Regardless of whether you are familiar with the feeling of rampant, possessive fear for a long time or whether you are confronted with it completely new – let’s take a closer look at what fear actually is, what it is good for and, in the next step, which strategies you use use when fear takes over:
- Shift Your Focus From Inside To Outside - When we are scared, we often direct all of our focus inwards, on our thoughts, the catastrophic scenarios that our heads are concocting and our physical panic reactions such as palpitations, sweating, tremors, etc.
- Change Your Interpretation Of The Situation - Let’s remember: It’s never the situation, but the interpretation that triggers a feeling, in our case that scares you.
- Speak Nice To Yourself - If you find yourself in a situation that usually triggers your fear, find a loving (imaginary) companion. Give this companion the task of supporting you and coaxing you well.
- Loosen Up With Breathing Exercises And Progressive Muscle Elaxation - When we are afraid, we are often tense and adopt a very tight, cramped posture. This is an interaction, so to speak, because this alertness signals to your system that you are on the alert and that danger is imminent.
- Experience Calmness Through Meditation - Meditation goes in a similar direction. Meditation, however, includes the thoughts and trains you to simply let thoughts be thoughts. Through meditation you can teach yourself that you don’t necessarily have to react to a thought.
- Practice Acceptance - It has been mentioned several times in this article: A very effective way of dealing with difficult emotions such as fear is to accept them. Sounds strange at first, but you can imagine it like a ball floating on water.
- Face Your Fear In Small Steps - Finally, and with a little tongue in cheek, what really helps is when you practice facing your fears over and over again. Do it like in a computer game.
