5 Ways to Overcome Your Fears

Definition of Fear:

Noun

An unpleasent emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain or a threat

Verb

Be afraid of (someone or something) as likely to be dangerous, painful, or threatening

Remember your first scary movie, what was it? I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember the first scary movie that had me scared to go to bed: The Ring. I don’t know what made me want to watch the movie (maybe cause I thought it was the thing you did on dates), but my dad chose I swear the darkest night in the fall and rented the movie from Blockbuster**.  I must have been a teenager because I was confident I wouldn’t get scared at all. Once we got to our basement, all the lights were off and my dad started the movie, I started to feel a chill, my stomach dropped, and started to sweat. I was nervous and scared and we had just started the movie.

I know when I go to see a scary movie now, I am going to be afraid but I also know it is only temporary. However, I never seem to feel like fear is temporary when it comes to the future and unknown. It is one of those emotions that always stop me in my tracks and sometimes can lead me to depressive episodes.

As I embark on my next decade of life, it has come up again. The fear I feel seems to manifest differently in my body at this point in my life.  In my 20s, I experienced several different types of fear:

1. The Self-Doubter: not feeling I was good enough or had the capability to achieve my dreams
2. The Outcast: not wanting to be rejected by others and self-sabotaging before the possibility 
3. The People Please: the fear of being judged and worry about disappointing my family
4. The Procrastinator: obsessing over the end product being perfect that you get stuck in the research and planning

I also feared for my life, more times than I would want to count. My 20s were not only about growth but determining what I am capable of and digging into my internal fears. Digging into my internal fears took some help, but I had to use some good old techniques such as

1. Journaling – sometimes writing down just about your day or your thoughts help to organize possible patterns showing up in your life
2. Analyzing my dreams – this is another subsection of journaling, but I try to journal and meditate on what was showing up in my dreams. Sometimes your dreams can be telling you something.
3. Saying them out LOUD – sometimes just speaking them out loud to yourself or someone can help. It can be hard to confront a fear if you can’t verbalize what it is exactly. 

Though I had to discover the source of my fears, I had to figure out how to move past them. Overcoming these fears was difficult but necessary work. Some of the steps I took were

5 Ways to Overcome Your Fears

1. Remove the negative energy – this is all up to how you do it and what you believe. For me, this was to redirect my negative thoughts about myself, limit my time around people who always spoke negative about and/or to me, and remove myself from negative situations
2. Remember your Power – take some time to think of times when you felt powerful, bold, and invincible. Using those memories helped me to shake the fears I was having or at least lessen the anxiety I was having.
3. Ask Why? – Be like a toddler and keep asking why until you can’t anymore. This step may just help you get to the root of your fear to understand 
4. Build your internal confidence – everyone has different ways of doing this, but I start off with putting myself in situations where I knew I would either excel, succeed or turn on my competitive drive.
5. Step into the unknown – sometimes you just have to bet on yourself. It may be scary to walk into the unknown, but the worst result is a failure. So take that chance on yourself more and see what comes out of it.

Fear is not an emotion to be hesitant about, but don’t let it stop you from experiencing everything life has to offer.

** If you don’t know what Blockbuster is, well it was the best place ever to go to on a Friday night to get movies for the weekend.