Saturday, November 8, 2008

How To Deal With The Paralyzing Debilitating Fears That Stop You From Living Your Dreams!


Every single one of us has fears that stop us from doing things that we want to do in life.


Sometimes these fears stop us from doing things that we need to do in order to survive.


The anxiety associated with just imaginating ourselves being in that freightful situation can be enough sometimes to make us sick in and of itself.


I know it can for me sometimes.


We need to look at fear from a wholistic perspective in order to conquer it in our lives.


We need to understand what this thing called fear is and how to control it, harness it or if possible eradicate it.


First lets look at the different levels of fear.


Level 1 Fears: Those That Happen To Us vs
Those That Require Action

Fear of things that happen to us (things that in many cases we cant help but react to) : Aging, beoming disabled, retirement, being along, getting robbed, getting raped, going to jail, loss of finacial security, change, dying, house burning down, illness, losing a loved one etc.


Fear of thing that require action: going back to school, making decisions, going to work in the morning lol, making friends, ending or begining a relationship, asserting oneself, losing weight, making a mistake etc.


These fears affect many parts of our lives and are often linked to other fears. Like you are afraid to make new friends you might be afraid to go to parties, having intimate relationships, applying for jobs. All of these are linked to a fear of being in a social situation.


Level 2 Fears: Situtional Fears


These are fears that often stem from situations we try to avoid in our lives such as, fear of rejection, fear of success, fear of failure, fear of being vulnerable, fear of being conned, fear of being helpless, fear of dissapproval, the loss of image, etc.


Theses fears reflect your ability to handle the world. These fears affect every part of your life. They are in a sense the core fears by which all of our other fears stem from.


There is one fear that is the absolute center of all of our fears. No matter how big or small , ALL of our fears stem from this one underlying thing we say to ourselves either consciously or unconsciously.


Level 3 Fear:

"I CANT HANDLE IT"

This is it right here.


AT THE BOTTOM OF EVERY ONE OF YOUR FEARS IS SIMPLY THE FEAR THAT YOU CANT HANDLE WHATEVER LIFE BRINGS YOU!

I cant handle being sick.

I cant handle loosing my job.

I cant handle going on a date.

Whatever.


So now that we know where our fears come from what do we about them?


We have to remember the basic truths about fear and whenever we get into a situation that we are afraid to remember these rules and we'll be okay.

The 5 Basic Truths About Fear

Truth #1: THE FEAR WILL NEVER GO AWAY EVER!

Even people who have been doing something for years still feel fear when they perform that fear provoking activity. The only thing it will do is lesson in its intensity.

Truth #2: THE ONLY WAY TO GET RID OF THE FEAR IS TO GO OUT AND DO IT!

No self-help psychological mumbo jumbo for this one! Do like Nike said "Just Do It!"

Truth #3: THE ONLY WAY TO FEEL BETTER ABOUT MYSELF IS TO GO OUT. . . AND DO IT!

This is self explanatory. We ofetn get paralyzed by the fear of doing something or we rationalize not doing by procrastinating or coming up with some cockimamie excuse on why cant do it. Just go out and do it.


Truth #4: NOT ONLY AM I GOING TO EXPERIENCE FEAR WHENEVER I'M ON UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY, BUT SO WILL EVERYONE ELSE.

Even the expets. Those who seem to be cool, calm and collected all the time (Obama) will experience fear and anxiety when they are doing whatever they are doing that causes fear.

Truth #5: PUSHING THROUGH FEAR IS LESS FRIEGHTENING THAN LIVING WITH THE UNDERLYING FEAR THAT COMES FROM A FEELING OF HELPLESSNESS!

Living with the fact that you were punked by your fears should be a frietening thing. Instead we celebrate our inadequacies. We use them as badges of honor lol. We measure ourselves by our failures instead of our successes.

Thats it Peace!

gotten from book "Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway" Susan Jeffers

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I won't add anything to that. Good information to disseminate.

All-Mi-T [Thought Crime] Rawdawgbuffalo said...

i agree and will summate - faith

James Tubman said...

good to see yall brothers

nice to know i still got some friends lol

i think faith is a great way to sum it all up as well

Tia's Real Talk said...

I wrote about the same thing not long ago, called "Realizing Your Strong Holds". I feel that fears and strong holds are the same. They both are things that hold you back from your max potential. We have to realize them first before we can conquer them.

great info..
check out my post on this...
http://tias-mind.blogspot.com/2008/07/realize-your-strongholds.html

lulu said...

geez man, i am afraid of steeping out of the box of generality i so wanna jum p out of when it comes to career and i am afraid of falling in love with the wrong person, or at all... woah... am praying , beleiving... that the Goood Lord help me and perfect love be ground in me so i can have all fear erased... some journey

Obama Mama said...

I agree with that wholeheartedly. But I'm confused by one thing, truths about fear #1 and #2.

also I took some women empowerment workshop once and the trainer was explaining that many people fear doing well or being successful (change) and then it comes back to one of your truths, not being able to handle success or fear that the other people in your life will not appreciate or be able to handle your success. For example a possible reason for women not going back to school or finishing college is that many fear being more successful than thier husbands or significant other. That is if the husband isn't a college graduate.

James Tubman said...

@tia.. your post was very inciteful

letting fear take over your life is ultimately counterproductive

but we do it all the time


@lulu... you should be afraid lol

tha is what everyone feels at some point in time

however if achieviing your goal is important to you, you either have to do one of two things

you have to analyze your goal to see if its even worth it

or you have to go through it

in my opinion its best to go through if you can to see if you can handle it

i spent so much of my life being afraid to go into new situations and when i finally got the courage to try it i found that it wasnt that bad

thanx for your comment lulu


@shai... thank you miss shai


@obmam mama... i can see why you are confused

they contradict each other

i think she meant that the fear wont go away just by trying to wish it away

you have to actually do it and go through it to actually relinquish it

i think women should be more empowered but it think that women should be taught to reckognize the power they already have in their relationships with men

this would be a good conversation to have one day

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