TURN and FACE your FEAR

Almost all the research you can find will tell you that the number one fear of people is not death but is actually public speaking. I have often wondered why that is. Are they afraid of ridicule and shame? Maybe it is the fear that they will get tongue tied or say the wrong thing? Whatever it may be, I can bet that after they pushed past the fear of speaking, they would say, “it wasn’t as bad as I thought” or maybe, “well that when much better than expected”!

In order to deal with our “fears”, we have to understand what is true in this acronym. F.E.A.R. = FALSE EVIDENCE APPEARING REAL. There are countless stories of people imprisoned for years, only to find out it was based on false evidence. Can you imagine all the years lost, dreams stolen, relationships broken all because of false evidence? The same thing happens to us every day. The internal committee in our mind believes false evidence all the time and stops us from our dreams, success, opportunities and living our best lives.

According to Psychology today, 91% of our fears never come true. So that means we are not playing the odds correctly when it comes to fears and the great things we are not taking the right risks on. There is a 9% chance that is stopping you!

Try this experiment. Track your worries and fears for two weeks. Four times a day for ten days, set a time to write down what comes to mind as things you are worried or afraid of. At the end of the ten days, review your list of worries and fears for the next month and see how many of them actually came true. For example, if you are worried about not being able to pay your bills. How many times did that come up, what was the specific worry and fear? Be specific and name it each time.

What I believe you will find at the end of that month is that most of the fears you had never came true. Perhaps a few did, but I bet the situation wasn’t nearly as bad as you thought, and you were able to handle it, and it didn’t take you out. Speaking of take you out, that is what our fears aim to do. Many times, we get so riddled with fear and anxiety before a situation happens that we end up experiencing the same pain and suffering before the situation ever occurred or happened at all.

Let’s go back to the original acronym of F.E.A.R. False, Evidence, Appearing, Real. So looking at the word False, we then have to look at the word true. The opposite of Truth can also be seen as a Lie. Look at these characteristics of a liar:

• The liar believes the information they are communicating is false

• The liar intends to deceive or mislead the listener

• The liar implicitly promises that the information is true

• The liar breaches the listener's trust

How many of these characteristics are true for you when you are experiencing fear? I would bet your fears can deceive or mislead you. I would wonder if your fears promise they are true and why it is best to keep them. You get the point. Fear is always lying to us in every way.

As a kid, one of the funniest responses to deal with a liar, was to simply yell out, “LIAR, LIAR, pants on FIRE!” While your pants may not be on fire, if we give fear and lies enough time and space in our minds our lives will start to feel like they are on fire!

Here are some practical steps to start dealing with the fears in your life.

First, get really clear on what the fear is. Maybe you are afraid, you won’t pay your bills this month. But maybe the larger and real fear is you cannot manage your money and never will. You then attack the real fear by getting a plan and maybe that includes getting guidance around how to create a budget.

Second, get real and honest about the truth behind the fear. Fear screams so loudly we often can’t hear the truth. So, if the fear is I can’t lose these ten pounds, and I won’t be loveable. The truth could easily be, well I have lost ten pounds at least 8 other times and even when I was my heaviest, I can count many people who loved me.

Third, starve the lie. What we feed grows. Stop repeating, imagining and living in the fear. Replace it with what you want to see happen. Replace it with who you want to be. Choose to stay and live in that truth rather than ruminate in the lie of fear.

Judy Blume has a quote that says, “Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it.”

Have you ever seen someone “manhandled”? As a cocky middle-schooler I was “manhandled” more times than one! To “manhandle” means to move a heavy object by hand with great effort. It’s time to manhandle your fears. It will feel like a heavy object at first, but it gets easier and easier and before long your fears will stay on the other side of the hallway just like I learned to do.