Doing some stumbling around online today I came across this fascinating little list over at PhobiaGuide.Com of all the different shapes and sizes our fears take. Hundreds of different kinds of ways to recoil from the world around us have been written about and catagorized. It seems strange to me that the worlds drug companies haven't invented the 'anti-fear' pill yet. there is a massive market cornered mostly by psychiatrists and self help gurus (not to mention religion) sulking around waiting to be prescribed the cure. Well I for one am still hopeful. Maybe in another couple years, but in the mean time, while I'm waiting for the singularity to hit, we need some practical suggestions on dealing with fear now.
If You're a little bit of a self-improvement junkie like I am, then You've read all kinds of different, and often conflicting views on dealing with fears and keeping life's challenges in a healthy perspective. I break them down into three categories that often overlap, just as a convenient way to organize the different schools of thought.
1. YOU CAN DO IT.!.!
The Idea:
This could also be called the 'be afraid and do it anyway' camp. Characterized by the lack of mental technique besides focusing of awareness, pushing your body through the activity in question with brute force and will-power. RAWGH
This is the school of thought represented by former gym coaches of mine and my parents growing up. Just power your way through. The way to conquer fears is by getting through them. afraid of heights? go skydiving. afraid of sharks? scuba dive. Basic. However when it comes to some more extreme cases, or the existential fears many of us deal with as we come of age. This kind of simple solution might not be enough. "Have a fear of death? try dieing." just doesn't cut it.
This kind of 'right attitude' is an important fundamental building block toward a more fearless self but some fears are going to take something more.
2. Body Language/NLP
The Idea
If you've never heard of NLP, its really a large topic that would take up more than just one article. For the purposes of dealing with fears though, there are a few interesting things that NLP has to suggest we might find useful. I should say that before I get too into it, I am not a diehard NLP fan, the deeper one gets into NLP the loftier and more difficult to falsify the ideas become. However, I find some of the general principles and ideas underlying NLP to be useful. Tony Robbins is quoted as saying:
We all know that the way we feel and think influences our immune system, our blood pressure, and our brains. We know that when a person is in a bad mood they will display that in their body language and posture. Could it also work the other way around?
Try this experiment: note the way depressed or scared people hold their shoulders, where they cast their gaze, the tone and pacing of their voice. Make a mental note of these. Repeat this process with someone who you know to be genuinely happy, fearless or content in their life. Note their voice, body language, facial expressions etc. Now, whenever you get a moment alone (you don't want to do this with anyone around who might think you're starting to loose it) mimic the body language of the sad person. Maybe say hello or read a bit out loud to yourself in the subjects tone of voice. After about five minutes as this 'character' try being the 'happy person' for a while. Notice the differences made in how you feel, simply by changing your body. For many people its a big suprise to discover that your body responds to how you feel, but how you feel can also be changed by what you do with your body. If you had success at this, try 'modeling' the physical actions of other humans who exhibit fearlessness and joy, whatever that means to you.
Another central technique in NLP for dealing with phobias and irrational fears is identifying the specific sensory modalities at work in a persons mind when they're afraid. For instance, Pete is afraid of flying, he simply can't set foot on a plane. After asking him specifically what goes through his head when the fear hits him, we discover that he envisions the plane divebombing toward the ground and being pinned in his seat as he plummets to his death. Gruesome to be sure.
Now we ask Pete to close his eyes and visualize the plane divebombing, only to consciously do it in black and white, and instead of the noise of the plane or people screaming, were going to ask him to imagine hearing some kind of absurd music, like polka playing in the background. Now if he can hold all this together we see what else Pete can do to basically to scramble the relationship his mind has to these particular images/sounds/feelings that are causing him fear. Another tid bit of information that some NLPers find important is to imagine ones self in the third person when trying to scramble a fear, as opposed to reliving the fear seeing through your own eyes. Again, the peer reviewed research may not back up the totality of the claims made by NLP, but I have found this technique personally useful for simple phobias and basic fears.
3. Mindfulness/Meditation
The last technique I want to discuss comes from a more contemplative/mindfulness based perspective. I hope to go deeper into the philisophical background of meditation, specifically zazen When it comes to dealing with some of the deeper emotional fears in life, i.e. fears over losing a loved one, children, fears of dieing, fears of failure etc. I find mindfulness based awareness to be the most effective way to truly resolve the problem at the root.
The Idea:
Find a comfortable place where you can sit upright, preferably in a position that minimizes the potential for sleep.When practicing meditation or mindfulness, the idea is not to repress thoughts or ideas, but to let them go, simply noticing that you are having a thought but you are not that thought. Noticing the fear arising, and just being with the fear while it stays, then eventually watching the fear as it goes. Where is the fear in your body? is it in the stomach? the chest? do you maybe feel a twitch or some discomfort somewhere? go into these feelings. Don't judge yourself or give yourself a hard time for not being able to hold the mind still. Thats the nature of mind. Just notice the fear, notice it in your body, and hold your focus there just being with the bare sensation of that fear, watching it change with every in breath and out breath. Watching fears come and go, watching joys come and go, but noticing the whole time how your awareness itself is fundamentally unchanged.
This kind of non-grasping awareness takes time and practice, at least twenty minutes a day, but if you can get the hang of it releasing your problems and fears will only be the beginning of your path as a meditator. Here's a great final clip on mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Hope you guys found some of this useful in your path to fearlessness.
1. YOU CAN DO IT.!.!
The Idea:
This could also be called the 'be afraid and do it anyway' camp. Characterized by the lack of mental technique besides focusing of awareness, pushing your body through the activity in question with brute force and will-power. RAWGH
This is the school of thought represented by former gym coaches of mine and my parents growing up. Just power your way through. The way to conquer fears is by getting through them. afraid of heights? go skydiving. afraid of sharks? scuba dive. Basic. However when it comes to some more extreme cases, or the existential fears many of us deal with as we come of age. This kind of simple solution might not be enough. "Have a fear of death? try dieing." just doesn't cut it.
This kind of 'right attitude' is an important fundamental building block toward a more fearless self but some fears are going to take something more.
2. Body Language/NLP
The Idea
If you've never heard of NLP, its really a large topic that would take up more than just one article. For the purposes of dealing with fears though, there are a few interesting things that NLP has to suggest we might find useful. I should say that before I get too into it, I am not a diehard NLP fan, the deeper one gets into NLP the loftier and more difficult to falsify the ideas become. However, I find some of the general principles and ideas underlying NLP to be useful. Tony Robbins is quoted as saying:
'there is no body, only mind' interchangeably with 'there is no mind only body'which is a fancy zennerific way of saying the mind and body are linked. This point seems obvious but many think its a one way street.
We all know that the way we feel and think influences our immune system, our blood pressure, and our brains. We know that when a person is in a bad mood they will display that in their body language and posture. Could it also work the other way around?
Try this experiment: note the way depressed or scared people hold their shoulders, where they cast their gaze, the tone and pacing of their voice. Make a mental note of these. Repeat this process with someone who you know to be genuinely happy, fearless or content in their life. Note their voice, body language, facial expressions etc. Now, whenever you get a moment alone (you don't want to do this with anyone around who might think you're starting to loose it) mimic the body language of the sad person. Maybe say hello or read a bit out loud to yourself in the subjects tone of voice. After about five minutes as this 'character' try being the 'happy person' for a while. Notice the differences made in how you feel, simply by changing your body. For many people its a big suprise to discover that your body responds to how you feel, but how you feel can also be changed by what you do with your body. If you had success at this, try 'modeling' the physical actions of other humans who exhibit fearlessness and joy, whatever that means to you.
Another central technique in NLP for dealing with phobias and irrational fears is identifying the specific sensory modalities at work in a persons mind when they're afraid. For instance, Pete is afraid of flying, he simply can't set foot on a plane. After asking him specifically what goes through his head when the fear hits him, we discover that he envisions the plane divebombing toward the ground and being pinned in his seat as he plummets to his death. Gruesome to be sure.
Now we ask Pete to close his eyes and visualize the plane divebombing, only to consciously do it in black and white, and instead of the noise of the plane or people screaming, were going to ask him to imagine hearing some kind of absurd music, like polka playing in the background. Now if he can hold all this together we see what else Pete can do to basically to scramble the relationship his mind has to these particular images/sounds/feelings that are causing him fear. Another tid bit of information that some NLPers find important is to imagine ones self in the third person when trying to scramble a fear, as opposed to reliving the fear seeing through your own eyes. Again, the peer reviewed research may not back up the totality of the claims made by NLP, but I have found this technique personally useful for simple phobias and basic fears.
3. Mindfulness/Meditation
The last technique I want to discuss comes from a more contemplative/mindfulness based perspective. I hope to go deeper into the philisophical background of meditation, specifically zazen When it comes to dealing with some of the deeper emotional fears in life, i.e. fears over losing a loved one, children, fears of dieing, fears of failure etc. I find mindfulness based awareness to be the most effective way to truly resolve the problem at the root.
The Idea:
Find a comfortable place where you can sit upright, preferably in a position that minimizes the potential for sleep.When practicing meditation or mindfulness, the idea is not to repress thoughts or ideas, but to let them go, simply noticing that you are having a thought but you are not that thought. Noticing the fear arising, and just being with the fear while it stays, then eventually watching the fear as it goes. Where is the fear in your body? is it in the stomach? the chest? do you maybe feel a twitch or some discomfort somewhere? go into these feelings. Don't judge yourself or give yourself a hard time for not being able to hold the mind still. Thats the nature of mind. Just notice the fear, notice it in your body, and hold your focus there just being with the bare sensation of that fear, watching it change with every in breath and out breath. Watching fears come and go, watching joys come and go, but noticing the whole time how your awareness itself is fundamentally unchanged.
This kind of non-grasping awareness takes time and practice, at least twenty minutes a day, but if you can get the hang of it releasing your problems and fears will only be the beginning of your path as a meditator. Here's a great final clip on mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Hope you guys found some of this useful in your path to fearlessness.
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