When Your Fear Isn’t Just ‘Mind Over Matter’

How many times have you tried to convey to someone your deepest fears in life?  Often the reaction you’ll get won’t be the one you’re looking for or expecting.  Instead of a sympathetic shoulder, you often get a confused look and a response like, “It’s mind over matter,” or “You have to get over it.”

Unfortunately, it isn’t always as easy as shutting off your fears like you would turn off the stove.  Fears are deeply embedded in our conscious and subconscious mind.  After a time, and with repetition, they become established as a formal belief system that you hold.

Overcoming a fear doesn’t necessarily mean it will ever be completely removed from your mind, but you can find ways of preventing the extreme panic and anxiety you often feel when confronted by your fears.

Facing fears is very often the most difficult thing we can attempt.  It’s our instinct to avoid those things that worry us or that we fear will do us hurt in some way, even if it’s only an emotional, rather than actual physical harm.

The primary thing you have to do is examine the fear to see if it’s authentic and valid or irrational.  That isn’t to say it matters if it is irrational, you’ll still need to find a way to cope with and conquer it.  But giving it a realistic examination will help you find a solution to your anxieties.

Rich Presta, the author of several resources and books for overcoming fears such as driving anxiety and the fear of flying gave us the following example…

“When on a plane, you might fear that you’re going to lose control or that the plane will crash.  When examining the evidence, you can see that it is virtually a statistic impossibility to be involved in a plane crash and that even if you were, most people survive aviation accidents!  This is an example of a fear that seems ration…sure, the plane theoretically COULD crash, but realistically, it’s based in irrationality.”

An rational fear on the other hand, would be the fear of a spouse harming you when there is a history of abuse, this of course is a valid fear and needs to be attended to much differently, such as with help from the police or a divorce attorney.

Either way, you’ll need to take the next step, which is deciding how to deal with your fear responsibly.  For irrational fears, you’ll need to discover how to remove the bulk of the anxiety and fear you feel by calming yourself down before you allow panic to take hold.

You might do this by using breathing techniques, forms of self-hypnosis, or even through the use of prescribed anti-anxiety medications.

Tagged with: mind over matter • overcoming fears

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