Tag: afraid

5 Tips to Help You Take Action to Overcome Your Fear

“Thinking will not overcome fear, but action will.” ~W. Clement Stone

I made it all the way to my thirtieth birthday without learning how to drive. After I turned twenty-one, people often asked me why I hadn’t learned yet. My go-to story was that I lived in a place with abundant public transportation options and never had any intention of buying a car.

The truth is that I wanted to learn, but I was terrified, and the fear grew with each year.

What if I got in an accident? What if people laughed at me for learning so late or honked angrily at me? What if I chose a bad driving school with unforgiving teachers?

I used these fearful questions and the fear responses that came along with them as obstacles to stop me from taking any action toward learning. I felt as though their presence meant that I couldn’t take an action. I wanted them to go away before I took any steps.

The one thing I was avoiding was the key to me overcoming my fear. It sounds so obvious, but how many of us have wanted to do something, felt afraid, and then spent more time thinking and talking about it than actually taking action?

I put “learn how to drive” on my New Year’s resolution list for the last time and decided to find a way to make it happen, despite my fear.

When you think of taking action, you might have some big, scary idea of what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about deciding one day that you want to jump out of a plane and then an hour later booking your flight. Or in my case, deciding that I wanted to learn how to drive and then getting right in the driver’s seat.

None of this is necessary.

I’ve learned five helpful things about taking action that helped me move from thinking about learning how to drive to getting behind the driver’s wheel and actually driving confidently.

If you already know how to drive, which I’m assuming most of you do, these things can easily apply to anything else you’ve wanted to do but haven’t yet tried out of fear.

1. Start at the beginning.

One reason that we hesitate when we have something we are afraid to do is because we are thinking only of the end result and likely feel incapable of getting to that point from where we are now.

Forget about the end result, or at least take your laser focus off of it long enough to determine what the first step might be. In my case, the first step was visiting my state’s Registry of Motor Vehicles website to find the process for getting a learner’s permit.

The more you focus on all of the actions you have to take to get to the end result, the less likely you are to actually take any steps. So just focus on the first step and start there.

2. Remember that small steps count too.

Each action step doesn’t have to be big.

Your brain, ego, or that limiting, fearful part within will try to convince you that your steps are too small. They couldn’t possibly count, it says, so better to just not try. It’s lying to you.

Every accomplishment, like baking a cake, publishing a book, or learning to drive, is made up of small steps made over and over and over again.

Learning about the learner’s permit process led to picking up a driver’s manual, which led to spending time every day studying the manual, which led to scheduling the permit test. All these small steps built up to me ultimately learning how to drive.

3. Realize it’s not how you feel; it’s what you do.

One of my obstacles was thinking that the presence of physical fear symptoms meant I couldn’t take action. You can be terrified, with a quick pulse or shaky hands or shallow breaths, and still take action.

It’s the steps that count, not how you feel when you take them.

When I had my first driver’s lesson, my hands shook so badly that I wasn’t sure I would be able to hold the steering wheel. But I got through the lesson, one step further in my journey to learn, and decided that I would celebrate the fact that I showed up, in spite of fear, rather than judging myself as a failure for how nervous I felt physically.

4. Get high on taking action.

There is this magically wonderful high that occurs after you’ve taken action that you were afraid to take. I’m not sure how many of you have experienced it, but talking to other people who have done things that terrified them, I found that I’m not alone in noticing this.

Use that high to your advantage. Make it an incentive that leads you, especially in moments when you are doubtful, that you can handle the fear of taking another step.

After my first lesson, I wrote down how I felt (excited, proud, happy) and I referred to it again before my next couple of lessons when I forgot how good I felt and needed a reminder to help tone down my fear.

5. Know that action builds confidence.

Deciding to take action to overcome my fear of learning to drive has not only meant a new skill, it has also brought me confidence in my ability to learn new things, handle mistakes, work toward and achieve a goal, meet new people, and much more.

Action has many unintended opportunities for growth beyond the specific area we decide to work on.

It’s in the action that we test our hypothesis about life and about ourselves. It’s in the action that we grow confident about ourselves and our abilities. It’s in the action that we find out what mistakes are experientially and how much stronger we are by learning from them as we go.

So today I can say I know how to drive. I even look forward to it. I couldn’t have said that though had I just continued to wait to take action until I no longer felt afraid.

What action can you take to overcome your fear today?

December 16, 2013
Letting Go of Fear and Living in Peace

“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.” ~Albert Einstein

I sat in the waiting room of the dermatologist’s office waiting to be seen. For years I have had skin problems, from fungal infections to dermatitis. But when my dentist noticed an indentation the size of a mosquito bite on my upper lip that had not healed in the five weeks since I had seen her, she sent an urgent message to my primary care physician.

The next day, I was seen by my primary care physician and referred immediately to a dermatologist. The medical receptionist handed me a piece of paper with a big green dot next to the words “cancer screening.”

The word “cancer” brought up all sorts of images: throwing up, losing hair, and sometimes death.

Years ago, I was diagnosed with pre-cancer. Had it finally developed into the real thing?

There were two other patients in the waiting room. An older woman with yellow tinted sunglasses and a full head of wavy gray hair sat completely absorbed reading a magazine article.

A younger woman with long brown hair clutched an explanation from the medical billing department about the cost of other services, but no matter how many times she glanced at the paper, her gaze quickly flickered away, as if she was preoccupied with other thoughts.

Had she also come to discover whether or not she was cancer-free?

An undercurrent of agitation swam beneath the waiting room calmness, and I closed my eyes briefly and practiced breathing.

When I was in my twenties, my mind and body wellness doctor mentioned I had a tendency to hold my breath during crucial moments, locking emotions into my body long after the event had taken place. The key was to remember to breathe during those big moments and let the feelings flow through me instead of getting stuck.

I thought about dying and realized I was not afraid to die. I was at peace with myself and how I had lived my life.

Sure, I thought about the practical things: bills, savings, and life insurance. I also thought about the impractical things: husband and children. I even thought about my legacy: my books and my paintings.

If I died, I had enough life insurance to pay off the mortgage and allow my husband time to remarry. If I died, my children would finish growing up without a mother but not without mother-figures. If I died, the books and paintings would go on to entertain and delight others.

What surprised me most was I didn’t have an urgent need to execute a bucket list if I was told I had only six months or a year to live. I felt no desire to quit my job, travel the world, or race a formula one car. I would go on as I had always done: following the same routine every day until there were no days left.

Why?

Over the years, I had abandoned the emergency living I was accustomed to as a young adult in favor of the one-day-at-a-time practice of mindfulness I had adopted as a middle-aged woman.

Gone were the spontaneous forays into carpe diem that led me down selfish roads that hurt the ones I loved.

Gone were the days when I would miserably brood over the things others had done to hurt me, whether unknowingly or intentionally. Gone were the fantasies of a life full of adventure at the expense of abandoning a disabled child I struggled to love.

Now carpe diem translated into loading the dishwasher for my tired husband although it was his assigned chore. Now I no longer brooded miserably over hurt feelings, but said something immediately to diffuse misunderstanding. Now I no longer pined for foreign adventures, but cherished spending quiet moments with my disabled son.

Sure, I had moments of discontent. Who doesn’t? But a fight with my husband no longer propelled me into arms of another man.

Sure, I still envied people who could travel to foreign countries without rearranging the lives of everyone around them. But I found contentment in reading about their adventures, knowing how exhausting it already was to hire and train a respite worker to care for my son just so my husband and I could have a night out.

Sure, I still had hopes and dreams for a life of abundance, but I was no longer going to discount the blessings I already had.

If I did have cancer and if I did die from it, I would not change a thing in my life.

I was not afraid of dying. Dying meant leaving my body, a habitat everyone must eventually leave. Who was I to ask to have my body forever?

No one knew what exactly happened to the soul, but I suspected it would transcend whatever limits the body had imposed on me. If nothing else, I would live on through the ones I had left behind and their lives would become inextricably connected with mine.

When the nurse called my name, I stood up and went into the examination room. The dermatologist arrived shortly thereafter and examined me.

He didn’t know whether or not the skin abnormality was cancerous or not, but he wanted me to try an experimental drug for one month before performing a biopsy and authorizing further treatment.

I left the doctor’s office without a firm diagnosis. I still don’t know whether or not I have cancer. And, frankly, it doesn’t matter whether or not I have it or whether or not I will die from it.

What matters is the life I have been given.

None of us knows when our time on this planet will be up. But we all know we have choices on how we live the moments that have been given to us right now. Our thoughts and our actions illuminate who we are and what we have to give.

Each moment, no matter how seemingly insignificant, is wrought with hope and faith and love.

Breathe in, breathe out. You cannot be afraid if you live in peace.

Photo by Frank Volachek

July 1, 2013
How Fear Can Deepen Joy and Love If We Let It

“Fear has its use but cowardice has none.” ~Gandhi

On Monday, my boyfriend and I took a ferry to Catalina Island, where we planned to spend the night.

I knew the island would be quaint and charming, which was a big part of its appeal, but I was mostly looking forward to breathing in the salty ocean air.

From vacations enjoyed with beachside lounging, to summer days spent running along the shore, some of my favorite memories involve the hypnotic lilt of crashing waves.

We hightailed it to the upper deck as soon as we dropped our bags, allowing ourselves the best possible view of any jumping dolphins we might encounter.

It wasn’t long before we picked up some speed, but this didn’t deter me from sticking my face into the wind.

I imagined that was what dogs feel like when they poke their heads outside car windows—completely enveloped by the cool, crisp breeze; wrapped in it and yet so free.

Thirty minutes and ten dolphin sightings in, though still windblown, I felt my cheeks go warm and flush as I giggled, “I love the ocean!”

It was the kind of pure joy that comes being fully present, clearheaded, and immersed in nature—magnified because I was sharing it with someone I love.

Three hours later, after we’d checked into our hotel and eaten lunch, I thought, “I hate the ocean.”

We’d decided to go snorkeling, something my boyfriend loves, and, theoretically, I thought I’d enjoy.

Nemo-like fish, machine-free exercise, and exploration are all things I appreciate. And we’d done it together once before in San Diego, a few months after we’d first started dating.

But back then we’d stayed in shallow water, much like I do when I swim at beach. By “swim” I mean wade out to my waist, all the while fearing death by shark. (more…)

November 7, 2012
How to Free Yourself from the Cycle of Social Fear

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore” ~André Gide

A few months ago, I received a gift from my brother while on a vacation in the United States. He was giving each one of us a small token of stone with words carved on them. Mine was etched “courage.”

The stone reminded me of my struggles on self-esteem—in the past and the present. I pull strength from my courage to face the challenges of each day.

Getting to where I am now was not an easy task.

The Cycle of Social Fear

The earliest memories of my childhood had to do with being in one corner of the classroom watching all the other kids playing while I stood watching. It was not because my teacher punished me, but because I was too shy to talk or play with anyone.

I would sit all day long if there was no instruction to do otherwise.

I do not remember exactly what was going on in my mind. I think there was this part of me that just wanted to be me—not do anything and accept myself being shy—and there was my other self that wanted to be like any other kid enjoying playing with others.

I wanted to interact but I did not manage to do so because I was caught in the vicious cycle of social fear:

I am shy —> I want to play with them —> If I play with them, I’m afraid of what they will say about me —> I don’t want to be rejected —> I will not join them because…—> I am shy.

Thanks to the support of my family and friends who went out of their way to help, I have changed in spite of myself. But this did not happen without constant battle between the shy me and the real me.

Decide to Step out of the Cycle

The only way you can get out of the rut of fear is to make a conscious decision to step out of it. It is not easy to do this if you have grown into the habit of fear. In order to make this work, you have to find what your heart really wants and teach your heart and mind to accept this.

Reflect on this question: What is it that I fear and would like to overcome?

Your fears can be a general “shyness” or specifically not being able to talk, or point out something in a meeting, or not being assertive enough.

Now ask yourself: Why do I want to overcome this? (more…)

October 18, 2012
A Simple Process to Turn Fear into Power

“You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are.” ~Yogi Bhajan

Have you ever stopped to think about your definition of fear?

As my dear friend Mr. Webster states, fear is “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.”

Simply put, I disagree with this definition of fear.

My definition of fear goes something like this….

“An opportunity for self discovery and self growth; a well of untapped personal power and strength; the gateway from wishing and wanting to doing and being.”

Yes, fear can be a drag, and there are certain situations and life-threatening circumstances that stir up a whole slew of fear that I would never wish upon any one.

But there’s another spectrum of fear that comes from within and the culprit is often our very own “monkey mind” and self-worth. Most likely, it’s this very fear that is holding you back from living the wildly successful, abundant, joy-filled life that you crave and oh-so deserve!

I never really thought about fear before, but last year I decided to take the entrepreneurial plunge and it opened a whole new can of worms for me. This is when my relationship with my personal forms of fear took flight.

I was fearful that I wasn’t smart enough to run my own business, my skills and knowledge weren’t as strong as my business partners’ skills, I didn’t have enough experience to prove to potential clients that I know what I’m talking about—and why would someone want to listen to what I have to say?

The list of crazy thoughts and irrational fears that surfaced for me over this past year are endless. And guess what? I now realize that they are not true.

As I typed that last sentence I had a smile of relief cross my face, because I now realize that my fears aren’t me, and they don’t control me anymore.

The truth is, for most of us, fear is present on a regular basis, but the form that it chooses to present itself in is constantly changing. Maybe you experience anxiety, a deep nervousness, confusion, lack of motivation, uncertainty, or something unidentifiable deep within.

Chances are, you’re experiencing fear on a magnitude of levels and in multiple forms all at once. (Fear is sneaky like that! It’s always showing up in disguise to try to trick you!) (more…)

August 28, 2012
3 Tools to Help You Crush Your Fears
“Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.” ~Pema Chodron

Though there are many events outside of our control, we do have the power to change our own lives. So what’s stopping us?

In a word: fear.

Fear is a great survival instinct. It helped our ancestors survive the rigors of daily life. But nowadays, fear holds us back from achieving what we want to achieve.

My Story

I grew up living in fear. In school, I tried to win the approval of other people by letting them bully me. I was terrified of being disliked, and this constantly worked against me.

When I was 15, I suddenly came down with Crohn’s Disease, a painful autoimmune disorder. It was the beginning of a new journey; a journey that would permanently enroll me in the school of hard knocks.

I believe the biggest fear I am in the process of overcoming is the fear of going against society’s expectations. One example: Society expects you to be gloom and doom when you’re going through a tough illness. Not me.

Before I even started learning about personal development, I tried to lighten up the days of the doctors and nurses in the hospital with a smile and positive demeanor. This completely cut through expectations, because “sick” people aren’t supposed to smile.

When I started feeling better, I decided to work on my fears even more. I went to online school, where I worked on the fear of being a self-disciplined learner.

I started a daily stretching routine, and posted a video of myself doing a full split online. I sent it to my old ballet teacher, and she invited me to come to dance in her studio.

That idea had never even crossed my mind. A swirl of irrational thoughts went racing through my mind:
- What if I’m not good enough at dancing to be in the studio?
- What if I get sick?
- What are all of the people going to think of me? I have an NG tube in my nose that makes me look weird! (more…)
April 23, 2012
Letting Go of the Fear of Uncertainty and Embracing Adventure

“Each time you stay present with fear and uncertainty, you’re letting go of a habitual way of finding security and comfort.” ~ Pema Chodron

Being the thought-out planner with a neatly plotted road map—and a compass tightly gripped in one hand, pointing due north—I cringe a bit (okay, a lot actually) at the thought of changing direction, being adventurous, and going off the beaten path.

I’ve purposefully designed my external life for security—the cushy job, maximizing the 401K, additional streams of income to insulate the extra-super-comfy-security, a large home for a future family, long-time childhood friends, and a solid marriage.

I am deeply grateful for all of these and, on most days, find pride that my focused, linear thinking has created a surrounding of comforts.

As I venture further on this journey, though, I realize that anchoring ourselves with an abundance of security can actually become a dangerous habit.

It can create an attachment that prevents us from being fully awake.

My straight-path mindset hadn’t really prepared me for an off-roading adventure. I held a belief that if I softened my resistance to allow things to go in a direction other than I had planned, this would be a mini-failure of sorts—a “giving in” to the unknown.

And the unknown, after all, is deeply rooted in scariness, signifying weakness, giving up, having no direction. It’s not secure, and far, far from safe.

Or so I had thought.

Sometimes we can be blindly walking down a path and then an obstacle, a detour, or a sharp turn appears, asking us to expand our mind and heart to see and feel differently.

This past year, I found myself becoming a security-junky of sorts, as I would not allow for an unforeseen change to enter my life.

I would stand firmly at the arrival of this unwelcome circumstance with crossed arms and a tremendous amount of resistance. I held tightly onto my compass, my road map pressed against my chest, and didn’t want to let go. (more…)

December 20, 2011
6 Crucial Lessons to Help You Live Fearless and Free

“Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.” ~Marianne Williamson

I got my masters in Clinical Social Work and became a therapist in 1997.

A year later, I got my PHD in Fear.

After a decade as a talent agent predominantly for super models, I was burned out. I realized it was time for a career change when I cared more about getting models into rehab, therapy, and eating disorder clinics than a lucrative Pantene contract.

When I landed in the modeling-agent world, I was convinced I would change an exploitive system. I did not, but the system definitely changed me.

I was desperate to get off the crazy nicotine, caffeine, adrenalin-fueled hamster wheel that had become my life, but did not know how. Apparently, though, the universe had just the plan.

In 1996, I applied to New York University’s Clinical Social Work Masters Program, never imagining I would be accepted. Much to my amazement I was accepted and spent the next two years remotely running the television department for Elite Modeling agency, getting my degree, and teaching acting as an adjunct professor at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts.

Immediately following graduation, the single most important life-changing event happened. I fell in love with my now amazing husband, Victor Juhasz. Vic was a widower with three angry, out-of-control teenage boys. As if being the divorced/widowed father of three sons wasn’t enough, he also lived in New Jersey.

I didn’t care. It was perfect. He was perfect. Intoxicated with love hormones, I thought this talented, successful, gorgeous man could have 22 teenagers, and I would still say, “It’s all good. Love will find a way!” Believe it or not, this was the calm before the storm.

Four months into our relationship, my father, 61 years old and in prime health, dropped dead of a heart attack.

Three months after my father’s death, I discovered a plum-size lump at the base of my throat, which was diagnosed as a large, malignant thyroid tumor. My heart ached as I underwent surgery and radiation while building a relationship with the three boys, whose own beautiful mother died of cervical cancer when they were 5, 3, and 1.

A mere five months later, based solely on my intuition, a more aggressive cancer was discovered on the other side of my thyroid. More surgery, radiation, and isolation followed.

On a quiet evening, two months after the second cancer diagnosis, I leisurely walked onto the back porch to find a huge stocking-faced man holding a .22 to the back of my husband’s head. We were robbed at gunpoint with our youngest son in the house.

My PHD in FEAR was officially complete. For the first time in my life I was afraid—all the time.

The therapist in me knew it was a trauma response; the human in me was still incensed. I made the distinct decision to become a fear expert knowing that I, nor anyone else for that matter, could really live life if fear continued to dominate my mind and my decisions.

I worked though my own fear with the help of my therapist and spent the next 14 years in my busy private therapy practice in New York City researching the effects of fear and the mind-body connection.

I turned my pain into purpose and taught thousands of clients and students to transform their own fear into freedom.

Here are a few truths I have learned about transforming fear. (more…)

December 5, 2011
Stop Waiting to Live: Scare Yourself Alive

“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Whenever I’m tempted to play it safe with my life, whenever I start talking myself out of the risks I really want to take, I think about something my friend Jesse said years ago, when we were on a work-sponsored retreat.

After a day of travel, activities, and settling in, we were left with a free evening. As the darkness deepened, a group of us stood together, discussing our options. What would we do on our first night in the woods?

There was a pause. And then, with a look of inspired wildness, Jesse said, “Let’s go for a walk and scare ourselves alive.”

And so we walked out the doors and into the night. We carried flashlights, but we didn’t turn them on; the moonlight gave us just enough light to see by. We walked down a hill and into a valley, weaving through the trees and underbrush.

Except for the leaves crackling underfoot and the owls crying in the distance, the night was silent. The walk was just daring enough to feel dangerous, just safe enough to feel like the right risk. (more…)

July 19, 2011
Our Shared Fears & 5 Ways to Overcome Them

“Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me.” ~Isabel Allende

In life, we experience two kinds of fear: real fear and psychological fear. Or, as I prefer to think of the latter, ego-fear.

In the words of Immanuel Kant, the ego is “our precious little self.” Or as Eckhart Tolle calls it, “the voice in the head.” It isn’t who you really are, but the you that you think you are.

Each day, what you see in the mirror is the reflection of your physical being, and within, you may get glimpses of your unique personality in that reflection too, in between your laugh lines or furrowed brow. Still, it’s not really you.

Same thing with the roles you inhabit each day and how they are reflected back to you: as friend, lover, parent, child, worker, boss. These are different selves we pick up each day as needed, as the situation or relationship summons them.

But knowing that these roles, as well as your reflection in the mirror, are not who you actually are is an important distinction to which all enlightened, sentient beings become aware.

With this background, we can better understand our shared fears and how to overcome them. (more…)

November 16, 2010