Have you seen any one talking about fears who are pursuing bigger dreams and purpose? Of course, everyone feels the fear unless the person is a psychopath or really elevated “yogi”. But the point is when you have a bigger cause (most often beyond your benefit) then fears can’t stop them. Why? Because the benefits of your purpose outweigh too much the fears you experience. That’s why great leader in field are not worried about fears. Their purpose is beyond fears and pains.
Romance with Fear - NeoStrategy - Page 3
Lesson Nine: Solution 5- Love is the Antidote to Fear
Does this statement look like a cliché? What is opposite of Fear? It is not courage. It is love. If you have pure love or passion towards anything then there is no room for fear. Let’s say some one comes and tells you that they are starting a new venture or new career then if you do not have same level of passion for it then your mind will come up with all kinds risks, problems, pains, etc.. Why it so? Because you do not love as much as other person is loving his/her pursuit. Start loving your pursuit and increase it gradually until you are really in love with it. But if you say it is difficult to build love when there is no love at all then it is not worth pursuing it.
Lesson Eight: Solution 4- Get Comfortable with Pain
Actually, the title of this solution should be “GET COMFORTABLE with FEAR” but I chose to call it as “GET COMFORTABLE with PAIN” for a reason. When you experience any fear it creates some kind of emotional discomfort/pain. And this pain is what will make you hold back. So, if you can manage this pain then you will be able to move forward and the fear will lose its strength and it would disappear. But if you have less threshold limit for pain then you would back out immediately and run away. This is what is called as “flight or fight” response. You will get into fight mode if you have high level pain threshold otherwise into flight.
Even though I wrote very high information about Meditation as the # 1 solution for conquering fear, I think most successful people in any field manage their fears by dealing with the pain very well. They would have mastered on dealing with pain. They are really comfortable with pain! You would have heard about “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. Many successful people do this either unconsciously or consciously.
How to get comfortable with pain ?. Simply practice. Whatever activity you do in daily routine increase the intensity to a level where you experience the pain. It could be in your physical exercise, work, live in discomfort condition or deal with anything that you don’t like !!. This principle is very much applied in physical fitness training and many other mental fitness related areas. Remember your mind always look for pleasure so watch out for the story it will tell you before you give up !!
Lesson Seven: Solution 3- Build Optimism
At the base level fear is nothing but negative thinking. Our minds would have accumulated lots and lots of negative thoughts throughout the years. For many people the default mode of thinking would have been ‘negative’. What this means is that you naturally think negatively about any situation or event. Your brain’s neural pathways are wired to think negatively. Your brain might have the predisposed mode of negative thinking or through the accumulation of events and your way of interpretations (negatively) your brain would have reached to the default negative mode. So, what is the solution and how can you re-wire your brain to change the default negative mode to positive mode? It is very simple solution and but requires very good amount of effort to change the mode and you need lot of will power and persistence.
For 7 continuous days, you think only positive thoughts irrespective of what and how the situation is. Remember this must be continuous. Even if you think one negative thought then you have to re-start 7 days’ process again. This is not very easy process given the amount of negative thought we have been thinking throughout our life. It is almost like you have to undo those many number of thoughts with positive thoughts (not necessarily exact number). Good news is this is very much doable. You most probably will fail many times and you have to re-start many times but it is really worth doing it. There are tons of benefits in thinking positively and we all know the benefits and I don’t need to write about them here again. The main key take away for you should be – you need to be aware that your brain takes over to negative thinking without much of your control unless you consciously change the default negative mode to positive mode.
Also, after you successfully convert into positive mode be watchful about negatives news and negative people. Try avoiding negativity and move with most optimistic people. You have to keep accumulating positive energy. It is very easy to get into negative loop and your brain might get good entertainment in accumulating negative things since it has the deep habit of negativity. You have to be extra cautious to all these things. In reality , there is very high probability that you get into negative thinking from any stressful events. Once in while you might have repeat the positive thinking exercise to cleanse any short term accumulated negative thinking.
Lesson Six: Solution 2- Mindfulness
In the previous blog, I wrote about Meditation. In this blog, I want to discuss on our solution # 2 -Mindfulness. Most often Meditation and Mindfulness are used very interchangeable. Even though it is very much interlinked I think there is a difference in terms of how they practiced and implemented. Meditation is something you practice for some duration of time while Mindfulness is something you have to be Mindful of whatever you do in yours awaken hours.
If you google on “Mindfulness” you will get tons of articles on benefits of Mindfulness. This is talk about in all most all areas of life – health, sports, management, leadership, personal productivity, psychology and spirituality (of course), even for criminals (to change them) etc. Living in present moment and being in mindfulness is the ultimate solution for majority of human problems not just for facing fears. But then why this is not taken as major solution. Because this feels very bland and boring.
I am not going to talk about all the beautiful benefits of Mindfulness here.
So our topic -How Mindfulness will help in conquering Fear? Most often fear is an anticipated thing in the future or past memory. Normally, mind has a great tendency to either dig in the past or think about the future. So, if you want to eliminate the feeling about a fear then you need to stay present. When you stay present you will be able to clearly feel the emotions, thoughts and self-talk. Once you start practicing this over and over again most often you will realize that some standard script is running your mind that is making you fearful. Also, when you are in the present moment your creative expression kicks in then automatically you will become solution focused rather than fear focused.
The concept of Mindfulness is difficult to make you understand unless you practice it consciously. Start practicing Mindfulness for one full day and see the difference. The most fears you experience will diminish because you are not thinking about past or future. Take one fear you currently have and try to experience it mindfully and you will see the magic.
Lesson Five: Solution 1– Meditation
We all know meditation is good. Very basic thing right and especially if you are from India then we know this stuff very well (really?) but we don’t take this as seriously as some of the western countries and neuroscience research is taking.
First, thing we need to understand is Meditation is very scientific. This is not a mumbo jumbo thing. We discussed in the earlier blog about “Amygdala” which is the fear center in the brain. And to reduce the fear response in your body you need to reduce the size of the Amygdala. Let’s say if you a have weaker heart or lung then doctor will suggest you to do the cardio exercise so, that your heart and lungs becomes stronger. Similarly, to reduce the size of the Amygdala you have to do meditation. As per I know this is the only main solution to reduce the size. Only a decade ago neuro scientists have found out that the brain also can change. This was contrary to the earlier notion of your brain wiring is fixed for rest of the life. The ability of brain to rewire itself is called “neuro plasticity”.
Here is the article from Scientific American on research findings.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/what-does-mindfulness-meditation-do-to-your-brain/
“MRI scans show that after an eight-week course of mindfulness practice, the brain’s “fight or flight” center, the amygdala, appears to shrink. This primal region of the brain, associated with fear and emotion, is involved in the initiation of the body’s response to stress.
As the amygdala shrinks, the pre-frontal cortex – associated with higher order brain functions such as awareness, concentration and decision-making – becomes thicker”.
Convinced? OK. Next time don’t look at meditation as if it is for someone in caves. Many successful people from every field practice regular mediation as part of their daily ritual. You will be surprised to find the names of the people who does regular practice. Go and search.
Apart from the change in Amygdala, through meditation you would experience the positive emotions. Positive emotions you would experience would be happiness, calm, empathy and love. These positive emotions automatically nullify any negative and fear related emotions. So with meditation you get both physical side of the benefits as well the emotional side.
You can find lots of courses and apps on meditation. You can choose what works for you. But try experimenting for a week and see the difference in your life.
Lesson Four: Solutions to Face your Fears
Before we look at different solutions to facing your fears, let us understand the exact science first – It all starts from the brain!!.
When you feel the fear, your brain’s “Amygdala” gets activated. As soon as Amygdala receives this fear feeling it activates different responses in the body – increased heart rate, shallow breathing, sweating, high blood pressure, etc. Amygdala looks like almond shape with in the brain. The function of Amygdala is to detect fear and make you prepared. The amount fear you experience typically depends upon the size of the Amygdala. Bigger the size the bigger the fear one will face. There are some people who are born with smaller Amygdala and these are the people who are very brave, high risk takers and into many adventurous things in life. The smaller the size lesser the feeling of fear.
It is very important that we should understand this physical aspect before we dwell into solutions to conquer fear. Also, it is very easy to tell other people that be brave, you can do anything, face the fear, etc. But if you don’t understand the science behind it, it is very difficult to conquer your fears. This is the precise reason why just motivational stuff does not work when it comes to conquering your fears.
So, what is the solution? The solution is – reduce the size of Amygdala so that you experience less fear or eliminate the fear. How to do this?
I had started reading different books on this topic and done lot of my own thinking, experimentation and analysis. Below are 25 different ways you can conquer your fears and start to romance with them. Few of the solutions like meditation, mindfulness, etc are very very effective solutions. But not every one might be ready to take this path. Solution depends upon the level of awareness and person’s readiness to try.
MEDITATION
LIVE IN PRESENT MOMENT
BUILD OPTIMISM
BECOME COMFORTABLE WITH PAIN
LOVE IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR FEAR
LIVE FOR BIGGER CAUSE/PURPOSE
ELIMINATE ROOT BELIEF
LIVE YOUR CORE VALUES
BE YOURSELF
FACE ONE FEAR EVERY DAY
VISUALIZATION
DEEP BREATHING
BUILD PHYSICAL STAMINA
EXPERIENCE FEAR IN DETAIL
ACTION IS ANTIDOTE FOR FEAR
CBT (COGINITIVE BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY)
PERSONAL COACHING
RUB SHOULDERS WITH BRAVE HEARTS
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER – STUDY DEEP ABOUT YOUR FEAR
JOURNALING
STRONG FAITH IN GOD/INVISIBLE FORCE
RE-WRITE YOUR STORY
RE-FRAMING
TAKE OWN DECISIONS
SEPARATE YOURSELF FROM YOUR BODY
There is no specific order here based on any criteria. But I wanted to provide here comprehensive list of possible solutions. In the next few blogs I will talk about some of the very powerful and effective solutions out of this list.
Which of these solutions you typically use? Or you may have some other solution you use.
Lesson Three: Different Types of Fears
For the purpose of our context let us understand that there are differences between Phobia vs Fear vs etc. We can keep Phobias out of this discussion. Some of the phobias might not be really impacting your day to day living. For e.g phobia about Spiders etc. You can check here the Top 100 Phobias. http://www.fearof.net/. Very interesting list.
Coming to different types of FEARS. There might be hundreds and thousands of fears exist. We mostly deal with these Top 10 fears. http://listverse.com/2011/09/30/top-10-strong-human-fears/. Interestingly, you see fear in Failure being the top of the list. This is exactly the reason many people are scared to take decisions and try new things. What really happens when you try new thing? In the worst case you might fail. What happens when you fail – it creates pain. But your mind never wants to experience any pain and it always wants pleasure. Get comfortable with pain and when you live in the present moment you will be able to notice pain as normal experience. You will also realize that as part of the nature’s complimentary nature pain and pleasure are part of the deal. You can’t really avoid one thing and try to get other thing.
Going back to the list of fears. Some of the top 10 fears are as follows. Not in any order.
Fear of Death
Fear of Failure
Fear of Disease
Fear of Rejection
Fear of possessions
Fear of unknown
Fear of losing freedom
Fear of Loneliness
Fear of Pain
Fear of Criticism
Let’s closely analyze all these FEARS. What are you noticing in all these? For me, all these looks like losing some thing. It can be anything. I can be losing life, respect, security, money, safety, comfort, pleasure, etc. So, fear is nothing but losing some thing. What happens when we lose some thing? It creates pain. Your brain does not want to experience pain. So, the bottom line is we need to get comfortable with pain. But how can we get comfortable with Pain? And why should we get comfortable with pain? Isn’t life about happiness? This is where the secret lies. If you live life the way we life should be live then, you would automatically experience the bliss. But, if you are just only focused on getting happiness then you would avoid all kinds of pains and fears and eventually you only experience very limited level of happiness.
I will talk about 25 different solutions which will help you to romance with your fears.
Lesson Two: Origins of Fear
If you believe Darwin’s theory, then you know we have evolved from animals. Fear has been protecting us since our animal life to save us from any threats from other animals etc. Even if you don’t believe Darwin theory, I hope you understand that Fear as an emotion has been built in as a protective mechanism. I also believe that like any other memory in our brain the fear got deep rooted in our brains from the beginning. Here is the biggest evolutionary gap between brain’s own evolution and how we moved ahead in life from animal age to information age. Brain still trying to act as if we have life threats from other animals. This is the reason even for non-life threatening events it operates as life threatening manner – high heart beats, shallow breathing and sweating, etc.
Our brain is a very sincere organ and try to sincerely protect us. But we need to educate and tell our brain that we don’t have any life-threatening situation (unless it is really so). How do we educate our brain? There are many solutions to do this. I will cover these under the solution section.
So, hopefully by now you really understand that most of the FEARS are really just to protects from potential threats. And most of the not really life threatening. This protective mechanism is the one that is really not allowing us live the life we want to live and we continue to operate still in the same old animal life.
Now let us understand little more details on different types of FEARS.
Lesson One: Why do you need to romance with Fear?
If we go and search for “different types of emotions” then we probably get list of 50+ emotions and some times it can be more. You would see different names like fear, jealousy, anger, frustration, love, joy, happiness, caring, courage, etc. and we may overwhelm with all these names and jargon. Give a deep thought and look at all these emotions. Did you find any pattern in these emotions? I believe there are only two broad categories of emotions. One is positive and other is negative. In my categorization, I would call them as love and fear. Now take any of the emotion and see if you agree with this segregation. For e.g. take anger. When do you get anger? You get anger some one hurts or violates your value or expectation. You feel that someone is taking something from you. That is losing something – nothing but fear of losing something. And take another example. Let’s say caring. What is caring? Caring is giving something. You give when you love. Convinced?
I will make up some simple formula here. Life = Love + Fear. Assume Love is always positive and Fear is a negative integer. So, if you want to have happier life then you know what you need to have more and have less. Yes, that’s correct. More love and less fear. Then you might think why I am writing about Fear instead I could have written about Love. The reason is very simple. If I would have put the title as “How to have more Love” then your brain would think some other blah blah stuff. It is very like headlines in the newspaper. If main page has a headline called “today, we are going to have major storm” then you will immediately read and start discussing about it. Human minds are more keen towards negative things. This is the default mode that came from animal survival background.
So, coming back why we need to learn, master and romance with FEAR? because this is the emotion that will drive you down in your life. For most people fear is most dominant emotion that drives their lives. Because fear is what will block us sucking the juice out of life. This is what will not allow you to take decisions, actions, change, explore life and live your dream life. We have lot of stories and names to cover this emotion but bottom line is it is the fear that is stopping to move forward anything in your life. Worth exploring this emotion deeper and try to dance and romance with it?
