You're afraid, aren't you?

Running away from fear will only make it grow bigger...

Get up to it real nice and close and shut it down. So close that you can touch it and possibly even hug it. If we get up close, we may see that what we thought was scary, is not so scary. It more than likely is a false fear.

We fear things like a fire, being humiliated, heartbreak, failure and animal attacks. Humiliation and animal attacks are actually real possibilities, so how can it be considered a false fear? These things could ACTUALLY happen to you, but they aren't happening. But our bodies do not know the difference. When you imagine these things happening your body thinks that they are happening. Your reaction is to fight, flight, or freeze even when just thinking about these things possibly happening.

This is why it is called a false fear. They are thoughts masquerading as fear. The thoughts feel real, because as you think them, you experience the bodily sensation of fight/flight/freeze. This will only cause you to worry more. Your inner critic and or worrying parts are activated! They tell you how bad it will be and how you could make it worse.

The polite name for this fear is stress. You have to retrain your brain about false fear. Check in with those feelings you name stress or anxiety. Be curious. Spend time evaluating this fear. Try not to overthink it. Stay with this part of you and wonder about it. What does it have to tell you? It prefers certainty and feels scared when you consider doing things that will make the future uncertain. It pictures bad things happening to you, so it doesn’t want you to go forward

Let this part of you know you hear its concerns. Let it know you have more information and can share the calm your larger Self feels.

Self can retrain your brain that false fears are just that, false. There is no danger. There is no need for full scale uncertainty about life, the universe, and everything else.

Because of our biology, we lead from a part of us that is constantly scanning for danger. We can get stuck in overdrive with this part of our brain and have it wrong: there is no danger. Getting it wrong would be the fear without a cause.

Try to get up close to those fears. Listen to your false fears…but don’t react to them. Listening to false fears can lead to solutions.

For example, maybe you’ve worried about what would happen if your boyfriend or girlfriend cheated on you. How would you overcome that heartache? Even though it has never happened to you before. You have actually had great relationships! I mean that could be a real possibility though. You could react to your false fears by never dating or getting into a relationship.

Or you could get up close to that fear and start dating and trusting the person you are dating. You set and create boundaries and identify and act on any red flags you see in the beginning.

You have to notice your fear to separate from them so that you can hear what part is real and what is not real.