Dear reader,
Fear.
We all feel it, and it actually makes total sense to our biological survival. It keeps us away from dangerous animals and people, life threatening situations, and therefor prolongs our life span 😉
However, some of us have certain fears that intrude and limit us in our daily lives, some so severe that it actually ends up ruining and sabotaging our lives.
So what is fear? Let’s ask Wikipedia, shall we?
“Fear is an emotion induced by the perception or recognition of phenomena which can pose a danger or threat. Fear causes physiological changes and therefore may produce behavioral changes, such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat.
Fear in human beings may occur in response to a certain stimulus occurring in the present, or in anticipation or expectation of a future threat perceived as a risk to oneself. The fear response arises from the perception of danger leading to confrontation with or escape from/avoiding the threat (also known as the fight-or-flight-response), which in extreme cases of fear (horror and terror) can be a freeze response or paralysis.
In humans and other animals, fear is modulated by the process of cognition and learning. Thus, fear is judged as rational or appropriate and irrational or inappropriate. An irrational fear is called a phobia.”
I wanted to discuss the irrational fear in this newsletter, as that is what I hear about the most in my job, and also experience the most myself.
The irrational fear is very often the culprit when exploring why a person holds certain beliefs about themselves, such as “I can’t find a partner.”, “I can’t lose the weight”, “I can’t earn enough money”.
But let’s take this one as an example moving forward, shall we?: “I’m always overlooked when it comes to a promotion.”
What if you had a really “bad” experience as a child, let’s say you were shamed by your classmates while giving a presentation in 3rd grade (they laughed, whispered, pointed and giggled…). To your subconscious that was extremely dangerous, as you could have been excluded from your peer group.
Exclusion from the group (=tribe) to the brain is a matter of life and death, because you can’t survive alone. The pain of feeling excluded even shows up in the physical pain center on a MRI brain scan, as the poor primal brain doesn’t know that we are perfectly capable of surviving by ourselves in the 21st century. Instead it will sound the fight-flight alarm in a situation like our “3rd grade public speaking experience” example above.
Your subconscious wants to protect you from getting hurt (both physically and emotionally), so it registers the “public speaking” event in 3rd grade in the same category as “Danger, hot stove, don’t touch!”.
So here you are, decades later, rationally wanting that higher position. But your subconscious knows that that role includes “public speaking” like presenting projects to clients or reporting to top management. (See where I’m going here?! 😉 )
As your subconscious starts getting the picture of what exactly this role would face you with (giving presentations and maybe even key note speeches!), it will start screaming “DANGER! Remember what happened in 3rd grade!!”, and do whatever it can to not land you in such a dangerous situation!
This activity is more known under its more famous name “self sabotage”, and has very little to do with you being (because you are NOT!) “worthless.”, “stupid”, “not good enough” or “incapable”. On the contrary, it’s just trying to keep you safe!
The good news is that we can absolutely do something to address this irrational fear and those “limiting beliefs”, and move past them so you can finally allow yourself to get that promotion (because you are so worth it 😉 )!
So how do you get to the root cause of an irrational fear?
You put your Sherlock Holmes hat on and start investigating what you have been exposed to in life. “Where has it been scary to be in front of an “audience”?”, “Who has been overly critical of your “public speaking” efforts in the past?”, “Have you ever felt ashamed, or put on the spot in front of a group?” etc. And if you yourself haven’t had any of those experiences, who in your family might have told you their stories about shame an humiliation?
It’s such an interesting and eye opening exercise to start exploring your irrational fears, and see how it all came about. Adding EFT tapping to those findings makes it so much easier to let go of the fear, and then fearlessly GO for that promotion!
If you fancy me being your “Sherlock Holmes”, you are more than welcome to contact me here for a FREE Discovery Session 😉
Warm regards,
Karin