Transforming Fear: A Signpost to Personal Growth

If you’ve read more than a small handful of my articles, you’ll know that fear and anxiety is something that I’ve battled against, for most of my life. Of course, I know that doesn’t make me any different than hundreds of thousands, probably millions of people, in fact that’s why I write many of my articles in the first place. Because I’m not weird, and neither are you!

But while I think I’ve been able to hide it pretty well from most people other than those who’ve been the closest to me over the years, I’d say it’s still been the thing that’s held me back the most.

While there may be some genetic component, I think it mostly comes from my mum. She struggled with her own fear and anxiety, brought on by who knows what experiences she went through in her childhood. She was never one for talking much about her feelings, but although she cared deeply about me and my dad, she didn’t show it in the same way that many mothers do. In fact, she was so non-maternal that I’m not even sure why she wanted to have a baby in the first place. But thankfully (for me) she did, and despite some issues with conception, I showed up in 1975.

She was never a big cuddler, tended to only tell me she loved me when she was tipsy, and showed her love for me and my dad in the only ways she knew how; by cooking delicious food for us, and in showering us with gifts when it was Xmas or our birthdays.

She was an anxious person. She loved to tell me that she and her sister were never allowed to play outside out of sight of her mum’s front window, and regaled me (repeatedly) with story after story about how people in her life — family included — had done her wrong, stabbing her in the back in numerous insidious ways.

Looking back on it now — with the benefit of hindsight and the wisdom of thirty-something years of experience since I was a teenager — I should have known that if everyone had an issue with her, and everyone did her wrong, then there was actually one common denominator. I now take those alleged stories with a heaping spoonful of salt, and I’m sure that my aunt and her family are blissfully unaware of all of the slings and arrows that they allegedly shot in our direction, over the years.

Bless her, she was a lady with issues, it has to be said.

So, as I matured and grew into a young adult, striking out on my own as soon as I could, I was carrying a fair amount of baggage. Baggage that I’ve been working hard to gradually empty as I’ve gone through my life so far.

I think I’ve done a pretty good job. Sure, some of that early messaging still comes back to bite me, from time to time, but I’m very aware of it, and I can usually nip it in the bud when it threatens to derail me.

But not this weekend. This weekend I had high hopes for all of the constructive stuff I was going to do for what I lovingly refer to (in my own mind) as Lou Lomas Enterprises!

And then I… didn’t do much of it, it has to be said.

Why? I allowed fear to get in the way, in the main. Every time I tried to turn the TV off, to uninstall the iOS games on my phone, I found that I was paralysed, unable to settle down and to do some decent work. It was a frustrating experience, although it’s one which is all too familiar, but thankfully something I rarely go through, these days.

So I sat down on Sunday night and journaled about how I was feeling.

For a start, let’s get this out of the way. If you feel the sting of fear, anxiety or resistance (call it what you like) when you try to do something which isn’t run of the mill, you are NORMAL.

This is normal. You are not weird, so the first thing you need to do is to stop berating and criticising yourself for feeling this way.

As I’ve mentioned lots of times, our brains are pretty dumb, really. No, I’m not trying to insult anyone’s intelligence, that’s not what I mean. What I’m trying to say is that our brain’s main job is to protect us from threats. And every single time you decide to do something which pushes you out of your comfort zone, whether it’s something you’ve never done at all before or ramping up something you have (e.g. writing a novel when you’ve stuck to short stories, so far), your brain slams the brakes on, and tries its best to stop you.

It can’t tell the difference, you see, between a real threat, and something which challenges you.

As an aside, I’d like to come up with a better term than ‘comfort zone’. That phrase implies (to me) a good place. Somewhere warm and comfortable. But let’s get this straight, your comfort zone is anything but comfortable. If you’re not happy with your life, your achievements, the size of your bank balance or anything else, then the comfort zone is a trap. It’s the place where dreams go to die, it’s a bed of disappointment and mediocrity.

And no matter what it is you want to do with your life, we all need to make the effort to step out of that place, as much as we can.

But we need to step carefully out of it. Too big of a step is guaranteed to send your brain into overdrive, and the fear will paralyse you (like it did for me, this weekend), pushing you firmly back into the comfort zone. And yet the things we attempt to do need to feel like enough of a challenge to stretch us.

Sound tricky? Yeah. It’s a delicate balance, and once I got painfully wrong this weekend.

I realised on Sunday night, while putting my thoughts down on paper, that I need to re-define my relationship with fear.

Yes, it’s uncomfortable. Yes, it’s not a state of mind we want to be in too much.

But how’s about this for a suggestion. How about when we start to feel afraid, we remind ourselves that fear is actually a good thing.

Bear with me!

If you’re feeling afraid, then you’re trying to do something which is pushing you out of the zone of mediocrity. What if we choose to see fear as a signpost, that its presence means that we’re trying to do something which stretches us and which matters?

What if reframing fear, if leaning into the feeling, allowing ourselves to breathe and pause, and reassure our silly brains that all is well, might allow us to achieve greater things in our life?

But how do we do that when our bodies are being flooded with stress hormones?

Here are some ideas.

• Remember that emotions are fleeting — I wrote recently about the astonishing news that emotions generally only last for 90 seconds. NINETY seconds. It takes longer than that to make a cup of tea. It’s often the things we do to try to stamp down our fears, to quench the flames which have a much longer lasting impact
• Breathe! Try a box breathing exercise
• Remember your why. consider journaling or use The Bad Habit Kicker system to visualise the future of your dreams (or the future of your nightmares) if you do/don’t manage to do this thing
• Find (or write) an anti-fear prayer or mantra. Have it at hand, on a card in your pocket, in an electronic note or as a wallpaper on your laptop or mobile phone
• Break the scary thing down into its teeniest tiniest components. Sure, the whole thing might be frightening the bejesus out of you, right now, but what part of it feels so small that it’s almost not worth doing? Just do that. Progress in the direction of the life of your dreams is still progress
• Call or message a friend, maybe someone who’s also trying to do scary things. Be one another’s accountability partners and also biggest cheerleaders!

If none of these particularly speak to you then I’m sure if you sit down for a few minutes when you’re in a calm state of mind, you’ll be able to think of some others you might try.

I believe that this is a lifelong practice, and it’s one that can truly help us to transform our lives if we find little tricks and tips, such as those above, to help us.

So, what do you think? Can you choose to reframe your attitude to fear today, and see it as a good thing, as a signpost to better things, rather than a big failing?