The first step to learning how to overcome fear is to understand that your fear comes from within your own mind - your own thoughts and imagination.
Fear is a thought and emotion based response to a real or perceived threat and it arises from the survival response mechanism within your brain - commonly known as the "fight-or-flight" response - which evolved as a survival mechanism, enable to fast response to life-threatening situations.
Fortunately we are rarely, if ever, facing life-threatening situations therefore your fear based thoughts and emotions are very largely self created and are the results of your imagination focusing on what might happen and not on what will happen.
Definition of fear
The best definition of fear that I have ever heard suggests that fear is:
False
Evidence
Assuming
Reality
At this point we need to make an important distinction between "ordinary" - "everyday" - "normal" irrational fear that we all experience and the intense irrational fear and phobias that some people suffer from dreadfully and that can cause them to lead very restricted lives, and that need specialist professional help and support.
Our primary focus in this article is on the first category of fear that we all experience, but before we move on I want to share 3 tools that I have used and that I have personally found to work in dealing with, and removing, my irrational fears and phobias:
This is also referred to as tapping. You use your fingertips to tap meridian points on your body while thinking of a fear you have and it can alleviate and sometimes get rid of the fear altogether.
Pleased don't dismiss this because it sounds "woo woo" or too "out there" - it does work and there is science behind this technique.
As far I am concerned it cured me of a phobia of blood, needles and injections that regularly used to humiliate me every time I had to have an injection of provide a blood sample and I would collapse involuntarily on the surgery floor! Now, I can just sit there and stay in my seat and chat to the nurse whilst she does what she has to do!
The following 2 techniques are cognitive, but very effective, and both have been around for a long time now to the benefit of many people:
This consists of asking a few simple questions while focusing on your
fear. It’s so simple that I dismissed it several times before taking it
seriously.
The Work is similar to the Sedona method in that it asks questions in a simple but very powerful way. As with the Sedona Method I was initially dismissive of this, but have found it effective.
The best way of becoming aware of your thoughts is mindfulness practice.
How to practice mindfulness?
To make a start with this practice here are 6 basic exercises.
Also, follow these simple instructions for understanding the basics.
After
some practice of mindfulness and with a developing awareness of
previously unconscious thoughts as they arise, three things become
apparent:
1. The repetitive nature of these thoughts - they are rather like a tape loop.
2. The triggers that give rise to these thoughts - such as: tiredness, stress, emotional vulnerability, other people, the media, circumstances and temperament.
3. The energetic states associated with these repetitive negative thoughts create repetitive negative results.
Not only are your thoughts largely unconscious but they are also repetitive, and the practice of mindfulness will help you to see this.
However you will frequently become so caught up in your thoughts that you become identified with your thoughts and the accompanying emotional states.
Here are a 3 key steps to understanding this and helping you to realise and, more importantly, experience that:
Building on this, you need to develop a good working relationship with your mind and the various selves [or parts of you] that make up the whole.
Here are 4 sets of tools that each work with one or more areas of our whole self:
(1) Energy Tools - that work with and through our higher self
(2) Cognitive Tools - that work through our conscious self
(3) Programming Tools - that work with our unconscious selves
(4) Big Mind Tools - that work with the whole self
These 4 sets of tools work with one or more areas of your whole self and will enable you to continue:
A Personal Invitation
There is a large amount of very practical and proven resources within both of these articles and very specifically the 4 sets of tools.
If you are serious about
dealing with the fears that are holding you back, and stopping you
achieving your goals, and becoming the person you want to become, then I
urge you to take the time and read and apply this material.
The internet is awash with articles on how to overcome fear and think and act positively. There are so many good pieces offering any number of tactics for showing you how to overcome fear.
I am not dismissive of all this material as much of it is useful, but in my view, very little of it addresses the critical dimension of energy.
I have covered all this in depth in a number of other articles but in summary we live in an energetic universe [this is backed by current scientific understanding] and this universe is not neutral it is a participatory universe [this is consistent with and totally supported by science but not yet 100% proven].
In what I am about to say now I am NOT regurgitating the "woo woo" hyperbole and nonsense of what has been claimed about the law of attraction, rather just re-iterating some fundamental perspectives that follow on from the understanding [or working hypothesis if you prefer] of the nature and dynamics of living in and being part of an energetic universe.
Each of the following articles sets out perspectives and resources that will help you understand [and change] how you are consciously, or more likely unconsciously, allowing your fears to cause you to damage yourself, and your experience/results in life, and in more ways that perhaps you currently realise.
Secret Of Success - Identify Your Core Desire
Your Point Of Focus - Is Helping You Or Hindering You
The Power Of Framing And Why It Matters
The Power Of GratitudeIf you are wondering why I am adopting such a passionate stance on this dimension of how to overcome fear it is because I have wasted so much time, energy and resource going round in self defeating circles; because of my failure to realise the importance of understanding and working with the energy dimension!
If this article helps just one reader actually take this material on board and apply it, then it will have been worth the couple of hours it took me to post this article and the 40+ years of going round in circles to learn it.
Free Download: One Page Summary Sheet With Action Points & Resources
Return from "How To Overcome Fear" to: Renewing Your Mind
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