Overcoming fears and moving ahead in life

About Life, work & growth: Conversations between Ezilarsan PKP and Sumiit Mathur, founder of Transformational Coaching, Sydney.

Sumiit Mathur: Let’s look at the graphic for some common examples of Fear. I’ve clubbed some kinds of fears for a better understanding of their similarities.

If we look closely at these fears, we find that in all cases, there is a sense of ‘helplessness’ or an anticipation of being the ‘victim’ when faced with an ‘uncertain’ situation. We may have some idea, but we essentially do not know all that can potentially happen in these situations.

Read:How to move away from the comfort zone, and into the learning zone?

So what is the source for fear in case of uncertainty?

We fear uncertainty because deep within our sub-conscious minds we have been constantly fed that we are ‘helpless’. When parents tell their toddlers not to walk out of the room-door or when they tell children to stay away from the stove or the electric power points, they are instilling ‘fear’ in minds of these children. When teachers tell the students to stay away from ‘strangers’ (without sound reasoning or by sharing horror stories), they are again injecting fear in the students. When friends, relatives (and even neighbours) tell youngsters to stay away from politics at school or college, they are again building a sense of fear in these young minds. In each situation, the sub-conscious minds of these children and youngsters gets the message, “I am incapable of handling this”. Media too is a big contributor through propagation of victim stories in serials, movies and news.

Children thus grow up conditioned to fear a whole variety of things. In most cases, however, the fear is not real. It is only in the minds of the person expressing it. Knowing that Fear is not real, but a conditioning given to us, becomes very helpful in overcoming it.

Sumiit Mathur: The first part, as mentioned earlier, is to clearly understand that Fear is not Real. Fear stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. This understanding itself gives a lot of relief in uncertain situations. We just need to ask ourselves, “Is this Fear that I am feeling now, based on facts, or is this just a false alarm?”

The next part is to acknowledge that Fear will remain, because uncertainty is there. Next is to believe at the core of the heart or the sub-conscious mind that “I Can Handle This”. And Last part is to take action anyways. Don’t just sit there feeling victim of situations.

Lets look back at some of the original examples of Fear. With the newfound understanding, that Fear is not real and that we can handle any situation, the statements (and beliefs) would change to:

If I quit my frustrating job or my relationship, I can handle it
If I am abused or bullied, or if I lose a near-dear one, I can handle It
If I fail the exam or the battle or in my new venture, I can handle it
If an insect or animal attacks me, I can handle it.

When we learn to tell ourselves “I can handle it”, we are able to face any fear and move ahead in life. This is where an expert Life Coach can facilitate the journey of people, help them believe that they can handle the situations, remove any past evidence (memories of traumatic experiences) for them to gain significantly higher confidence, and orient them to take action to move ahead in life.