Your most effective strategy for eliminating fear

[jbischke]

Happy New Year everyone! I'm in the midst of writing out my goals for 2007. The over-arching theme for the year is the radical elimination of fear from my life. I've been becoming more attuned lately to the impact that fear has on most of the decisions most people (myself included) make. I'm looking forward to removing that burden from my life this year.

I'd love to hear strategies that any of you may have found for eliminating fear from your lives. I know Steve has shared some of his thoughts in this excellent podcast. I'm looking forward to listening to that one a couple more times and allowing it to fully sink in.

For me, the most effective strategy that I've found at this point in my life is to reduce or eliminate my reliance on what other people think of me. With a few exceptions, the only times that I have any fear are when I am concerned with others' opinions. The mantras "I am totally independent of the good opinions of others" or simply "I don't care what anybody else thinks of me" have been helpful in this regard.

Let me hear your strategies and how you've dealt with this all-important area of your life.

[Boldylocks]

I've been thinking that same thought alot "I dont care what people think about me--i'ts their issue, not mine" And it has helped me think outside of the box and not give a darn about what people at my job will whisper about me--(and where I work, alot of whispering goes on about that person right in front of them--the office is so small, noone cares anymore about if anyone can hear them).


Well One thing that I've learned from someone at a Curezone chat was that when your in a stressful situation involving people-- alot of times it is due to someone parasiting off of you-- provoking, then feeding off of your negative emotions. What to do is place your hand right over your belly button area (Solar Plexus). Also, if in a chair, cross your legs at your ankles- to keep your energy intact. I tried this and it really made a difference--which I was very surprised, since I was a bit skeptical at first.

[tc33]

Great question. I've been focused on defeating fear over the past few months, and I'm happy to report I've made great progress.

I believe it boils down to the following aspects:
- Consciousness: You cannot begin to defeat fear if you don't recognize it when it takes control. If you've read The 7 Habits..., Stephen Covey covers this in the first habit: be proactive. Basically, there is a gap between a stimulus and the response, and the habit essentially requires that you become aware of the gap and consciously direct your response (courage, in this case) instead of relying on your unconscious/preprogrammed response (fear).
- Confidence: If you feel inadequate, powerless, or weak, you cannot have any faith that if you do take action, that the action will be successful. This item ties in with the fear of failure -- a lack of confidence and a fear of failure can be a paralyzing combination. Personally, the fear of failure is one of my greatest fears, but I do have a lot of personal confidence, thus I can often obtain a successful result even in unfamiliar situations. In areas where I do not have a great deal of personal confidence (usually due to a lack of skill in a particular area), my fear of failure kicks in and I'm paralyzed as a result. I still need to work on my fear of failure.
- Independence: A reliance on the approval of others can cause you to be afraid of change. Perhaps you believe your family, friends, and/or loved ones will admonish you (fear of rejection) if you change careers, dump your SO, or decide to change religions. The obvious solution here is to reduce your reliance on others and have faith that your family and true friends will support your growth.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head; I'll throw more later if necessary.

I like the 'systematic desensitization' technique for reducing fear. I think Steve describes this in his podcast. Basically, you start doing things that are minimally fearful and work your way up from there. This exercise can help 'build your muscles'. I have a book on the way called 'Feel the Fear...and Do It Anyways', which got good reviews on Amazon. These days, I continue to remain conscious of fear, recite the title of the book to myself (even though I haven't read it yet), and do it anyways. I've learned to love the feeling of accomplishment combined with adrenaline!

Personally, I have found the lack of fear to be very liberating. For example, just yesterday I was doing some volunteer work with disabled children who were riding horses as therapy. After the event was over, the horses were back in the stable and one horse became scared after tripping on a folding chair. If you don't know, spooked horses can be dangerous simply due to their overwhelming strength. My friend was in the stall with the horse at the time and was in danger. Six months ago, I would have stared wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the event, frozen in fear. Yesterday, I immediately ran over to the stall to assist, feeling no fear whatsoever. The point here is not that I'm some type of hero -- actually my presence did nothing, or possibly made things temporarily worse The point is that my focus on reducing fear has spread to other areas of my life, in turn boosting my personal confidence. It is definitely an upward spiral I will continue to nurture...well, at least until I get kicked in the head by a horse

Hope that helps

- Tom

[ReallyGoodIdeas]

EFT every time! Fears, irrational (all of them) and rational, are dealt with by EFT easily. I sound like an ad, don't I?

Fear is something from the past sneaking into the present and distracting you from being as good as you can be. Fears are usually from an event in the past that had a negative impact on you. You see a similar situation looming and feel fear. You see the situation looming from your unconscious part and it's heaps faster than your conscious mind, so the fear is on you before you can stop it.

Start by using EFT on the fear itself. For example, feeling fear of other people's opinion. Pick an example situation and use a setup (see beginner's guide on my homepage) statement like:

Even though I am scared that Dad will disapprove if i quit my job, I love and accept myself completely.

Something will come out when you tap on it, the fear will either go away, or a memory of a time your father disapproved of you for some reason will pop up, or a thought about it will pop up.

You tap on that next thought, memory or whatever,

Even though Dad disapproved when I quit the job at the car wash when I was 16, I love and accept myself completely.

Keep following the thoughts until there's nothing left that bothers you about it, or you become bored with the process. Then think about the original fear. Has it gone? Most probably it has.

I had a great example on New Years Eve of a one-minute miracle fear cure with EFT. A party in a 12th fl apartment, with a v tiny balcony. The one smoker at the party was out there, terrified because he had a fear of heights, he's always had it apparently. He told me it was better now than it used to be! We did a quick round on the fear he was feeling right then, no words (he was french so his english wasn't great), so I skipped the words (no setup even) and we just did the tapping with his looking at the edge and feeling his fear.

After one shortcut round of EFT, he could lean over the edge and felt no fear, he was leaning over the edge for the rest of the night, enjoying the view!

I recommend EFT for fears highly.

Heights is easy, but the "social" fear you've mentioned is just as treatable with EFT. If you follow what I've briefly explained, you'll be looking for more things to tap on in no time.

Joy to you
Hazel

[Jill]

After one shortcut round of EFT, he could lean over the edge and felt no fear, he was leaning over the edge for the rest of the night, enjoying the view!

Offtopic:

You shoulda EFT'd away his smoking habit.

[ReallyGoodIdeas]

Offtopic:
He was giving it up at midnight anyway. I showed him how to use EFT if he feels the urge tho.

Joy to you
Hazel

[Dive Bomb]

What I usually do is put on some fearless music, like Van Halen. It helps soothe me when I feel the fear taking over. I reccomend Running With The Devil

Once I'm feeling it, I dissect my fear to a point where I'm free from its paralysis.

Not much different from what some people do but it works for me.

[Holistic Star]

Ok - I'll tell you about a really weird therapy that I had to get rid of fear.

Before I started the treatment I felt anxious ALL the time. I didn't let this stop me doing things in life because when anxiety is your base level state you just have to get on with it.

I found out that I had retained the Moro reflex. Another name for this reflex is called the 'startle' reflex. Moro reflex - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This is a reflex that you are supposed to grow out of by six months old. However I had retained it into adulthood. One of the results of having this reflex is that at every little noise your body is flooded with adrenaline and cortisol. This is not a good state to be in!
As it is a reflex you can't control it, you can calm yourself down afterwards and rationalise it, but you can't turn of that adrenaline flood just by postive thinking at it isn't controlled by the rational part of your brain.

So the therapy. It took place over 7 months with an appointment every 5 or 6 weeks. Each appointment, I was tested and the therapy was to brush various parts of my body with a child's paintbrush about 40 or so times, twice a day for the weeks inbetween the appointment. I might have to brush the side of my face for 5 weeks, then across my lips for another 5 weeks etc. I was aware it sounded nuts, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway. I didn't feel any benefit for over 3 months, then all of a sudden I realised that I didn't have a constant churning in my stomach. People started noticing the difference in me, I was happier, calmer especially at work.

Unfortunately it isn't a very well know therapy, there are only 4 people in the UK that are practitioners. So I'm guessing this post isn't hugely helpful to those that don't live near a practitioner. However if you are feeling fear all the time it might be a physical problem, not just a mental one. I think you could use EFT to get rid of the reflexes once you knew what they are, but aswell as the Moro I had retained about 25 other foetal reflexes and they have to be treated in developmental order otherwise the earlier ones are retained.

I do think EFT is great for learned fears (which the majority of fears are) so can heartily endorse it in using it for fear of what others think.

As I'm not a practitioner in this therapy I don't use it on my clients. One thing I do for them is to do an 'amygdala balance' which takes a lot of stress away from the body. This is done by connecting to the clients energy system and holding release points on their body. I do this initially without an issue in mind, and then with them thinking about their issue. I can literally feel the stressful energy draining out of their body. (NB I'm using literally in it's proper sense there!)