are aware of the feeling that is arising then you will be able to address it more quickly and appropriately.
2. 5 Second Rule (5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ….)
(Mel Robbins) This strategy can be applied to many different situations. When we are experiencing fear we can often “freeze” and be stuck. In this case, when we have become mindful and recognized the fear we can use this strategy to help move forward. To implement this strategy you simply need to begin counting backwards from 5. This will switch your brain out of the ineffective emotional state and activate the decision-making pre-frontal cortex.
3. Curiosity
When fear comes into our lives sometimes we can be easily overwhelmed by it and blinded by it. Once we have recognized the fear through mindfulness and utilized the 5 second rule to switch on our pre-frontal cortex, now we are ready to use a cognitive strategy to work through the fear. One such strategy could be to open ourselves up to curiosity around the situation. Rather than reacting with fear, maybe we can use curiosity. Consider asking questions such as: I wonder why this is happening this way? I wonder if it was supposed to happen exactly this way? I wonder what I can learn from this situation? I wonder if things will actually be better after this has passed?
4. Opportunity
Another strategy that can help when in a state of fear can be approaching the situation by considering what opportunity lies ahead. When our fear comes in around going down a new path, chasing a dream or putting ourselves in any type of situation where we are vulnerable, we can reframe our mindset to look for the opportunities that could be. Rather than staying in a mindset where we are letting our fears skew us towards the anxiety based “what-ifs” we can switch to the opportunity based “what-ifs”. Instead of asking … “What if I fail?” consider “What if I succeed?” Instead of “What if no one likes my work?” try “What if my work is what everyone has been waiting for?” Instead of “What if I’m not good enough?” ask “What if I am great?”
- Amanda