Overcoming Fears

[Ghost]

Most people (unless you are made of steel) fear something.
Snakes, spiders, heights. There are so many things to be scared of.
And these fears can hold you back. If you are scared of heights you might never go to the top of the Eiffel Tower for example.

 

My personal big fear is of judgement. I cannot stand being the centre of attention, or doing something out of the norm in public.
But also it applies when I am just out about in public in the first place. Example, I am currently learning to drive. But when (rarely)
I get out on the road, I am tense due to all the other drivers. Am I driving well? Fast enough? Slow enough? Needless to say,
this stops me from getting hours up to completion (117 more to go of 120!)

 

In so many ways I am held back, I don't ask or answer questions in class because I might say the wrong thing. I would like to go 
and do sprinting, but I am afraid of looking silly. 

Logic tells me these fears are unfounded, but the head and heart don't always listen to logic.

Has anyone here overcome their fears?  If so, how?
Even if it isn't strictly about my situation post it up anyway. 

 

[Jakob Kopfeld]

First you need to find out what it is you're afraid of. Then you need to confront your fear and step by step, like training a muscle, train your resitance to said fear. If you can break the confrontation down into small parts your progress will be faster and easier. 

 

Best of luck fighting your inner demons!

[jhend.hardison]

overcoming fear, such a difficult thing to do, but we there are many cases our fears will come in our way that can ruin on what we are going to. What are we going to do ? take another path? yes we can do it but not all the times, we need to face our fear, though we cannot overcome it in one try, at least we tried and we can somehow think a way on how we can slowly overcome our fear. 

 

I have fear in dentist, fear in syringe and injections, but we really need to visit a dentist especially for tooth care, what I did was I force myself to visit a dentist and somehow I am eventually used to it, but there are some cases I can still feel little fear at first when I visit a dentist.

[hbfgRAWR]

Ghost, I know exactly what you mean. I have a lot of the same fear. I've had several occurrences of rejection and/or being openly (and quite unnecessarily) mocked and subsequently mortified in public. I've only just started to work on it. I am personally lucky enough to have an incredibly supportive and non-judgemental partner who just wants me to live my best. There are so many things I'd like to do and experience, but I'm pretty well petrified. It's really a mental block more than anything else. Here's what I've been working on. Please understand, it's taken me a long time to get to this place with some things and others, I'm not ready to take these first steps yet. Maybe I'm being overly cautious, but I'd rather keep moving forward slowly than experience setbacks by attempting too many things at once.

 

I'll use rock-climbing as my example, although it applies to lots of other things in my life too.

 

First, I've always thought rock-climbing was the coolest. Like ever since I learned it was a thing people could do. And I wanted to be "cool enough" to do it. But, never being very athletic, I just didn't think it was in the cards for me.

 

My husband rock climbs and he loves it, and he was always trying to get me to go with him. And I'd always say "no thanks."

 

I worked myself up to the point of saying, "yes," and then for the entire half mile walk to the rock gym I was literally dragging my feet and I felt like I was going to throw up.

 

But here's the thing:

 

No one ever just KNEW how to rock climb and was super good at it instantly. Even if I was the worst climber there that day, I wasn't going to get any better by not going, and that's how everyone there got better: by going and watching and learning and climbing. And even just for that single day, the longer I was there, the better I felt and the better I was at it. I still go, and sometimes I still feel super intimidated and uncomfortable, but I am getting better. That much is clear.

 

Sometimes it isn't that easy to believe these things, and I have to constantly remind my self of them. There's some stuff that I'm super good at, and I have to remember that I wasn't always. I repeat the mantra "Those who mind don't matter, and those that matter don't mind." Most people in the world are really nice, but every once in a while you'll come across a jerk who just is that way. Remember, everyone serves a purpose and some people's only purpose is to be a bad example. And they'll probably judge you no matter what, but they're like that to everyone, so you shouldn't care. As my mama says "f*ck 'em" ('scuse my french). Also, you probably judge people. And I don't mean that in a condemning sort of way, I mean it more in an assessing sort of way. You judge whether they seem nice, or dangerous, or like they need help, or whatever. It's a totally natural thing to do. It helps us be aware of our surroundings and interact with the world.

 

I feel like I'm word vomiting at you. Sorry about that. Let me try and sum it up:

• So you're not a great driver. So what? Literally everyone who drives had to learn at some point. Even the very best race car drivers had a point in their lives where they didn't know a thing about driving a car. Remember that.
• Channel your other awesomeness into your new endeavor. Whatever it is that you do really well, you didn't always (unless you're some sort of child prodigy). But you got better. You can do that again. Maybe you'll become a superstar, maybe you won't. And if it doesn't go as fast, and you don't reach quite the same levels, it doesn't mean you aren't improving.
• Remember, knowledge is power. If you know more about a subject/activity/what-have-you, you have an edge over going at it blind.
• "Those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." Make sure you have a good support system that can be helpful in realistic terms: the good, the bad and the ugly. And when you feel like they are criticizing, believe that they are trying to help you improve, and NOT telling you that you can't.
• Everyone "judges" on some level. For most people it's a natural response to their environment, but some people are jerks. F*ck 'em! They don't know what they're talking about anyway!
• You're not alone!! I'm afraid of and intimidated by many things. But I'm working on it, a little bit, everyday, and that means that I'm winning.

I hope that was helpful! Good luck!

[Ghost]

That's almost exactly what I'm feeling Rawr.

Well, looks like I'm going to have to start working at it then.
Seems like the only way is to expose myself to that fear and get past it.

Thanks so much everyone. Now I just have to push through.


 

[hbfgRAWR]

Good luck Ghost.

I hope you don't think my response was essentially, "suck it up," although technically, that's what it was.

Don't forget, I'm right there overcoming my fears one step at a time, with you!

[Faervel17]

This video here helped a ton with my fears.