Wisdom Bits Talk: 9 Ways To Cope With Or Overcome Fear

Today let’s talk a bit about fear. It can be a good preventative and helpful thing, but it can also be a debilitating emotion that stops us in our tracks from progression in self growth, relationships, or life in general. Here are a few ideas and techniques that might be useful in dealing with feelings of fear.
Wisdom Bits are short talks to help you live the positive lifestyle that you deserve.

Transcript

Hi,

This is Stefania and welcome to wisdombits,

Small bites of information to help you live the positive lifestyle that you deserve.

Today let's talk about fear.

And we have a few ideas,

9 ways to combat fear.

They might not work in every case,

But there might be something in there that's just the thing that you've been looking for.

Sometimes very often,

Fear gets the best of us.

If it's fear of failure,

Fear of success,

Fear of fear,

Fear of not knowing what you fear.

We've all,

Most of us,

Have experienced fear at some point in our lives and it can be a stumbling block.

It holds us back from being truly successful.

Sometimes it's connected to confidence,

But fear can be very paralyzing and very scary.

Sometimes fear is what saves us,

Of course,

But in everyday life,

Pursuing our goals,

Relationships with others,

With ourselves.

Fear can be what is holding us back from something that could be really good for us.

Sometimes we don't even know that fear is at the root of some issue in our lives.

It's like it's something that we can't express because it's just a feeling of not being well in our mind,

In our spirit,

Something we can't put our finger on,

Something not specific,

But just a little ningle undercurrent.

So how can we even classify that kind of thing as fear?

Because we've not identified it as yet,

Which means that it can just carry on because we don't even know what it is that's bothering us.

Sometimes fear can be quite invisible,

And then we have to take steps to uncover it.

If there's an element of fear,

If this queer feeling,

This odd feeling that we have is an element of fear and find out where is it coming from,

Then we can move ahead.

Sometimes,

Just saying,

I'm not afraid,

There's no fear here,

Is not quite helpful enough because we don't know what we're not afraid of.

Sometimes we have to use various techniques that resonate with us to do a little digging,

Things like meditation or EFT,

Emotional freedom technique,

Tapping or journaling,

Various things to help us find out what it is that's bothering us.

But there is a bit of encouraging good news.

Fear can't hold us back forever if we don't let it.

We can still feel it,

But if we can overcome it,

We can move forward and feel better within ourselves and with our relationships with others.

Here are nine ideas that we can start with.

Some of them might not do anything for us,

But some of them might be just what we're looking for.

Number one,

Separate reality from perception.

Let's try to ask ourselves what is really going on.

Let's try to locate the facts and place these facts over our feelings,

Even just temporarily,

Just to see things a bit more clearly so that we can take some kinds of action.

Tip number two,

Identify the trigger.

Find out what it is in this situation,

In this event that triggers you.

Learning to identify it will help you learn to combat it because triggers,

From my experience,

They can come out of nowhere.

We didn't even know we had a trigger.

So it's a matter of being self-aware and studying our own selves.

Find out what it is in any particular situation where you're feeling fear that triggers you.

Once you know what it is,

Then you can try to work out how to combat it or even get some help in that.

Tip number three,

Know where the fear lives in your body.

Yes,

Fear is a physical thing as well.

It's a mental thing,

But it's also a physical reaction.

Sometimes it affects different people in different ways.

So identify if or how it affects your physicality,

Your physical body,

And then do the work to take care of your body.

For instance,

If it's a stress thing and it gives you back problems,

You can learn how to physically ease that.

Do some stretches or some kinds of exercises to help avoid the pain.

Sometimes we don't know that that fear is what is happening,

But if we think about it,

If we journal it,

When we're feeling a bit of fear,

Is anything hurting?

Think about it and then we can address that physical issue.

And then we can think about the root of it,

But first get rid of the pain.

Number four,

Practice gratitude.

Every day,

List out three things,

Five things,

As many as you want,

But if you just commit to three,

It's easier to do it.

You don't put it off,

I don't have time.

You find time.

Even if it's one thing,

Just that energy of gratitude.

Doesn't matter,

Could be gratitude for your breakfast,

Gratitude for a sunny day,

Gratitude that you're feeling good today,

Nothing hurts.

Gratitude helps shift our mind into a positive light,

Which bit by bit can help us overcome that fear because we begin to see more dimensions of it and it becomes less scary,

Less fretful,

Less uncomfortable.

It could still be uncomfortable,

But less uncomfortable because we know despite that fear,

We have many things to be grateful for,

Even if it's only one thing.

Tip number five,

Listen to your inner voice,

Trust yourself.

Monitor those inner conversations that we have in our minds.

If we wouldn't say it to a friend,

Don't say it to ourselves.

Sometimes we can really get down on ourselves and be quite mean.

If you wouldn't say it to a friend,

Don't say it to yourself.

You might not be able to overcome this overnight,

But bit by bit,

Notice what you're saying to yourself.

Notice how you're thinking about yourself.

Notice how you feel when you don't achieve a goal.

Listen to that inner voice.

Speak more positively to yourself and remind yourself of your strengths.

You're an amazing person.

You are well worth being on this planet.

You're not an accident.

Listen to your inner voice.

Encourage yourself.

Speak positively to yourself.

Tip number six,

Create a new association.

Remind yourself that the feeling and the moment will pass.

It's not going to last forever.

Focus on the positive outcome of the situation rather than the scary bits in between.

Look beyond the scary situation.

Know that it's going to be over.

Just go through with it.

Go through it.

That is where listening to your inner voice can also be really helpful.

Just encourage yourself.

Keep going.

Number seven,

The old glass half empty or half full.

Get that glass half full and keep it half full rather than empty.

The perception is so powerful.

How you feel,

How we feel about our situation dictates how we respond.

So if we,

I don't mean in a Pollyanna type way,

But if you think positively,

If you think with more encouragement,

We can give ourselves a better chance of success.

We just have to work on it.

Just think about,

To start,

Just think about one.

One negative or fearful thought that comes back again and again,

Sometimes when you least expect it.

Work on reversing that thought.

Eventually that can become a habit,

But I'll tell you,

It's not always easy.

You might have to do it again and again and again and again until we get the message to our subconscious mind.

Next thing that we can do to help overcome fear,

Move beyond fear,

Is something really simple.

Breathing.

Practice breathing exercises because sometimes we do this just unconsciously without thinking.

You know,

We'll go,

Big sigh,

Without even thinking about it.

Breathing helps center our body.

Obviously,

You stop breathing,

Your heart stops beating,

But you can do grounding exercises.

Just grounding yourself into the earth.

And if that's a bit too far-fetched,

Just instead of thinking into the earth,

Just think steadying,

Aligning.

You could do that kind of thing or even just take five deep long breaths at any point to calm and center yourself.

That's something too you can do wherever you are because nobody knows what you're doing.

You're not making a big process out of it.

You're just breathing to calm yourself,

To still yourself,

To center yourself.

This is a good thing to do when you wake up too.

To start that day,

To do a wee bit of breathing and then visualize yourself handling any challenge that comes up to you in your world,

In your face,

Any challenge.

This is like visualize yourself handling it.

Handling it might mean speaking out.

Handling it might mean being still,

Staying calm,

Saying nothing,

Not taking the bait,

Not hating on yourself.

Knowing that you can handle any challenge from without or within.

Breathing exercises in the morning,

Centering yourself knowing that you are good enough and you can handle it.

That kind of thing too can fortify us against fear to some degree.

And our last one is to create a safe space.

When we feel safe and secure,

There's no room for fear or there's no room for major fear.

We might have a little tiny bit of fear,

But so much better than if we're feeling vulnerable.

If it's possible,

Find a place where we can retreat when those ill inner fear feelings start.

Sometimes it's a real place we can go to our bedroom.

We can go,

If we have a garden,

We can go to our garden.

Sometimes it's in our minds.

We can't run away from wherever we are,

But we can put a safe place in our mind.

We can work on developing a place where we feel safe and we can see this place in our mind's eye.

We can see it mentally.

Could be our favorite park,

Could be the beach,

Could be a color.

Anything that will help to calm us down whenever,

Wherever would be our safe place.

It doesn't have to be a physical place.

If you have a physical place that you can go to,

Fine,

Let us go there.

But if you're in a situation where you just have to stay where you are and deal with it,

Have that vision in your mind to help you slow down.

If you cannot do it while you're in the midst of the event,

As soon as it's over,

Go to that place and calm yourself and know that no matter what went down,

You are flipping good enough no matter what happened.

If you can,

If you're in an office or somewhere,

Go to the ladies or the gents.

Do a little breathing to calm yourself down.

Create a safe space one way or another.

Have that safe space that you can go to,

To feel better.

Those are,

For starters,

At least nine ways that we can try.

Maybe one of them,

Hopefully,

Will resonate with you and you can give it a go the next time you're feeling fear or stressed.

And if you have any little tips that you use to protect yourself,

To help you overcome your fear,

Feel free to let us know in the comments.

We can share,

We can learn from each other.

And that's it for today.

Bye for now.

Stay safe,

Stay well.

Reviews

This was excellent! Very sitting and fill of great ideas. Thank you!