Fear has gotten some bad press in the past. Fear of judgement has probably stopped you from expressing your actual opinion. Fear of being wrong may have stopped you from putting your hand up. Fear of failure may have stopped you from giving something new a go.
Growing up we are taught that fear is a negative thing and something to be avoided. ‘Don’t be scared’ is on repeat throughout our childhood but the kicker is that no one lives entirely without fear, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you do, everyone fears something.
Fear itself is an internal warning system that lets us know when something isn’t quite right. From an evolutionary perspective it has kept us alive but now it's triggered by the simplest of things. Just think of the ellipses that pop up when someone is writing a text message back to you! While fear's original purpose was to aid our survival it has now morphed into something that can stop us from living to our full potential.
“Fear will get the worst of the best of us” Tom Hanks
Our response to fear is what matters. When our fear signal goes off we do one of four things: We panic, we freeze, we run away or we bury it. The first two are short term options and the second two are long term. All of these responses prevent us from using fear productively because untamed fear causes us to lose connection with our abilities. Have you ever forgotten every-single-thing you knew in a moment of confrontation for example? I’m the queen of thinking of the right thing to say 10 minutes after I should’ve said it!
In Jay Shetty’s book ‘Think like a Monk' he retells a story about ‘Biosphere 2’ which was an experiment in the Arizona Desert where scientists built huge steel and glass enclosures with the ideal living conditions for flora and fauna. Purified air, clean water, nutrient-rich soil and lots of natural light. It was a success in some ways but over and over again the trees would only grow to a certain height and simply fall over. At first this baffled the scientist until they finally realised this was caused by the lack of wind. In the real world trees are constantly buffeted by the wind and they in turn grow stronger bark and deeper roots to survive.
Jay writes that we spend so much time and effort on trying to stay in our comfortable bubbles (our personal biospheres) that we forget it's actually the challenges we face in life that make us stronger. You could think of it like working a muscle. If you deal with fear regularly you realise you're capable of dealing with fear regularly.
Have you ever noticed how making a big change in your life can be the catalyst for making other big changes that might have been daunting previously? Like working on your strength in the gym, you gain the confidence that when bad things happen (and they do happen!) you are able to handle them. Fear makes us fiction writers if we avoid it. We catastrophize, we imagine worst case scenarios and we close the whole operation down before we ever gave it a chance to be.
In order to use fear productively we need to change our perspective and response to it. We can reframe fear as an opportunity. This requires us not to panic or freeze when fear appears but to step back and accept the fear for what it is. A warning. Like any warning it should be addressed.
Most of our fears are so deeply ingrained that it can be hard to figure out what’s at their core. When we step back and try to take a more objective position it becomes clearer but it does require some self reflection. For example, I get pretty nervous about sending out these blogs, I’m worried that no-one will read them or they’ll get ridiculed. Diving deeper, there is some pretty bad imposter syndrome going on as well. Why should my voice be heard above others? What qualifications do I have to be writing about fear anyway? Deeper still, I’m worried about not being perceived as competent, as intelligent. Now this comes from a lifetime of thinking I was below average which started back in primary school!
These school holidays we have taken to kids on all sorts of adventures. The treetops adventure just outside of Forest was one of them. It's basically a ropes course set among the treetops but there are a few courses suited for 4-7 year olds. Both of our kids are wilderness children and I thought they’d be excited about the day but Alice, surprisingly, didn’t want to have anything to do with it when we arrived. She screamed and wailed while the other kids were getting their harness and helmets fitted. It was embarrassing to be honest and annoying because we just spent $30 for her to do it.
It was a 5 minute walk into the forest to the rope courses and once she saw the other kids having a go she started to come around. Luckily we have been given some extra gear for her incase she wanted a go and eventually she was ready to have a turn. Needless to say she freakin loved it. On her second or third time round she said to me, Mum, I have something to tell you, it was in her hushed, secretive but important tone “I was really scared before and now I’m not.”
If you are willing to be fully present with your fears then you have the opportunity to see them for what they are, a warning. Alice didn’t know what to expect and her fear presented as a total melt down! Whether you’re 4 or 40, seeing fear for what it is, is the first step in redefining it as a positive rather than a negative part of life’s journey.
Fear has the power to make us do great things, things we never thought we were capable of. Fear has the power to challenge us and much like the trees standing strong against the wind, we can use fear to grow deeper roots, build confidence and be more resilient.
