How To Overcome Fear

In episode 28 we’re talking about how to overcome fear. We’ll start by looking at what causes us to feel afraid. If we’ve been traumatized and have a history of living in fear, we may get stuck in disordered coping patterns. So listen as we share tools that help us relate wisely and kindly to what scares us. We’ll talk tools that help us shift perspective, settle into our bodies during difficult moments, and wake up the deep source of compassion that lives inside our hearts. Let's do it together.

Transcript

Thanks for joining us here on Pretty Spiritual where we're attempting the unthinkable about how to navigate this messy,

Beautiful,

Imperfect life with spiritual tools,

Principles,

And our own personal stories.

So we're not experts,

We're not religious,

We're definitely silly.

We're honest,

Real,

And willing to share.

So join us as we connect,

Bond,

And grow together.

Hey everybody.

Hey besties.

Oh yay,

We're all together.

Welcome back.

This is Annie.

Hey Annie,

I'm Lindsay Poney.

I'm Ella.

Hey,

We are all together and today on Pretty Spiritual podcast,

We are going to talk about fear.

Such a lighthearted topic.

Dun dun dun.

I went down a serious black hole researching this topic and I thought it'd be helpful to just have a dictionary definition of what fear is.

An unpleasant,

Often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.

And as I was researching this,

What I found was that there's different understandings of fear.

There's like our body's responses to threat.

And then there's our emotional,

Like brain processes that happen that are made up of this multi-layered experience based on our memories,

Our expectations,

These conceptual acts.

It's helpful to understand the difference between what the American neuroscientist Joseph E.

Lido describes as defensive motivational processes.

Like there's a bus coming,

I'm going to move.

Versus the fear that comes up when we have all these triggers from our past happen or we're living in some sort of anxiety.

So I want to give a special shout out to people who are suffering from clinical anxiety,

Who have experienced trauma or who have PTSD.

And if you're experiencing something along these lines or you're in this state,

I want to say we love you and you're not alone.

So just going back to standard fear,

Some typical reactions that can happen when we're in fear can include a classic fight or flight response.

Like the bus is coming,

I'm going to run.

But they can also include freeze,

Fawn,

And fatigue.

So these are the solutions that a lot of us use when we perceive a threat,

Whether it's real or imagined,

Past or present.

Annie,

Can you say more about what fawn and fatigue look like?

Every time I'm coming.

Absolutely.

So fight or flight,

I think we all are familiar with that,

Right?

Like we either stand up for ourselves,

Fight back,

Say what we need to say or flight,

We stand up for one and that might not be actual literal running,

But that might be departing from a situation that we know is unsafe or makes us not feel good.

Freeze is when we just immobilize.

So in a really tiger on the tundra type situation,

You know,

If you see some attack happening or some threat of danger,

You just become frozen.

And actually in nature,

It's a really valid response to a threat because sometimes you're left alone when you don't have any kind of reaction.

But also for some people to kind of step away really quickly in balanced nervous systems or in emotional states as people,

We have all five of these responses,

Like kind of hardwired into our systems.

And so we can draw on any of them when a situation comes up that causes fear and like we use them,

Our bodies just naturally kind of react and our emotional state reacts depending on what the appropriate one is.

But if we are maybe experiencing trauma,

We have some kind of dysfunctional stuff happening in our body,

We get stuck in one response state to fear and it gets distorted and it gets overblown.

So with freeze,

You might see somebody who is in a really depressive state for a long period of time and they don't react or how it looks for me is I just get kind of like,

I can't do anything.

Oh my gosh,

Too many things to think about.

I'm just going to shut down.

One is like very codependent response to fear and it's also known as please and appease.

So it's like,

Here's something that I'm making me scared.

I'm going to fix it by making it harmonious.

You know,

I'm going to soothe it.

I'm going to ease away whatever problems there might be.

I'm going to like fawn.

I'm going to make it gentle.

Like a baby deer.

Like just a sweet baby deer.

There's no threat for me.

So your threat can.

.

.

Except Lyme disease.

Go away.

That's true.

Accurate.

Yeah,

Accurate.

And then fatigue is a response that many people have in a fear state,

Which is their nervous system gets overwhelmed and they just go to sleep.

And it can actually be really helpful because when you wake up,

Often the responses that have flooded the body have kind of time to clear and you can be a little bit more clear headed and things along those lines.

So we all have all these responses to fear in us.

And as I said,

Sometimes we can get stuck into these modes where we're only operating in one state.

How can we have a healthy relationship with fear?

It's a really reasonable part of a human experience.

So how can we face it and move through it reasonably and use it like the tool essentially that it is.

So let's hear from you ladies.

Ella,

Why don't you share what fear looks like in your life?

Annie,

Thank you so much for that introduction.

It was so cool that when you were describing those two types of fear,

When I was reflecting on my own experience that those two things you described are the ways that fear manifests for me today.

And so the first one is that more emotional brain process where it's this kind of like heady fear of how to manage relationships,

Security,

A kind of fear of what could happen in the future,

But like there's no physical reality of it present right now.

It's just this kind of project mental projection.

So that's the one kind.

And then there's this other kind of fear that's based on the like physical threat stuff that you were talking about.

And that for me,

That kind of fear is based on in the moment,

Acute physical distress.

And I have that experience,

Not infrequently because I live with a chronic illness.

Yeah,

I the first kind of fear I think is a kind that we just all experience as humans were kind of used to those like day to day anxieties that our brain secretes as it tries to take care of us with,

You know,

Limited capacity for dealing.

I have definitely had that experience where my brain just goes buck wild trying to figure out how to like get my needs met in a situation where like nothing is wrong,

You know,

Or a situation where I think something might go wrong,

Or maybe the seeds for something being wrong or starting to sprout.

And I just really want to get in there and think through all the possibilities like that kind of fear fertilizer.

Oh my god.

For me,

A place where that happened recently was with job security.

And I had this just had this experience where like all of a sudden I'm like,

Oh,

I might,

It might be time for me to start looking for a different job.

And there's,

You know,

When there's a problem to be solved,

My brain is like,

Raring to go for this kind of thing.

It's quote unquote problem that doesn't seem to really respond to the solution that my brain has,

Which is like,

I will think all the thoughts about this,

That doesn't really give me any relief.

So I've got some really awesome tools to talk about when it comes to that kind of fear.

But then as someone who lives with a I'm going to practice saying high needs body,

There's a different kind of fear that I've gotten accustomed to.

And that's the fear of essentially physical distress and harm.

It is the experience I have when I'm in acute physical pain,

And there's no solution.

Like when I've tried everything possible to help myself not be in pain,

And it's not going to happen,

You know,

Where I just am confronting physical suffering in a way where there's nothing left to do.

It's just,

It just hurts.

I had an experience with that this weekend,

I got bitten by a poisonous spider.

And I had to spend the week most of the weekend in the emergency room,

I was in a surprising amount of pain.

This is an extreme example,

But for people who live with chronic pain,

You understand the way that that kind of suffering chips away at you.

And if you are someone who lives with a body that hurts every day,

You know what I'm talking about.

And you know,

The way that that kind of bodily harm fear manifests where it literally strips you of any bright idea or solution.

And you get to the point where you're left with the only solution you're left with is the spiritual one.

And if you're anything like me,

You've probably tried every other option before you decide to pick that one up.

So I have some exciting tools to share for both kinds of fear when we get there.

Thank you so much,

Ella.

Lindsay Pony,

What is happening in your world?

Oh,

A lot of perceived threats that aren't real,

I suppose.

I'm just thinking about how fear in a way is such a subjective subject.

And I'm really moved by everything you shared,

Ella.

Thank you so much.

It's really a sacred space that we can create when we open up and we share about these really intimate internal environments.

So thank you so much.

In looking at fear,

I've been a bicycle commuter for,

Oh my God,

Nine years.

When I lived in Oklahoma,

I said,

There are people out there somewhere in a big city who ride their bikes and I'm going to join them.

It's so interesting that I moved to the city and I started riding a bicycle because I had to.

I'm so glad that I got that.

But what I didn't realize is for several years,

I would say for four years,

I was so incredibly afraid.

I was in this heightened state of awareness of fight or flight.

I just mean I wanted to escape and I really couldn't recognize it.

I liked what we were talking about here,

The mental projections of fear and then the actual physical threat.

And riding a bicycle is so interesting because it's both of them at once.

I have this mental projection of how I'm going to be mangled on the road and what that's going to look like.

And at the same time,

There's these huge cars going by and all these loud noises.

So I'm essentially in this what I call fearality,

Where my fears are making my reality and I'm actually living those.

So essentially on the road for many years,

I was just dying a thousand deaths.

And I'm just so impressed with myself,

Can I dare say it,

That somehow I continued.

I loved riding so much.

There was such a freedom to it that I continued on in this fear state,

I would say.

Okay,

So that's me talking about the fear that I face every single day and how it has gotten so much better from talking to other people who ride bikes and then giving me little suggestions along the way.

Just imagine that the cars weren't super loud.

Imagine what that would be like.

And come on,

We're just swimming with the whales.

So all these little things.

So talking with people around you are in that same type of community.

So just like we're doing right now,

Talking about fears and kind of bringing them out and being able to share what's going on,

I think is really helpful.

But yeah,

The fear was taking away the whole point of bicycling,

Which is to enjoy this moment,

What's going on in this actual ride instead of this fear.

These fears that I'm experiencing through my mind,

It's these mental projections,

But our nervous system,

Just like with pictures,

If we're picturing ourselves,

Whatever it is,

Our nervous system is going through the same,

It's actually living that way through emotions and all of that.

So it puts us in such a state of worry.

And I actually,

When I'm in a fear state,

I can't make great decisions.

So it's actually a very scary thing to be on a bicycle in the big metro city around all this traffic and be in a fear state.

It reminds me of this quote,

My life has been filled with terrible misfortune,

Most of which never happened.

And it helps me so much because I also read about how 85% of what we fear never happens.

And it's the worry that's created from the fear that's actually more toxic to us than the fears that don't happen.

All these things that we're reliving and so afraid of in the future,

What might happen,

Fertilizing the seeds of where all this fear could be or just flaming the fear fires,

The more I think about the fear then becomes more worry.

And if I'm asleep and I'm not awake or not meditating,

I'm just in this automatic habitual mental perceptions of fear.

And it's really real for me.

It's really real for me.

So context really helps me with fear.

Oftentimes I can pull apart my fears and see that in the core of them,

I'm afraid that I'm going to lose something that I think I have,

Like my life or that I'm not going to get what I want.

And that's very,

Those are my biggest fears,

Not getting something that I want to my destination safely,

Apparently.

Or French toast for Ellen.

It's a big one for me right now.

It's so real.

These fears drive me into worry mode where I can continue with more fears that lead to more worrying,

Which is why the only thing to fear is fear itself.

Thank you so much to my beloved therapist who continually likes to say that.

Worry is so toxic to the body.

It can take years off of your life.

Think of all the fears and worries that consume us daily.

Now that we know most of them aren't going to happen,

We can choose again,

Getting our agency and realizing that we have choice here to put the fears and worries down and attempt to have a real experience with what is actually here.

Doesn't that sound nice?

That sounds really nice.

So easy.

So simple.

We'll see.

We'll see.

Thanks,

Pony.

I love when you started out,

You were saying how fear is so personal.

And that was one thing I was reading in scientists really can't quantify fear aside from the body's physiological response to say a charging bear.

Everyone shares this kind of stimulation that occurs inside.

But our emotional processes around it is so individual to each person's like crazy spider web of experiences and past and how their brain works.

And so the scientists really don't have a way to measure it.

For me,

Fear has changed a lot in the last 18 months.

So in July of 2018,

I was diagnosed with PTSD.

So these were symptoms that have been living in my body for nearly two decades.

You know,

I just always in this kind of state of hyper vigilance.

And if something okay happened,

I was just waiting.

Something bad is going to happen.

I just know it's just when is it going to happen?

I'm ready.

I'm going to think of how it's going to happen.

And I just kind of thought it was normal.

And then due to some healing work and also,

I think God,

The flow of the universe during July of last year,

All that stuff kind of burst out of me as flashbacks and like this debilitating depression and a racing brain.

And the great thing about that very uncomfortable period was it broke the damn it felt like.

And then some healing started to happen.

And there was also an understanding on the help of some professionals who were helping me and myself of like,

Oh,

Here's why you have been so scared for so long.

And there's a way to move through it.

So I had just assumed until then that this extreme hyper vigilance to everything was normal.

And certainly it was like hyper vigilance to surroundings.

But mostly it was this.

I was scared of everything in the context of me being a bad person.

So I kind of the core of it was like,

I'm bad and I can't do anything because then I don't know.

It just felt dangerous is the only way to explain it.

And I've learned now that the sense of being bad is really normal for people who have unresolved trauma in their body.

But in the time it just kind of felt reasonable.

Like I didn't know how to question it.

It just was what was.

But I was so terrified looking back.

My,

Oh,

I was scared to do new creative projects.

I honestly had this thought of like,

Who am I to take up space on the internet?

Because there are too many other worthwhile people on the internet for me to use room there.

I was terrified of making people unhappy.

I was really scared to make decisions because surely I'd make the wrong one and then everything would implode.

I was scared to disagree with people.

I was just scared.

I remember my wife suggesting that I submit this essay I wrote to Elle magazine and I just looked at,

I was like,

I gassed.

You go rude.

Rude.

How dare you Tiffany.

You can't just go around submitting work to people assuming they might want it or to read it.

It was just,

I couldn't handle it.

To handle all this fear,

I did a lot of dissociation over this time,

Like over a couple decades.

And it looked a lot like being really disconnected from what my body was experiencing and a lot of kind of running and gunning one step ahead of this tidal wave of panic that just always felt like it was at my back.

So that was what my relationship with fear was like,

And it felt normal.

You know,

I'm like,

This is just how things are.

So about three years into this spiritual journey,

I began taking an SSRI,

Which is a type of medication.

And that helped me so much because I started to make the world more navigable.

Up until that point,

It really felt like I had these panic wires around my brain.

And that medicine for me kind of eased it.

But then once the five years later,

Once all this flashbacks and stuff started to happen,

I was able to get help with trauma,

My relationship to fear really began to change.

And I know this is kind of a long story that I'm sharing,

But it just,

My life has changed.

It's amazing.

I still am afraid,

But it is so much more reasonable.

So an example is last week I was approached by someone who's doing a startup to do some writing for their company.

And it's like a bigger scope than I've ever done.

And my first thought was,

I can't do that.

Of course not.

And I emailed the friend who had recommended,

You know,

Referred me and she said,

Annie,

Of course you can do it.

You have all the skills.

Maybe you haven't done it in this job title,

But you know how to do it.

And I believed her,

You know,

And I was able to say,

Oh,

I'm scared to do this because it's new,

But it's okay for me to try it.

And it's okay.

You know,

I'm,

It's reasonable for me to try this thing and take it on and either however it goes,

It'll be okay.

But I do trust myself that I can do it.

Congratulations.

Awesome.

But it was amazing.

I'm like,

I had this space from it to look at it.

I'm like,

This would have never even happened eight months ago,

A year ago.

I just,

I would have just shut down the email.

No,

Thank you.

I'm so busy.

I can't help you,

Sir.

So when I believed her,

It was like,

I trusted that I could do my best growing spiritually helps me try new things.

And as I get mental health healing,

I also get more ability in reliance to trust in a spiritual relationship with a higher power.

And like in that it's okay if I don't know how things are going to go,

You know,

Before I had to know how things were going to go because I felt so unsafe all the time that unless I can predict control and manage everything,

It wasn't,

It wasn't okay.

So with that very long thing,

What we're gonna say is that there's tools,

Mental health healing.

Yay.

So fear is real.

We've all got it.

Ella,

What are you,

How are you working with it?

Yay.

I love the tools around fear.

I just need something that works.

So the tool that I have for the more heady kind of fear where your brain is just saying stuff or there's a kind of situation that has to do with security or relationships or whatever in your brain has a lot of fear thoughts around it.

The tool I have is to write down all your fears.

Writing a fears list is so great just because getting them on paper like immediately kind of deflates the fear balloon.

But I would encourage you to not stop there.

And once you've written down your fears,

Look at,

This is the part that always helps me the most,

Look at the kind of underlying hindrance and then look at what the corresponding spiritual principle could be.

So for example,

If the fear was around work,

I could say,

I'm afraid that I'll lose my job and then the,

The hindrance might be in this,

In this case,

It was people pleasing.

And so then the principle would be trusting myself or standing in my own integrity.

So that really helps me because once I have a list of those kinds of principles,

I have a blueprint for how to stay feeling safe inside myself,

Regardless of what is happening in my relationships with people or my job or whatever it is.

Another kind of related thing that really helps me as I ask myself questions like who would I be right now if I weren't afraid?

And usually that is a kind of shortcut to the safest and most principled version of myself.

You know,

Like I would remember that this person is just another human being who's having a hard time and I wouldn't have to be afraid of him.

And once I don't have to be afraid of someone,

Then I can really feel compassion for them.

So I love that tool and this,

I found that this tool,

I can apply it to the second kind of fear,

Which is the like physical harm fear,

But I can't really apply it so usefully in the moment.

I've tried.

It doesn't really anyway,

You're welcome to try to maybe it'll work for you.

That'd be really great.

But what I find is that I have to wait until the physical experience of suffering has become less acute to try to apply that tool to it.

So what do I do when I'm just in the midst of suffering?

I just need something that will soothe me in this moment the way like a mother soothes a her child.

And I heard this,

This thing years ago that has stuck with me and it was something like,

I was telling someone that I didn't know how to pray and they said something like,

God doesn't care how you pray.

It's like how a mother doesn't care that when her child cries out with like,

Just a yelp,

You know,

That like there's love and compassion to meet that just the act of praying is enough.

To make contact with some greater force.

So prayer for me is this tool that wakes up the compassion that lives inside of me that I can connect to in a,

In a broader way.

You know,

Usually if I'm in this kind of fear where I'm having like acute physical suffering,

I have tried pretty much everything I can think of to deal with or cure or lessen the discomfort and the fear.

And sometimes those are wholesome things like self care and stretching and physical therapy and doctors and spiritual work.

And other times they're less wholesome like boxes of mac and cheese and like a whole Netflix series.

But I get to this place where the there's no quote unquote solution.

There's no medical solution.

There's no thing I can do to my body in this moment that's going to take the pain away.

So I'm left at this place where literally the only solution that's available to me is the spiritual one.

And yes,

I have been the woman who's like F that if there's no quote unquote real solution,

Like I want no part of this.

And then I've suffered enough to be like,

Fine,

You know what?

Fine.

I'll take whatever I can get.

I just want to say if you are in a place where you live with this kind of fear on a regular basis because you have chronic or acute pain in your body,

I'm really sorry.

It is.

It's really not fair.

It's so not fair that we have to live like this.

And I wish relief for you in whatever way you can find it and for myself.

And I also want to say that it's okay to be angry about it.

It's not fair.

I don't understand why it's happening.

And it's okay if you don't feel spiritual about it.

I just want to say that I love you and my heart goes out to you and you're not alone.

Oh,

Getting a little emotional.

What I've learned about walking through this kind of fear is that it is the ingredient.

It's the necessary ingredient to wake up the fierce kind of grandmotherly love and mercy that lives inside my heart.

So for me,

Prayer is that thing that really connects me to that force,

Whatever it is.

And I encourage you to find a word or a descriptor or whatever it is,

Phrase a prayer that can connect you to whatever that source of love and compassion and mercy is in your own life.

Because when you're out of ideas,

That's the place where this potential,

Where this thing inside myself gets woken up.

And so my favorite prayer to say in these kinds of situations comes from the lay person bodhisattva ordination ceremony.

It's called Jukai in Japanese.

And it's a ceremony where you kind of state this formal intention to take the bodhisattva precepts.

And at the same time,

You're asking your spiritual community for help to live this way because you know that it's not possible for you to do it by yourself.

At the beginning,

The person who's being ordained does this chant and they say,

Oh,

Bodhisattva mahasattvas,

Please concentrate your hearts on me.

I just love that so much because I know the way that fear can make us feel alone and separate and just make us feel so unsafe.

And I love this prayer because it's like,

I just an invitation for the universal love and mercy that's available to us to please come into my heart.

And it's these moments when I need it so badly when I need,

I just need some kind of comfort,

The kind of comfort,

Like I said,

That a mother could offer to a child where there's no other way for me to get soothed.

That kind of soothing is such a relief,

Even if it's not a relief in the way that I want it to be.

Anyway,

I just,

I feel for everyone who lives like that.

And I just want to say we love you and to,

To go where it's warm,

Go where you feel safe and you feel loved and you feel held.

Thank you,

Sweet Ella.

We love you too.

I love you.

What about you,

Miss Pony?

While tender and juicy,

False evidence appearing real.

I love acronyms.

They help me so much kind of sort out what's here.

And especially with fearless,

It's such a great way to see what's here and what I can work with and then what I can strive for.

My most favorite tool.

Thank you,

Ella,

For saying so much.

One of the tools,

If it's an option after you've done fearless and you know,

It's not a physical,

Physical pain because that's just such a whole other beast.

But I really like once inventorying the fears and when they come up is if it's just a perceived mental future,

Fearality to see the fear,

Recognize the worry and then put it down in a hurry.

You know,

If one could do that so simply,

Then you know,

Maybe we'd all be able to really just put the fear down.

Very simple.

Just look on that one.

Hope that works.

Just like with the fearless and then recognizing if there's fear and then worry,

It's really this idea of being a moderator of your mind and really seeing what fears are coming up,

What this suffering and fear generator,

That's what I call my mind,

Stamping them out,

You know,

Left and right,

Just suffering,

Fear,

Fear,

Suffering,

Worry.

And if you can take time and be the moderator of your mind and see what particular lens or flavor of your generator is there,

Then that can be really useful.

I know it has been for me to just kind of see that this is its habitual reactionary way of,

You know,

Just weaving this fearality.

And that helps me but to get to know myself more.

And obviously I need a meditation practice for this to even otherwise I'm just completely unaware running through just in constant fear all the time and not even realizing that I'm on my bicycle.

So these are just little steps.

Sometimes it's so many little steps before we are able to actually be with what's here.

And then fear is such,

Fear just gets so much in the way and is such a big paralyzer that to get to see what's under it and then what we actually want to strive for.

It's just many,

Many steps.

And so one thing I talk about a lot and I'm going to do one with us now because I love body hacks and one of the best way to hack your nervous system is through breathing.

And so right here,

Right now we're going to get into it.

I'm so excited.

My two sweet ladies right here are going to do the breathing and then I'll walk us through it and let's see if I am able to do that.

What we're going to do first is we're going to take a big in-breath and then we're going to exhale completely.

And once you expel all the air from your chest,

Keep your lungs empty for four long counts,

One one thousand,

Two one thousand,

Three one thousand,

Four one thousand.

And now you're going to inhale through your nose for four long counts,

One one thousand,

Two one thousand,

Three one thousand,

Four one thousand.

Now hold the air in your lungs for four long counts,

One one thousand,

Two one thousand,

Three one thousand,

Four one thousand.

Now exhale through your nose for four counts,

One one thousand,

Two one thousand,

Three one thousand,

Four one thousand.

And now you're going to,

That's all one rep.

So again,

Once you expel all of the air from your lungs,

You're going to keep very expansive lung capacity.

So even though you've let out all of the air,

You still want to be in that spaciousness of your lungs that are still here and we're actually making a box.

So when we exhale and hold for four,

And then we inhale for four,

And then we hold for four again,

And then we exhale for four counts,

Even though we've exhaled all of the air out and we are holding just in the emptiness of our lungs,

It's still very expansive and full.

You're not clamping down on your diaphragm.

Each time you inhale for four,

You're doing deep belly breathing.

So let's try it one more time.

So let's do an inhale and an exhale.

Now hold for four counts.

Now inhale through your nose for four counts.

Hold with that expansive open diaphragm for four counts.

Now exhale for four.

And don't clamp down on your diaphragm.

Remember,

Keep it really open.

Hold for four.

And now inhale for four.

And you're essentially making a box of where you're holding for four,

Then you're inhaling for four,

Holding for four,

Exhaling for four,

And then holding again.

And this is what the Navy SEALs do.

And if anybody's in a fear situation,

These people definitely know they've got some body hacks.

They do have a lot of really great breathing techniques.

And holotropic breathing and breath work is something I'm really,

Really interested in and I'm really new at it.

So thanks for coming along with me on this journey where we attempt to learn this.

And I recommend just practicing it for yourself.

It takes a little while to get the rhythm and understand what's going on.

But do it for five minutes and report back to me on if you're relaxed or not.

I am.

Thank you,

Pony.

That was amazing.

Thank you.

Okay.

It was helpful because often when I'm scared,

My chest closes up and it just created,

Like you said,

Space.

I'm so glad.

Thank you so much.

Yay.

Yay.

So I have a couple of tools and some of them are large scale life tools and then some are in the moment kind of spot check tools.

So my first is for people who have deep underpinning fear in their life.

How does that sound fun?

Who could it be?

Oh wait,

Me.

All of us.

Don't worry.

You're not alone.

You're not alone at all.

Seriously.

Is professional help.

And I don't say this flippantly at all.

I truly mean professional help.

I work with a somatic therapist and the safe and structured environment she's provided me for working through deep trauma and fear has been invaluable because a lot of this fear that was in my body,

I didn't have the intellectual or emotional capability to process it and so it just got stored in this really maladaptive way in my body.

So I actually needed help.

And if this is the case for you,

Professional help could be really beneficial because people are trained in helping us move through this fear that's blocked.

I am particularly fond of somatic therapy for me because it goes beyond talk therapy to also incorporate our bodies felt sense or experience of emotions.

So it addresses not just what's happening in my brain,

But how my body simultaneously is reacting like Lindsey was referring to earlier when we think things the way that our body reacts like we're actually getting mangled by a car at that minute.

So she taught me these tools to kind of incorporate the two.

So I started to understand actually my body's physical response and to have tools to regulate it.

My second tool,

And this is just for me and also the therapy part too,

I'm not trying to push it on anybody.

I'm just saying it's been life changing for me.

And in this case,

I'm not advocating medication for anyone.

So if it's something you're interested in,

Please talk to a medical professional about it.

I am not a medical professional.

None of us are.

None of us are.

But for me and how my brain started to get hardwired into fear,

I just couldn't pray or meditate or talk my way out of this state that my brain was in.

And my doctor prescribed an SSRI and it honestly feels like it was life saving to me at that point because I just was.

.

.

My brain was at this critical juncture and it was stuck there.

And it's been five years now and with all the things I've been working on,

I'm almost completely eased off of it.

So it's not a lifetime solution for me,

But it was a tool that I needed in the time to kind of retrain my brain's chemistry to get to a baseline where it could work.

My sweet brain just needed some help,

I think.

Like Pony mentioned,

Meditation.

So when I got that job offer and my first thought was like,

Absolutely not,

I'm not qualified,

I'm the worst.

Having some meditation,

I can have some space and just notice that as a thought instead of getting swept into the notion of that's a fact,

I must subscribe and run.

So meditation has been really helpful.

And like Eloise sharing,

Prayer and spiritual connection for me have been really powerful tools for fear.

We said a prayer based on getting relief from fear right before we recorded this.

We said it together and it's so soothing.

So an adaptation of the prayer that we said,

You can experiment with this one if you like or do it however you want.

Higher power,

Please remove my fear.

Please show me the next right step that is in line with your will or universe's will or whatever sounds right to you.

So saying this prayer when I notice that something happens,

I get scared.

I start to think of all the things that might happen and how things are going to go wrong.

And I can just pause and notice,

Wow,

I'm scared.

And with the somatic tools I've learned,

I can say,

Oh,

My chest is tight.

I'm clenching my jaw.

My pelvic muscles are in a knot.

My core is seized up.

Oh,

Can I relax and breathe into that?

And then I can say this prayer and it kind of provides me that bump out of the self-focused loop that that's like the fear circle.

And it can just put me back into the present moment where hopefully I can be of service to my higher power and people around me.

Wow.

Thanks,

Lindsay and Ella for sharing and thank you to everyone for listening.

I know that sometimes often on this podcast,

We go really deep and I want you to know our hope is always to be helpful by when we share our own personal experiences and stories.

It's all we got.

It's all we have.

And we're not saying there's one way to work with fear or one way it should look in people's life.

Merely we want you to know how we personally face it and how we're working with it.

And maybe it can be helpful or hopeful for you.

Let us know your experience.

Oh my gosh.

It would help us so much if you would let us know how you experience and deal with fear.

We would love to hear about that.

We need the tools.

Please let us know.

You can,

I get to announce that it's so exciting.

You can find us on the web at www.

Prettyspiritualpodcast.

Com.

You can look at all of our tools,

Our spiritual tools on our tools page.

You can get in touch with us.

You can read about what we're doing and why we're making this podcast.

And you can also find us on all of those social places.

And also definitely join our email list.

You can do that on our website.

It would be so great.

Yay.

Pony,

What are we going to talk about next week?

Well,

Next week,

I'm very hopeful that you all will like this so very much.

If you don't,

We're not sure what we'll do.

We just,

We might not be able to go on because we are codependent like that.

How about you?

Can't wait till then.

Bye.

We love you.

Reviews

Thank you so much for this!
All of you are so sweet, so genuine, so caring and so compassionate.
You’re truly an inspiration- your stories are so beautiful and deep, and it’s always important to remember that everything will work out.
I think these techniques really help me when I’m scared of something totally unreasonable and I liked the idea of readjusting your mind when some kind of fear comes up (a non physical one) and just telling yourself “Look, I understand I’m scared about this” because the first step is accepting that you are scared, and then saying “No, I got this. I know that this will work out, and there’s no need to be scared”. I tell myself that a few times, and sure maybe the fear doesn’t go away, but it becomes less, and maybe it’ll come up some other time, but I just breathe and tell myself not to panic. I can do this- that’s what we need to all tell ourselves :))

I hope something like this helps you too!
Thank you thank you for this.

Thank you thank you thank you 😭🙏 ❤️

Excellent as always. I love that you ladies are being so open, vulnerable, gentle and real... whilst also referencing Navy SEALS training techniques! Thank you!

Another brilliant podcast! Thank you ladies for being so real and open with such a challenging topic... Years ago I read "feel the fear and do it anyway" so that's what I do now... Gather all my courage and do what I can to move forward... So much love to you all 💜 x

Thank you very much for sharing your experiences and valuable insights. Really interesting, useful, comforting and empowering.