The Truth About Habitual Fear – 3 Easy Steps to Shift Your Worry

When is it “just your worry” and when is it something justifiably scary?

I notice I get wound up in fear sometimes and yet nothing bad actually happens to me.

How come?

Maybe the belief that is manifesting my experience is “I get really frightened but nothing bad ever happens.” This belief describes the reality that I have experienced more often than not.

I grew up on a ranch in South Florida. My older brother swore that he saw a Big Foot at night standing in the neighboring orange grove. He said it stood as tall as the 8-foot orange tree that it stood beside. At nine years old, I laid in bed night after night locked in fear.

Did anything bad happen?

No.

I have however experienced hundreds of nights afraid of noises outside my various apartments or houses throughout my life.

Do you think that my fears were from the noises I thought I heard or from the Big Foot story I was told as a child?

Why would my fear response not wait to kick-in when I heard a monster moan or a burglar’s crowbar crash through a window – or any noise that actually had cause for alarm?

So how do you begin taking control of these immediate, unjustified fear responses? The kind where a tiny child walks up behind you and you react with, “AHHH, you about gave me a heart attack.”

Even if you have had a lot of justifiably terrible events in your past, you can begin to release the fear and thus release the expectation of bad things happening in the future.

You begin by facing your fear. 

1.) Ask yourself (kindly) what is it you are actually feeling fear over? Then (here is the hard part) WAIT for an answer.

How many of our fears are auto-responders? A bird flys by – “AHHH”!!  Or, someone knocks on the door and a jolt of fear goes through your nervous system.

Take time to consider these fear responses one at a time. Was that a valid fear? What is it that actually made me jump?

Next ask,

2.) “How can I release these fear responses from auto-pilot?” (Wait for the answer)

Note: It is important to explore without judgment of yourself. Be sincerely interested as if you were helping your best friend understand her fear. Stick with it until you get an answer that feels right for you.

With careful consideration and kind understanding of yourself, there will begin to be fewer and fewer automatic fear responses.

3.) Meditate daily on feeling safe, feeling relaxed and developing a knowing that you are always safe. Over time, you will greatly reduce these frantic fear responses.

I saw a difference in my daily life within a week. I noticed that the fear hit me and it went away in seconds or sometimes I didn’t have a fear response at all where I normally would have had one in the past.

You will also find that doing the above steps will empower you in many unknown ways as well. You might want to journal about what you notice has changed in your life as a result of confronting your fears. Listing them in a written exploration brings in a whole new awareness and even bigger wins as the realizations unfold.