5 Tips to Help in Your Battle Against Fear
What I’ve learned in my own battle against fear.
There’s a lot that holds us back in life. But fear, in my opinion, is the most common. It’s also very difficult to get rid of. It’s such an instinctual thing, an old neural relic that is too important to ever fully throw away. We can only try to manage it as best we can.
I try to manage my fears. Everyday, I try to unlearn what my mind fears. With every fearful thought that comes up I counter it with an opposing, positive perspective. It helps, but I often wonder if it will ever feel permanent. I must admit though, it sometimes feels hopeless, like I’m using a rubber eraser on a stone carving. I know it’s possible, but the task, of upending my thought processes and replacing it, is so arduous and daunting at times.
These thoughts were my mind’s way of protecting me, back when this was the most advantageous strategy, but now it’s just a hindrance, a burden. It’s happening right now as I write this. I feel fear as I’m writing this and my thoughts are beginning to swirl. It’s all preventing me from writing, that’s the goal of this automatic response. But why? What about writing is making my mind view it as a threat, as something to avoid, when writing is something I want to do?
Oftentimes what you’re actually afraid of isn’t what’s staring directly at you, but rather the risk or implication of it. It’s not that I’m afraid of writing, I’m afraid of failure. I’m afraid of not being good enough. I’m afraid of expressing myself. Along the way, throughout my life, I picked up these fears and they became a part of me. I never noticed how it restricted me from so many things, until I tried to step outside of my comfort zone and expand, then suddenly the cozy space I made for myself felt so tight and hideous.
I won’t pretend to have all the answers about a battle I’m still fighting, but I suppose I can offer whatever I can. In my own experience maneuvering through paralyzing thought spirals, I figured out a few things that helped me so I’ll pass them on to you.
Note: These are just suggestions derived from my own experiences, they’re not meant to treat professionally diagnosed phobias. Those are more serious and if you have a phobia you should seek the care of a professional, but you are welcome to read on if you wish.
Don’t Have Too High Expectations for Your Progress
I’d say one of the ways I set myself up for failure while on this path of conquering my fears, was putting way too many expectations on my journey. If you’ve ever struggled with perfectionism, you’ll probably relate to this. I allowed myself to get mentally and emotionally invested in a very particular version of how I wanted this to go, and how fast things progressed. But this version I conjured up was unrealistic, and it came from a place of needing to be exceptional so I could feel worthy.
Filtering any attempt at self-growth through toxic thought patterns will never be productive. Be aware and take heed of any problematic thoughts that may not be related to your fears, but may affect your mental and emotional state as you progress on your journey. It’s important to be aware of how you treat yourself when you fail, or when something goes wrong. Do you tend to beat yourself up? Are you too hard on yourself? It’s not productive to make yourself feel like crap. If you have a tendency to be overly hard on yourself, ease up. Failure is a part of the process, you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re learning and growing.
One of the most beneficial things we can learn in life is how to forgive ourselves for the mistakes we make. It’s something that is often overlooked but so important. On a journey like this you need to be your own cheerleader. When life feels particularly dark and gloomy, hope is something we give ourselves.
Make A Safe Space For Yourself
It’s pretty much guaranteed that at some point on this journey, you will fail. Something will go wrong, the ground will give way beneath you and you will need a safe place to land. Make a “landing” strategy. A strategy for how you will deal with the little moments of uncertainty, and the big moments that stop you in your tracks. Ask yourself how you will best nurse yourself back to ground, back to center.
When I need to reorient myself after any mental or emotional hit, I pause and check in with what thoughts come up to make sure they aren’t negative or unhelpful. If you’re a spiritual person you can lean on your faith if it feels right. If you retreat to your room to process the stresses of the day, think about anything you can add that can make it a more relaxing environment. Scented candles or incense are a good choice. If you live with noisy people and need silence, earplugs would be a good investment too. You can be as creative as you want. The idea is to make an environment that is conducive to your mental, and also physical needs.
Be sure to look at your habits and routine. Are you eating healthy? Do you get enough sleep? How often do you exercise? These things may not be directly linked to your fears, but they can indirectly affect them. Having a healthy routine can help you stay consistent with your self improvement goals. Exercise and proper sleep contribute to a cheerful mood and positive brain health, which contributes to your overall well being.
It’s not just about making your environment into a safe place, your body, through nurture and care, should be a safe place too.
Get to Know Your Fear
Get to know your fears on a deep level. I think when you’re in a struggle with anything in life, one of the best ways to learn how to overcome it, is to know your opponent inside and out, because only then will you be in the best position to develop an effective strategy against it. At face value, it seems like a straight thing, but this can be a lengthy process. It requires a lot of self-reflection and awareness of your whole body, not just mental.
Try to go back to when the fear started, if you don’t remember it’s fine. Be mindful of what happens when the fear is triggered. What thoughts follow? Where does the stream of thoughts lead? What is the result? Is it a lack of action, avoidance? Think about why your mind is making you avoid this fear. Is it for protection? Protection from what?
Most of the engrained fears we have in life are from past experiences of pain (mental, emotional or physical) that left a mark on us that was significant enough for our minds to feel a need to develop ways to protect us from experiencing that pain again. It’s a defense mechanism.
I’ve always had issues with expressing myself. It made me feel very vulnerable, like I was open for an attack. Eventually I realized that this originated in my early childhood where oftentimes I was reprimanded or yelled at for expressing myself. I developed a lot of issues around not feeling validated when communicating, devaluing what I say and not expressing how I feel. Knowing this, I can now tailor my strategy around tackling these things specifically. Developing self-validation, not relying on others’ validation to communicate confidently, reminding myself that what I have to say has value. Because I have a deeper understanding of my fears, I can give myself the right affirmative thoughts.
It’s in our early years where our minds write the narrative of our lives and ourselves, but that narrative isn’t always influenced by the most positive experiences. Learning about your fears can give you more compassion for why they exist in the first place, and helps you approach it from a positive place of love. Journaling can help a lot with the self-reflection process. It’s a great way to explore your fears further. Try to do it regularly and remember to be patient with yourself.
Do The Thing
This next one is probably the most obvious, most difficult, and also the most necessary. At the end of the day, the goal of all of this is to be able to do the thing that we are afraid to do, to conquer our fear. So that means, we must do the thing we don’t want to do. I know, I cringed and rolled my eyes at the thought too, but it’s such a vital step, because all the other steps won’t really work as well if you don’t do what you’re afraid of.
By exposing yourself to the fear, you will feel uncomfortable, yes, but you need to feel that in order to learn to cope and then overcome those feelings. Your mind believes that it won’t be okay if you do X, but if you do X and show your mind that actually we’re fine and we can do this, the narrative begins to change, the brain realizes, “oh, I don’t need those old neural pathways after all. Let me make some new ones.” The process is more complicated and will probably be long and arduous depending how serious the fear is, but the result will be invaluable.
Know When To Seek Help
A lot of what I’ve talked about so far is are things you can do on your own, but just because you can do it on your own doesn’t mean you should. It always helps to have someone in your corner who you trust. Think of a person you can open up to about your fears and your self-improvement goals, they can be a good support system for you when you fumble and need a little encouragement. They can also be a good objective voice to bring you down to earth or point out something you hadn’t seen before.
Also, if you feel at any point that things are getting unmanageable and you are seriously struggling with your mental health, do not hesitate to reach out to a professional about how you’re feeling. There are some problems that are too big for any of us to manage on our own and that’s okay.
As someone who’s been on this path for quite some time, I can tell you that it’s not easy. It takes consistency and it can be frustratingly repetitive at times, but it does get better. Even with the experience I’ve gained I still feel like a student and that’s something I, and I hope you, don’t ever lose, because once you’ve decided that there’s nothing left for you to learn, you stop growing as a person. And if you stop growing as a person, you’re limiting yourself.
I hope this has helped you and I hope you approach whatever journey you’re on with openness and optimism.
