Breaking The Habit Of Fear

Whether we are willing to admit it or not, fear IS a part of our lives.  We are wired to detect it largely through our intuition, but also through our senses.  We can intuit when something doesn't feel quite right, or we can smell something burning, or feel and see when we've injured ourselves, or hear the screeching tires or a crash of a potentially dangerous accident.  These danger signs can call a fear response forward, which can move us to action that may even save our lives.  However, a good deal of our fears in modern day, are more "in the ethers" of our mental state.  They are more about relationships, jobs, dealing with difficult tasks, or difficult asks, feeling stressed or worrying about the future.  These are often the fears that stop us from making progress.  When we don't overcome them, we lose our power which makes it all the harder the next time and the next.  Fears can be insidious and they make our life feel scary, like it's out to get us. They might be messing with your head on a daily basis even without your conscious "permission."  For many of us, fear has become a habit.

Bringing our awareness to the fears of the day, we can either avoid them, ignore them, or actually tackle them.  The more we do the previous two, avoid and ignore, the more likely those fears will grow and appear to overwhelm us with stress and threaten our sense of safety.  We believe we can't push through, and may cave when we feel fear, even when it is only mildly uncomfortable.  We shrink to it, we go into catastrophic thought loops and the doors to our best solutions close rather than open.  You might think we could solve fear with confidence or courage, yet those feel very far off when we are in the midst of fear.  We need something more accessible, a tool we can gently work with to bring us back to our sense of expansive thinking in order to build the resolve that will redirect and dissolve the fear.  Enter curiosity.

Curiosity is a more childlike quality than are courage or confidence.  And since we might feel more like children in the midst of fear, curiosity is more easily accessible.  Begin the practice when you feel stuck in your fear, speaking your fear out loud because it shows acceptance and creates a starting point.  For example, you could say something as simple as: "This (fill in the blank) makes me feel afraid."  Once you are in the present moment with attention to your fear, go further.  Ask: "What am I currently believing that is supporting my fear?"  Here, you slip out of the fearful emotion (in the amygdala) and shift yourself back into a thinking awareness (the prefrontal cortex).  Doing so can slow down a racing, fearful mind.  What beliefs are causing the fear?  Obtain those details and move on.  Be curious about whether your beliefs are actually 100% true, or if there might be another way to look at it.  Ask, "Is there anything at all, even if it was just a tiny change, where I could see another possibility or create another possible scenario?" Then ask, "What am I not seeing here?"  "What could that possibility be?"  Let your mind search and create a new "reality check".  Then, speak aloud your new options.  Your voice gives power to the suggestions.

As you begin asking yourself questions, you give momentum to your curiosity and you will start to feel an expansion happening.  You will also feel a softening and a connection with your creative intelligence leading you out of the grip of fear.  Questions of curiosity lead to fresh ideas, new beliefs, better solutions, growing confidence, courage and eventually help to build the skills needed to walk yourself out of any fearful situation. I mean let's be honest, none of us needs more cortisol infiltrating our bodies. Curiosity helps you break down the "monster" of fear into it's smaller pieces, making it feel more manageable.  This also helps you to build your sense of self-esteem and gives you a wider birth. Meaning, instead of going straight to fear, next time you might choose to slow down and ask questions before anxiety grows into a true fear-state.  As you do, watch yourself move toward a more empowering point of possibility.  Anyone who has done this successfully knows how incredibly Self-honoring an action it can be. It's a little like being able to tell your own fortune.  Pretty cool.

Awakening your highest abilities, bringing forward your wisest, most creative self through curiosity, you will find a path to breaking the habit of fear.  Curiosity may have "killed the cat," but healthy curiosity may also kill your fear.  These are life-skills we all need to develop, especially in this time and with consideration to the circumstances that are currently ongoing in the world.  Conquering our fears with skill-building questions of curiosity help us to handle those fears much more elegantly too.  We foster confidence and personal power.  They grow as curiosity is successfully used to handle the fears in your own mind and life.  With compassion, time and patience, it becomes much easier to intentionally replace the habit of fear with the habit of curiosity.  A worthy swap.  This is well within your purview.  The power we all used "like breathing" as kids, can be just as wonderful and powerful for us as adults.  Same tool, different application—but both bring greater freedom, possibility and joy to life.

Always for YOU,

Karen