Back in January I was a guest on The Dr. Pat Show on Transformation Talk Radio and we decided to do the interview on the topic of fear… specifically on becoming a fearless parent. This was not a random choice, but one based on questions, comments and feelings arising for so many people.

There are a lot of things happening in the world right now that can make you feel vulnerable and concerned for yourself and for your child's future. Yet, living in a place of fear is exhausting, damaging to your vibrancy and totally unnecessary.

It's true! Living in a state of fear is unnecessary and today I want to share what I mean by this and give you ideas you can use right away to start reclaiming your power and moving forwards fearlessly if desired.

Now, I'm guessing some of you are feeling a little defensive from my saying fear is unnecessary. Perhaps you're already creating a mental list of all the things I don't know about you and your situation and why they are downright scary and totally worthy of fear. I understand this and am not trying to minimize your current reality. I'm also not judging you for feeling that way or even telling you your feelings are wrong. But, I am here to tell you there is another way.

With self-awareness, reconnection with your divine nature and recognition of what is going on… you can choose to move out of fear and instead stand firmly in your power, which will change how you feel, how you react, how others react to you, what you are attracting to you and so much more.

What is fear?

Fear is a feeling. It's hardwired into us as a response to things that appear dangerous, that feel threatening, that have hurt us in the past or that we don't understand. When fear arises in our body, it's really sending a signal that our life might be in peril and asking us to check out what is going on and if necessary take evasive action.

Our brain doesn't have access to the outside world; in fact it's living in the dark. It gets all of its data from our senses – eyes, ears, mouth, nose, skin…and the thoughts we formulate as a result of that feedback. Those messages are what determine what you do next:

stay in fight, flight, freeze mode – which is exhausting to your body
search for more information before turning off the alarm
recognize that something could be going on, but turn off the alarm anyway
or see that all is fine, it is a false alarm – so you turn it off

In an earlier episode of VPM I talked about the stress hormone cortisol and loosely explained the cascade of hormones and neurotransmitters which are the physiological response fear causes, so I’m not going to go into that here, but for our purposes today, let's just say fear is considered a serious message that requires our immediate attention.

I also want to point out, that every time we experience a fear message, things happen in our body that will require some clean up after. Kind of like when a building has a sprinkler system wired right into a fire alarm. If the alarm goes off, the sprinklers turn on to minimize damage, so if it is a false alarm, there is clean up involved as a result of this immediate response.

This is the case in our bodies. Our sprinkler system involves a hormone cocktail that will require some clean-up even if your life is not in peril.

Continuing with this analogy, your first reaction to fear is going to be to search (using your senses) for any smoke, flames or crackling that tells you there is indeed a fire and if there is not, to turn off the sprinkler system as quickly as you can to minimize the mess.

It's your thoughts that turn off the alarm. Things like; It's okay, calm down, all's fine, relax, take a deep breath… are all thoughts that can help you turn off the code red.

Here's the problem however, your thoughts tend to based on 3 things:

what your senses tell you
your perception of the situation
whatever previous feedback you have in your memory bank for a situation like this

Let's talk about your perception

You're perception is skewed by how much of anything you can see. If you're standing in front of a car and the back end is all smashed in, you might not even know there has been an accident. You would say that car looks like it's in great shape. Unless you were standing behind it…or beside it…or above it… where you are standing determines what you can see.

This means, what you think is your reality will have a huge influence on how quickly you are to turn off the sprinkler system.

In the meantime, your brain naturally scans for similar situations in its memory bank (and these don't have to be your experiences – they can be TV shows, stories, your neighbour's situation…), AND uses that information…mixed with your perception to decide whether or not to turn off the alarm!

Listen to the podcast to hear an example of how this situation might pan out in real life and get steps for taking back your power.

If you struggle with fear, worry or anxiety you don't have to live that way. Contact me today for a no-obligation complimentary discovery call and we'll see what we can do to help you turn off your sprinkler system today!