A Few Ways to Deal with the Fear's Discomfort

Fear, real or imagined, can cause us to become inhibited. Think of it like the "flight or fight response" that is a natural part of our instinctive behavior.But there is an additional response....do nothing. An inhibition causes us to be constrained, blocked, held back, in other words, similar to the deer in the headlights...stand still, don't move, play dead....

We all have a smorgasbord of inhibitions and fears that are so much a part of our lives that we don't even consciously pay attention to them, except when we want or have to do something that bumps against them. For example, we go along on our merry way each day until lay offs begin...and we begin to fear losing our job, and we fear looking for another one, we don't want to do the search, or the interviews or have to get to know new routines and people. And what might we be feeling? We feel like running. We feel like hiding. We might even feel like taking a swing at someone. But we don't do any of those things. We "stand still". We have 'inhibited' certain behavior but all of the physical reactions are still churning in our body and because they have not been released they continue to churn. At this point we really don't know if we will lose our job. Our thoughts are creating the fear and these physical reactions.

We have all seen on PBS the scene of an animal who escapes death. What you may not have noticed is the "shake off" when the animal is safe. It is literally shaking its whole body. It is dispelling some of that 'flight or fight' energy.

We have to do something like that too or the anxiety builds and continues to build over time. It is there in every muscle and organ of our body.And it affects, to one degree or another, all the areas of our life.

3 techniques to deal with the discomfort related to fear?

Many if not most of these inhibitions and fears are learned over time. We need to use our marvelous brains to unlearn the old 'mistaken programming'.

Techniques for Dealing with the discomfort--
1. warm-ups...singers do this all the time before a performance; so do musicians, athletes and others; What kind of 'warm-up' would help to calm you down while at the same time pump you up?

2. exercise...anxiety causes lots of 'energy' and it helps to dissipate the anxiety energy by exercising... What kinds of exercises would you like to do that would help to transform this energy?

3. practice/practice/practice...depending on what the fear/inhibition is, e.g., if a person has to give a presentation and they are fearful, practicing the presentation many times, with huge gusto, way 'over-correcting', being excessive in expression, will not only dissipate the anxiety energy but turn it into performance energy (notice that I avoided the use of negative and positive energy...) and will increase confidence related to this activity.