In his book Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers explains how fear can be a positive factor in our lives. Facing fear can actually get us where we want to be in our lives. Here is the Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway Summary.
People tend to believe that the ability to deal with the emotion called fear is a psychological problem. But here lies the truth: fear is an educational problem. Hence, primary therapy should involve re-educating one’s mind to see fear as an inevitable part of our existence rather than an impediment to our success. Fear affects every facet of our lives.
There are three levels of fear:
- The Surface
- The Ego
- The Essence
It’s okay to be afraid sometimes, but you should never let fear hold you back.
The Surface
Fear in this level involves an external situation and can be divided into two types:
- The type that happens including aging, becoming disabled, retirement, being alone, natural disasters, loss of financial security, change, dying, war, illness, losing a loved one, accidents, rape, etc.
- The type that requires taking actions such as: making decisions, changing a career, making friends, ending or beginning a relationship, going to the doctor, asserting oneself, losing weight, being interviewed, driving, public speaking, making a mistake, intimacy, etc.
The Ego
The Ego fears have to do with the inner states of mind rather than external circumstances. They reflect how you evaluate yourself and your ability to handle the world. This explains why generalized fears occur. They are not situation-oriented; they involve the Ego and include rejection, being conned, success, helplessness, failure, disapproval, being vulnerable, loss of image, etc.
Fear of rejection will affect almost every area of your life-friends, intimate relationships, job interviews, and so on. You may begin to withdraw from the world in a bid to protect yourself, and as a result, place personal limits.
The Essence
The essence of all our fears exists at this level in the form of: “I can’t handle it .” And all your fear comes down to the worry of: “ I can’t handle whatever life will bring.”
It is imperative to remind yourself every time you feel afraid that the emotion of fear expresses itself because you don’t feel good about yourself. Fear can be healthy or instinctual, but it becomes destructive once it holds us back from developing ourselves. you can blame this on past conditioning.
Continue on to discover how can you stop fear from holding you captive and start living your life to the fullest.
The real problem is how we handle fear
The real problem has nothing to do with the fear itself but, instead, how we handle fear. For some, fear is insignificant, but for others, it can crumble their emotional stability. The former derives their fear from a place of power(choice and action), while the latter from a place of pain (helplessness, depression, and paralysis). So, moving from a position of fear to that of power is a proven way to handle anxiety and you’ll discover that fear becomes irrelevant to the technique.
Our words determine our actions; it’s a self-fulfilling prediction. For example, when we stay in pain, our pain vocabulary will be, “ I can’t, I shouldn’t, it’s not my fault, it’s big problem life is unfair, it’s a terrible struggle, I hope, if only,” etc. Whereas, when you shift to the position of power, then your vocabulary will become, “ I should, I will, I am responsible, I can, ” etc.
The fear will never go away; you have to decide to stand up to it and live your life.
It would be best to try to do something each day that pulls you out of your comfort zone. Take small risks every day. For instance, if you have a fear of talking in public, then participate in public programs and talk to strangers. If you fear expressing your feelings, talk to your family and let them know how much you care for them. Do something that moves you out of your comfort zone. you can plan the risk that you will take tomorrow, by visualizing what positive things can happen if you face your fears, and take small risks.
The following are five universal truths of fear you should never forget because they will help you deal with your worry:
- As long as you continue to grow, the fear will always be there.
- Going out to do something you are afraid of doing is the only way to eliminate the fear of doing it.
- The only way to boost how you feel about yourself is to step out and do what you are afraid of doing.
- you are noy only one plagued with fear; it is common for everyone.
- The fear that exudes from a feeling of weakness is more frightening than confronting your fear.
Take responsibility for your life and increase the ability to handle to handle the fears in your life
The idea of assuming responsibility for your life is probably not totally a novel thing to you. Bear in mind that you become paralyzed when you trade your power in an attempt to deal with fear. It is hard to acknowledge that you are the cause of the emotions that steal the joy of your life. Then again, this realization is your greatest gift.
It is disturbing when you start to consider yourself to be the cause of all your problems.
There are seven definitions of taking responsibility, and they include:
- Never accusing others of anything you are being, doing, having, or feeling
- Never blaming yourself
- Observing where and when you are NOT assuming responsibility so you can ultimately change
- Dealing with the Chatterbox. This is the little voice inside that attempts to make you go crazy amd regularly succeeds!
- Monitoring any form of enticement that keeps you “stuck”
- Sorting out what you need in life and following up on it
- Figuring out the vast number of options you have in a given situation
“As you go through each day, it is crucial to realize that at every moment you are choosing the way you feel.”
Susann Jeffers
There is power in the words we emit. Positive words make us truly strong; negative comments weaken us. A significant part of this analysis is that it doesn’t change whether we believe the words. Uttering these words causes our inner self to accept them. It is like the inner self doesn’t have the slightest idea of what is valid and false. It doesn’t pass judgment. It just responds to what it is fed.
Negative thoughts take away your power.
At the point when the words “I am weak” come in, our inner self teaches most of us, “I need to be weak today.” But when the words “I am Strong” come in, the information given to your body is “I need to be strong today.”
Being a person that thinks positively requires a unique responsibility and a lot of training. And when you get everything down perfectly, a support program becomes a necessity. It doesn’t appear to be reasonable that you consequently become hostile when you quit practicing the positive. Yet, this part of you needs consistent support, and a cheerful mental disposition is only part of that support.
When you become optimistic about life, you will find it challenging to stay negative and upset about everything. Negativity is infectious, and you leave feeling terrible after spending time with a person with a negative attitude. Positivity is contagious as well, and spending time with a positive makes you feel as though you can sprout wings and fly.
How to make a no-lose decision
One of the biggest fears that keep us from moving ahead with our lives is our difficulty making decisions. The issue is that we have been taught, “Be cautious! you may make an irrational decision.” We are afraid that the wrong choice will deprive us of money, lovers, friends, status, or whatever the right choice should bring us.
Attached to this is our fear of making mistakes. We believe we should be perfect for reasons unknown and fail to remember that we learn through our errors. There truly isn’t anything to lose, just something to gain, no matter the decisions or moves you make throughout everyday life. This is called the No-Lose Model.
Steps to take before making a decision:
- Focus immediately on the No-Lose model: do away with thoughts of what you can lose and permit only the ideas of what you can gain.
- Get your work done: there is a lot to find out about the choices that are before you. It is generally useful to converse with the same number of individuals who are willing to listen.
- Establish your priorities: soul-searching is at the core of this stage. Allow yourself to consider what you deeply desire.
- Before making a decision, ask yourself which pathway is more in line with your general goals in life right now.
- Trust Your impulses: you will get some impulses from your body most times regarding which decision to make and which to forgo. Try not to be hesitant to trust them.
- Lighten up: we face a daily reality such that many people take their lives and decisions seriously. Don’t be too hard on yourself; nothing is that important.
Steps to make after making the decision:
- Throw away your picture: Once a choice is made, delete the picture you had in your mind before that decision. Since you can’t control the future, the image can make you wallow in sadness if it’s not fulfilled.
- Accept total responsibility for your decisions: doing this prevents you from getting angry at the world around you, and most importantly, not getting mad at yourself.
- Don’t protect, correct: it is generally imperative to commit to any decisions you make and give everything you have. But if it doesn’t work out, your best is to transform it!
Saying “yes” to your universe diminishes fear and helps you acknowledge your pain .
Your universe is an inevitable part of your life and the lives of those around you over which you have no control. It is that unexpected life plan that shows up on its own accord to interfere with your perfect plan. Most times, when we think we’ve got everything in our lives together, some unforeseen event comes up and changes everything. Such an event or even the slightest possibility of the unexpected is a significant source of fear for us humans. We must always bear in mind that saying “yes” is the antidote to fear.
Sayings yes means staying open to possibilities that our universe offers of new ways to see the world. saying yes means calmly surveying any unexpected situation that arises rather than being anxious and upset.
Saying no to your universe means fighting and resisting opportunities for growth and challenge. It leads to apathy and complacency. Saying yes means acknowledging our pain. Pain can have devastating effect if kept submerged.
Conclusion
We all experience fear. Nobody can get to the stage in their lives where they don’t have anything to worry about. Even if you manage to conquer the fear you have about something today, that sensation will resurface whenever you find yourself in the face of a new challenge or a strange situation. Living a great life is all about choosing to thrive in spite of your fears. People who get crippled by their fear rarely achieve anything worthwhile in life.
Fear isn’t a psychological problem; it is something that we have been taught from a young age. For example, society tells us constantly that the world is a dangerous place; our parents gave us all sorts of lessons on how to keep ourselves safe from harm. So, as time goes on, we internalize these fears, and they become deeply ingrained in our minds, showing up at different stages of our lives as adults.
At the core of each of the fears, we experience in our adult lives the truth is simply the fear that we can not handle whatever life may bring our way. We worry about what’s going to happen in our careers, our marriages, and our finances. We overthink every single decision we make because we are afraid of what the outcome might be.
Fortunately, we can all learn to control and overcome our fears. the key to doing this is to start trusting our ability to handle whatever comes our way in life because we truly can. We also need to get comfortable with making tough decisions and stop blaming others for our circumstances. When we take responsibility for our lives, we can learn from experience and see every challenge as an opportunity to grow.
From now on, every time you catch yourself feeling afraid, remind yourself that is it simply because you don’t feel good enough about yourself. Then go ahead and stand up to the fear. Muster the courage to do something about the situation. Start developing trust in yourself until you reach the point where you can boldly say: “whatever comes my way, in any circumstances, I can handle it!”