What we talked about:
Understanding that fear is a sign of deeper wounds
It has ability to control behaviors
Avoiding it prolongs the unconscious limitation
Finding where the brain doesn’t want to venture and going through the discomfort amends these problems
Finding the source is the first step. Then, getting specific
Once the details are known, we can identify if the fear is rational or not
We might even find “more rational” fears with the elimination of personal wounds from the narrative
Having a better understanding of reality, we can then leverage the fear for motivation
Through taking action, we expose ourselves living alongside the fear and persevering in its face anyways
This conditions the brain to tolerate the discomfort and maintain actionable steps
Which innately requires and prompts self-presence, thus assisting with mindfulness training
Making fear exposure a more functional option than becoming flooded and shutting down that teaches us additional coping and emotional regulation skills
The process:
If unemotional / unable to access, wait for or provoke an acute, complex emotional state
- Use that opportunity to explore FEAR
- Alongside big emotions is often a basis of fear, intertwined with them
- Especially if obsessing. The brain won’t let go of the thoughts for a reason. Check for fear of self (small s), it causes rumination.
Notice the feeling. And then go “into” it.
- Try to emphasize emotion by fixing your eyes on the spot they were in when you found it. Breathing very consciously.
- Feeling your chest tighten and almost applying “pressure” to it, with your mind. When you breathe out, surrounding and compressing the area somatically. When you breathe in, letting it expand.
- And watching your brain as you do it. What comes up? What images? Voices? Words? Memories?
You might have sudden, obvious, fears come up first.
- Things you know are messing with you, things that might be messing with all of us. But don’t accept those as answers.
- Try to get down below those clear answers by asking why it is, exactly, that you feel gutpunched by them? (i.e. “society failing.” But why? Because of the struggle? The collective pain? The implications on life span? WHAT is it and WHY?)
What, hyperspecifically, is it that you fear?
- When you think of your assumed fear, does your body react?
- When you extrapolate or expand the assumed fear into more specific experiences, does your body react?
- For me, as we discussed… it’s not death that I fear. I know because when I think of my beliefs about death my body relaxes.
- What really gets me? Time, unsupported, “at the end of the world.”
- I discovered this by having my heart hurt and having a panic response come up. Then asking why I felt fear within that experience.
- When you get some idea of your potential "real fear" (the hyperspecific one) lean in.
- If it's emotionally safe for you, engulf yourself in the sensation of fear and, within it, think about all the things you semi-consciously ruminated about the most
- Flashes of events or anticipated scenes may appear in the mind's eye. Figure out how they string together to tell a story of terror.
- Consider what you regularly get obsessive or negative about and see if together they write a subconscious tale that you're accidentally living in avoidance of.
All of this might take week, months, years. It depends on your trauma state, historical self-insight, and access to emotions.
When you get an answer, though, examine that fear against reality.
- What is logically unlikely?
- What is based on assumptions?
- What is rooted in worst case nightmares?
- Try to dispel the pieces of the complex fear that you can - attempt to simplify it by cutting off the unreasonable fat. Does that change the story you’re telling yourself?
- And also, in what ways are you not taking into account WHO YOU ARE that will likely not allow that fear to come to fruition? What aspects of self have you been overlooking?
Then ask “okay, then what?”
- Get clear on what the reasonable danger is…
- And then… consider what that really means for you.
- Now.
- What is in your control?
- What can you do to help the situation or help yourself if you can’t help the situation?
This becomes your new daily goalpost.
- Chipping away. Working dedicatedly. Taking initiative. Applying your attention and outward action… to improving your experience and your conditions, NOW.
Start with the smallest units of behavior and work your way up.
- In other words.. begin with your feelings and body.
- From there, work your way to your home and community.
- Consider what can change from the nucleus of your being, outward, in the face of these fears. Not necessarily to control or prevent them from becoming true – because, most likely, you can’t realistically do that. But to improve your experience and condition so you’re better able to handle your real fears, should they become true.
And then take action.
- You will have to move slowly.
- If you are running, you are reacting to fear.
- Start with the smallest actions – the ones that impact you, personally, to give you strength, grounding, inner light
- What makes you feel better? Fills you up? Brings a soft, fuzzy, warm, receptive, comforted sensation inside your chest?
- Cater to those behaviors.
- Stoke that feeling.
- Redevelop your life (your mundane day to day) from the inside, out, by following this guidance.
- See it as an exciting, you-centering, process.
- This isn't selfishness.
- It’s courageous to do in the face of fear. This is resilience.