“THERE IS NO ILLUSION GREATER THAN FEAR” - Lao Tzu
1) Science Behind the Brain
a. Any change in the brain is interpreting as stressful or asked to make a change your brain will either:
1. Freeze
2. Fight the feeling
3. Run away
b. Small changes (micro wins) will not activate your driven area of your brain.
1. This area is called the AMYGDALA: located in the temporal lobe shown to play a key role in the processing of emotions.
c. Motor Cortex of the Brain: Action Center of the brain, starts to be afraid it sends a signal to the Right Prefrontal Cortex of the Brain. Once this happens it starts to take negative situation from the past and brings it to the future and creates the emotions that go with those thoughts and feeling. Then you feel more of the negative possibilities of the fear.
1) Analogy
a. Playing in Traffic
1. You are sitting in your apartment and you are watching the cars drive by. The cars are your thoughts. As you are watching them you start to feel nervous and you want to do something, so you run outside and start chasing cars. As you are out there chasing one car another one comes zooming by and you start to feel scared.Why did you get scared because a car almost hit or perhaps feels like another car came and slammed into you.
ACTIONS:
A) Know that feelings and thoughts are natural but know as they come
They will also go. Learn to release them. I would suggest just 5 mins of meditation or visualization.
B) Do something nice for yourself. Even if that means getting a treat you would not normally get (for me that would be getting in the car and driving to the beach). I do this whenever possible because the beach really centers me and brings me such joy. The sand between my toes and the smell of the fresh ocean air is amazing and has this calming effect on my soul.
C) Role Play: Picture yourself as a Super Hero
1. How are you standing?
2. What are you wearing?
3. What color is it?
D) Get moving
1. Go for a walk
2. Jump on trampoline
3. Do 50 squats
4. ETC….
What I Did : Literally Scared Myself to Death
I literally filled my body with terror. I was watching a youtube video of Will Smith (it's called Will Smith on Skydiving) and the moment he described it I knew I had to do it. Look it up....
Anyways, I knew that I had to do this with my sister because I felt we both had "fear blockers" in our lives that we needed to get rid of. In January of 2019, I had brought it my to my sister and I believe her exact words were "Hell No! Why would I want to jump out of a plane!" but I said ok and every month after I brought it up ever so casually, as I could, after all we are talking about jumping out of a plane.
But finally on April 15, 2019 I get a text from my sister saying she was "Down to go skydiving". Once I got that message I called her right away and asked if she was serious. She said "Yes", so I am not one to waste momentum (more on that later) I called Skydive Perris and booked out time for Easter Sunday!
I was so pumped and ready to go. I picked my sister up and I drove us there and I was fine. My sister kept saying "You know there are other ways to over come fear!" or "You know you can still get your money back!" But there was no turning back for me!
We got there and it was cloudy so for safety reasons we had to wait until the clouds cleared and we were just chit chatting and all I was fine. They called our names and we put on our jump suit and harnesses (please remember we had to do tandem jumping because you have to be certified to do it by yourself, and thank goodness because I couldn't of jumped). But in the plane was where it all hit me....That there is only one way down and down we went!!!!
I posted a video of it and I think you can see the sheer terror in my face. It's a good one if you want to laugh too! I know I did!!
Now it doesn't mean I am very scared but I just don't let my fears control me and take over. Fear is normal and even healthy, just don't let it over come you and stop you from being YOU!
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