How To Overcome Fear? - Quality Of Life, Self-development

We are taught from childhood to overcome fear, but it is often impossible to cope with it on our own. Most consider fear to be just a negative emotion, but it sometimes gets out of hand, depriving a person of the opportunity to live a fulfilling life. Psychologist Yevgeny Idzikovsky tells about the nature of this feeling, its varieties and methods of overcoming

Disguised as anxiety and phobia

Feelings and emotions are signals that regulate human behavior. Fear signals danger, anger signals a violation of personal boundaries, resentment that what is happening does not meet our expectations. The stronger our emotions, the harder it is to turn on conscious control.

Fear is characterized by different intensity of sensations and can change masks, including anxiety, fear itself, and phobias

1. Get rid of anxiety

Typically, anxiety is a background condition that causes noticeable discomfort and can last for quite some time. Its location in the body is easy to find, and most people feel a sense of tension in the abdomen or chest.

Everyone can cope with anxiety, but if you do not work with it, it can lead to the development of psychosomatic diseases

This feeling can be a natural reaction to events in life. Ideally, when the situation is resolved, it goes away by itself. Also, anxiety is sometimes an individual feature of the psyche. Man, by nature, has a tendency to worry even about things that are objectively not dangerous.

Only pathological anxiety is a serious problem - a condition that does not go away even when the situation is positively resolved

This emotion can also be called pointless fear, and this is its main danger: after all, you can control the mind only what you are aware of. Only transformation into expressed fear will help to overcome it. Then the alarm will have an object, it will be possible to work with it or look for ways of interaction. The story of one of my clients is a good example.

A young man of twenty-six years old from childhood was brought up on examples such as "Lenin, when he put a blot, rewrote the entire notebook." There was constant pressure from his parents, so he grew up with the conviction that everything should be done ideally or not done at all. Any job was difficult for him, because he was constantly afraid to make mistakes. Therefore, he always refused options that imply responsibility or even the slightest chance of failure. Communication with people also created difficulties due to the fear of doing something wrong.

The problem was related to parent-child relationships and schooling. After psychotherapy, the line of behavior changed to "if it doesn't work out well, I look for reasons, improve my skills." Over time, the young man found a decent job and freed himself from anxiety.

2. Overcome fear

Fear is more intense than anxiety and is much more difficult to overcome. It has a marked effect on behavior.

People tend to avoid situations associated with this feeling, even with strong motivation to achieve the goal

It turns out that fear is vital for each of us - it performs a protective function and helps to act carefully and prudently in difficult situations associated with danger to life.

It's important to keep your fear in check. Otherwise, the emotion begins to show its insidiousness - to direct a person's life and impose serious restrictions on his capabilities and desires

The girl who asked for help said that she felt fear when communicating with men. She did not meet with young people, experienced severe difficulties at work when communicating with representatives of the opposite sex. She was afraid of public transport, the street, shops - in short, all the places where there are men. Moreover, the intensity of fear was quite high: subjectively five to seven points on a scale of ten, depending on the situation. Gradually, she learned to cope with this, but spent a lot of energy on overcoming.

It turned out that in early childhood she was a victim of rape, and now transferred fear to all men. After working through her condition, the girl was able to cope with emotions and soon she had a relationship.

3. Defeat the phobia

Phobia is the most difficult case of fear. It is practically not surmountable consciously, because the body believes that the danger is extremely great. Overcoming a phobia with an effort of will is as difficult as for an ordinary person to stick his hand into a fire. It is easily detected in the body and, as a rule, has a pronounced muscle reaction - for example, numbness or an attempt to escape.

If a person cannot completely avoid situations associated with a phobia, then his quality of life significantly deteriorates

The difference between this feeling and fear, first of all, is that it is associated with imaginary things.

It's normal to be afraid of going into a tiger's cage. But even if the thought of a tiger makes you feel terrified, it's a phobia

About a thousand types of various phobias are known: from fear of confined space, spiders and heights to fear of washing.

Studies have shown that 5 to 10% of the world's adult population suffers from such disorders

Moreover, residents of large cities are much more susceptible to them than residents of rural areas. The most vulnerable to pathological fear are intellectually developed, suggestible and gentle people with a good imagination.

The development of phobias is facilitated by stressful situations, information overloads (including from the media), as well as horror films. However, these are rather stimulating factors. The true reason for their appearance is most often children's psychological trauma. Let's turn to practice.

A fifty-five-year-old man, a successful businessman, suffered from a phobia of flying. The difficulty was that he had to move a lot for work.

Negative experiences began one or two days before the flight, the peak was at landing. He literally could not get on the plane sober - his legs do not carry, the body shakes and refuses to obey. Before the therapy, he got out of the situation with shock doses of alcohol, and by the time of landing he got drunk until he was completely forgotten. I turned to a psychotherapist, since the body could no longer tolerate huge doses of alcohol, and flights were required more often.

The root cause of the problem was childhood trauma associated with height. It was superimposed on the death of a distant relative in a plane crash and an unsuccessful first flight with severe turbulence. After therapy, the fear passed and the person was able to fly safely.

How to deal with fear?

It is important to understand that your fear is destructive and can be overcome with the help of psychotherapy. First you need to understand the cause of the fear. Ask yourself the following questions:

• When does this happen to me?
• What exactly do I feel? Where does fear respond in the body and how much?
• What do I think while doing this?
• Can I get over it? How strong do I need motivation?
• How exactly does this interfere with my life? What am I depriving myself of? What do I have to do because of this fear?
• Do other people experience the same? (If you are not sure, you can ask your friends.)
• How will my life change if fear disappears?
• Why might this be happening? Do I remember anything related to this fear?

In a fearful situation, allow yourself to openly express your feelings out loud. Observe your own feelings closely

It often happens that fear after such actions decreases markedly. There is nothing supernatural about this: emotions are psychic signals, and as soon as you admit you have received them, they diminish. If emotions do not become less vivid, this suggests that your psyche is traumatized and it will be quite difficult to cope with the problem on your own, it is better to consult a specialist.

At home, safe, remember the problem situation, mentally immerse yourself in it and observe your feelings, expressing them aloud.

Name your feelings and repeat this several times. Then check how the sensations have changed in a real situation

This technology is a simple yet effective way to reduce fear or anxiety.

It is important to understand that this is not a substitute for psychotherapy, but a kind of first aid. The important thing is that if there is no deep problem, then you can independently get rid of fear in this way