According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2019, 301 million people globally were living with anxiety, including 58 million children and adolescents. Anxiety disorders are most often characterised by excessive fear and worrying. In this piece, we’re going to look at fear and offer tools to help if we find ourselves, or someone we care for, exhibiting signs of fear.

In my experience, the first thing we can do for others when they’re showing signs of fear is to offer support with our presence. As parents or carers, the urge is to try to stop and fix/avoid/minimise the fear. In an effort to provide support, we naturally feel the urge to say, ‘Don’t worry about that, it’s nothing to be scared of.’ Yet the person feeling the fear still feels scared, so our words – no matter how well-intended – are often ineffective.

Empowering the person

From speaking with and supporting clients, I find that it’s much more empowering to the person who is in fear to try to encourage them to turn towards the feeling of fear: to try to name it, describe where in their body they feel the fear, and to recognise that they are more than the fear. They may have fear in them – or, in our beautiful Irish language, they may have fear on them – but we also have certainty within us to help support us through these fearful moments.

In its most fundamental form, fear is designed to protect us from danger. When the prehistoric part of our brain (the amygdala) tells us we’re under threat, it triggers our fight/flight/freeze response. I say ‘response’, but really it’s a reaction, as there is no logic here. In actual fact, when we feel under threat like this, our primal brain bypasses the thinking/prefrontal cortex part and sends us either desperately defending ourselves, running for cover or standing still feeling powerless. None of these states are conducive to helping us process and overcome our fears. For that, we need to involve the modern brain – in particular, the prefrontal cortex.

One sure-fire way to get ourselves out of a fight/flight/freeze response is to breathe. The simple act of taking a few deep conscious breaths automatically deactivates the amygdala while simultaneously activating the thinking part of our brains. Then we can begin to logically access what is actually happening to us at this moment, whether the threat is imminent and how we can devise a plan to help us manage and surmount the fear we feel.

Remind yourself that to feel fear is not a weakness. It’s actually a sign of our humanity

Mindfulness exercise I know it’s really challenging to trust yourself when you’re fearful or frightened, but if we consider for a moment how we interact with the breath, do you ever worry, ‘If I let go of this exhale, will the next inhale arrive in time?’ Unless we’ve had a serious respiratory issue, I think it’s fair to say we never worry about the dependability of the breath, because we implicitly trust that the next breath will come. So for this exercise, I’m suggesting we sit and witness how dependable, regular and trustworthy our breath is. We don’t need to call it, we don’t need to control it, we don’t need to decide to breathe. The breath breathes itself and it keeps us alive and that part of our nature is deeply reassuring, especially when we feel uncertain in other areas of our lives.

Physical exercise

Document what you feel threatened about. I know when I’m on a work deadline, I certainly wake up feeling differently than when I’m on my holidays.

When you write these fears down, ask yourself compassionately, ‘Is there anything I can do to support myself in managing my fears?’ In the case of my deadline, it could be to begin my next assignment earlier rather than later.

Remind yourself that to feel fear is not a weakness. It’s actually a sign of our humanity. Everyone who decides to take on a challenge experiences fear and you are far more than your fears. You have a depth of resources within you to help you manage any fear. The key is to look inward, and to call on and trust those resources.

Something to ponder

When you think about it, everything you ever wanted was always on the other side of fear. To reach love, we have to surmount a fear of rejection. To reach success, we have to surmount a fear of failure. So ask yourself, ‘What is it I want for me in my life?’

Recognise what you are fearful of and then take a breath, take a step, take a pause and repeat until you are on the other side of your fears, looking back and marveling at how far you have come.

Note: If you are suffering from anxiety and would like extra support, please speak to your GP.

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