(*This post is educational only and is not meant to provide psychological treatment or advice. If you have a diagnosed mental health issue, or believe you do, you will need to seek out the direct assistance of a licensed mental health professional in your area. While the educational information below may be helpful, it does not replace or negate the advice of a licensed professional.)
In the last post, I talked about a strategy to work through your beliefs about fear. (If you haven’t read it yet, go back and review it before finishing this post!). But it got me to thinking about when I used to compete in dance competitions as a kid. I remember standing backstage, in the wings staring at the girl before me completing her routine – knowing that I was next. I literally had to will myself not to throw up or pee my pants.
Once I got going I was always ok, but those last few seconds before I had to force me feet to move were SO painful and awful. If I didn’t experience such joy once I got into my routine, I probably would have quit performing all together.
I knew getting out there wasn’t dangerous. I knew I could cope if I failed. I’ve fallen, forgotten my routine, and done a host of other embarrassing things on stage… and every time… I survived. So I knew it was ok. But I still felt so bad that there were a few times I almost didn’t make it on stage.
So what does it feel like to be afraid and what can we do about the physical sensations of fear?
Here are some common ways people describe the feeling of fear:
- Racing heart
- Shortness of breath
- The desire to run
- light-headed or dizziness
- Feeling weak
- Trembling
- Feeling nauseous
- Sweating
- Racing thoughts
This is not an exhaustive list. In yourself, you might notice one or two of these, or all of them, or you might have some sensation that I don’t have on the list. But it’s important to note that you are not imagining these sensations. Your body and your mind are intricately connected and these internal feelings are ways that your body is telling your mind to respond to something in the environment.
The bonus to all these fear sensations?
If you are riding your bike in your neighborhood and the neighbors dog starts chasing you… you will welcome all of these sensations because they help you respond appropriately to the scenario your are in. If, however, you feel this right when your boss asks you to present your thoughts to your colleagues in a business meeting… you might not find them so valuable.
Here’s the good news: with practice, you can learn to manage these sensations.
But first, you need to do one thing for me: if you have these feelings without an identifiable cause in your environment, visit your doctor to rule out any medical condition that could be causing it. You don’t need to do this every time you feel these symptoms, but it’s a good idea to be cleared by your physician at least one time. Now that we are in the clear, we can move on.
When I’m struggling with facing a fear, I use what I call the FIRE method to try to work on managing the physical sensations.
FIRE METHOD FOR FACING YOUR FEARS:
**STEP 1: Feel the feeling: Yeah, I know, not fun. But it’s hard to move on if you don’t know exactly what your experience of fear or anxiety is. Try finding a quiet place and time. Make yourself comfortable and close your eyes (if you’re comfortable doing that). Imagine yourself in an experience that you find mildly fear-producing and just pay attention to what happens in your body. Are your palms sweaty? Has your breathing changed? What about tenseness in your muscles? Take 10 min or so and scan every inch of your body for changes and feelings. When you are done, jot down what you felt.
**Step 2: Identify Ways to Respond: There are often steps you can take to manage the physical sensations of fear (assuming what you are afraid of is not actually dangerous). A LOT of them can be helped by simply focusing on your breathing. I often use counting my breath as a way of managing what I’m feeling.
I take a deep breath in and count how long that takes. However long that is, let’s say 6 counts, I try to make my exhale the same amount. So 6 counts in and 6 counts out. I do that for a few breaths and then try to add 2 more counts on until I get to 10. And then I do 5 breaths of 10 counts inhale and 10 counts exhale.
Breathing like that is a beautiful thing. It slows my heart rate down, which makes everything else in my body slow down too. And after not too long, I feel less nervous and more calm… voila!
Maybe repeating a mantra would help. Something like “I am ok” or “I am calm.” Maybe you need to redefine what you’re feeling as excitement.
Excitement, by the way, has a lot of the same feelings as fear.
If you can redefine what you’re feeling (i.e. I’m excited to share my thoughts with my colleagues) it could go a long way in helping you respond better. I really wish someone would have told me that one when I was waiting to go on stage as a kid!! Keep brainstorming until you come up with some ideas. Maybe ask a trusted friend to help you.
**Step 3: Evaluate: Here is the fun part. Take that list of coping responses you came up with and try them the next time you are facing something that scares you. See how they work. Some will take a few tries to master. That’s ok! Rome wasn’t built in a day… Keep practicing until you get it. Scratch any that don’t work for you and add any that you think up along the way.
That’s it!
I work on this constantly because when you are working on building the life of your dreams, you must continually step out of your comfort zone… and that is freaking scary!!
Let me know if any of the ideas here work for you! Also, let me know the ways you work on battling fear in the comments below. I’m looking forward to hearing from you!
As Always, Stay Healthy as Heck, KH