Overcoming Fear

The Four Reactions of Fear

Fear is a normal and essential emotion.  Without it we would not survive. There are four responses to fear:

• Fight: You become large and fight so you can feel more powerful and have your fear go away.
• Flight: Running away to escape what you're afraid of
• Freeze: The fear keeps you in a place of inaction.  You in essence become like a deer in head lights
• Fawn: Moving toward your threat and trying to please it or give it what it wants so that it is no longer threatening to you.

There are times and situations when these responses are appropriate and effective in helping us or keeping us safe. There are other cases where these reactions are not appropriate and/or cause us more problems than benefits. Such consequences depending on the response can be:

• Being overly aggressive hurting others and ourselves unnecessarily, keeping us separate from others.
• Running away from threats that need to be addressed causing us to never create safety and resolution. This can often lead to social isolation.
• Becoming unable to make essential decisions and/or get what we want in our lives because the fear holds us back. This often leads to feeling small and being ineffectual in our lives.
• Losing our power or our sense of ourselves through codependent relationships.

When we have any of these types of reactions to fear we often walk through life feeling frustrated and victimized because we do not have the relationships, job or status that they know we could have.

Fear as a Fantasy

Although some fear is essential to our survival many of our fears are simply the result of our thoughts.  It is essential to feel fear when a truck is speeding toward us so that we can get the adrenaline we need to jump out of the way.  A large majority of our fears come from our thoughts that are self perpetuating and are often not totally in line with reality.  Such thoughts become fantasies that we hold onto as reality and cause us to move into one of the reactions of fear.  When our fear reactions are a result of our fantasies and not reality they often cause undesirable effects that make our lives more difficult.  Many of these fantasies are connected to or created out of our low self-esteem, shame or sense of powerlessness.

My Approach to Overcoming Fear

I will help you examine your fears to help you determine which are created from your thoughts and then rework those thoughts with you so that they no longer generate so much fear. We will also examine your reactions to your fears and determine which are helpful for you and which are getting in your way.  I will give you tools which enable you to be with your fears that are real, allowing you to safely go for what you want without your fear holding you back.  This work may include dealing with your shame, low self-esteem and reclaiming your passion and power.