Confused about your reactions?

What do you do when you feel afraid? This is such a brilliant question to ask, as any thought or feelings you experience that don’t light you up or energise you basically stem from a fear thought. Crazy right?

Our brains are wired to protect us from harm, so anything that’s unfamiliar, our brains switch onto high alert - it’s a fear response designed to keep us alive. The same happens when the brain detects any familiarity with a circumstance that has caused you pain or discomfort in the past. This can be mental, emotional or physical experiences that you have perceived as having harmed you.

If you’ve trained your brain to be comfortable being uncomfortable, you will move through this pretty quickly. Your thoughts will flick over to be rational and you’ll move through the experience without drama. But what happens when you’re triggered? Your past experiences override what really is happening in the present moment, as your brain is firmly planted in the past where the trauma or undesired experience occurred. You’re stuck in patterns that no longer serve you and leave the people surrounding you confused about what’s happening.

Your fear has become a habit and is an unconscious response. Once you identify the pattern, this will help you create awareness and enable you to shift. First, become aware of how your nerves feel in your body. Identify and describe what it really feels like. Your body feels fear first before your brain registers it,  so when you learn to recognise your body’s response when you feel nervous or afraid, you can catch yourself and do a pattern break to create a new response that replaces old patterns. 

What are the ways fear shows up for you? Do you stay silent? Isolate yourself? Prepare yourself to be abandoned? Try to control others' behaviours. Nitpick? Lie and become a chameleon to fit in? Overthink? Be really hard on yourself and put yourself down? Hoard things? Hide? Overdrink? Overshop? Overeat? Run away?

When you know and own how fear shows up for you, then you can change your response. Ask yourself what your greatest fear is. Then pivot to break the pattern, and take action. This all takes place in the little moments, the small actions and thoughts. Learn to back and trust yourself, and prove to yourself that you can change. 

The patterns from your past do not define you. Every single day there will be moments when you don’t feel in control which triggers a fear or nervous response,  here is your opportunity to make a different choice and not choose your familiar fear pattern. Interrupt them.

Who you were in the past does not dictate who you are now or who you are becoming. All the change comes from you. Own who you were in the past and what others' perceptions of you were, and then you can change the patterns and beliefs. Creating consciousness will empower you to make the shifts to live a life you don’t want to escape!

Depending on what you’re struggling with, therapy with a professional can help you if you have trauma you want to let go of. Coaching can also help you if you are ready to become fearless!