We are all aware of our conscious fears, fear of heights, spiders, snakes, needles etc. What many of us are not aware of is our unconscious fears and how they impact the quality of our lives.

If I asked you the question. Tell me what you are afraid of, what would you say?

Our real fears are deep rooted and we don’t like to be vulnerable and show people what we are really afraid of. One of the biggest things we are afraid of is to be our true authentic selves. We are often too busy worrying about what other people think and feel about us. It takes a level of inner confidence to declare to the world – this is me – take it or leave it.

We are frightened of rejection, of not fitting in, of not being good enough, of not being ready, of making a fool of ourselves, of looking stupid – the list goes on, but it is an important distinction in establishing what it really is that we are frightened off.

I have been on a personal mission to face down all of the fears that have been holding me back. I was crippled with a fear of Public Speaking during my corporate career – which just meant I held myself back to avoid possibly bumping into that situation. I never excelled – I daren’t! I decided as part of my mission to help people overcome their fears, that I needed to address my own.

I signed up for Public Speakers academy and ran 2 public seminars for 70 + people each time. The point of saying this is that our fears are usually way worse in our heads than the reality – and even where they are scary in reality – that you can learn to overcome them.

The fear diminishes every time you face it down. It may never disappear and a healthy dose can keep you on your toes – but an anxiety or panic inducing level of fear can be reduced to a manageable level. I even did a sky dive to prove it to myself.

The average person has 80,000 thoughts per day (that’s an average so some have way more). For one second become aware of your inner voice – the constantly playing stream of thoughts and words going on inside your head. The one you have conversations and arguments with constantly – that battle of wills! Now imagine your inner voice is really negative and that it  repeats negative messages to you all day long – in fact around 80,000 times a day. Now do you understand why you feel so bad?

 When we repeat patterns of behaviour (habits) unchallenged – this is what determines our emotional state. For what we think, directly impacts how we feel, and how we feel then drives how we show up – what state we are in and how we interact with others.

I ask my clients this question first. What is your inner voice saying to you and would you speak like that to your friends? Most acknowledge – that once they know they have a ‘voice’ in their heads – they generally agree its not that nice to them.

Humans are hard wired to seek out threats and the fight or flight response is to preserve the species, however we have become immune to the constant negative feeding our brains and the impact this has on how we feel.

What are you watching, reading, thinking, scrolling through on a daily basis. This is the root of many bad feelings that people are not even aware of. You might be comparing yourself to others ‘perfect’ lives, well ‘compare and despair!’

Why is any of this relevant? Especially during the pandemic when fear is at an all time high. Because you need to take care of yourself. Action is the anti-dote to fear, identify what the steps are that you can take, one at a time to overcome what at first seems like a huge insurmountable feeling.

Right now it might be switch off the news, go for a walk, call a friend, read a book, watch or listen to some comedy. Just be really really  mindful that what you are feeding your brain, directly affects how you feel.

I challenge you to do one thing every day (however small) that takes you closer to where you want to be and eventually you will begin to move towards your goals of feeling better instead of shying away from them and staying stuck.