Afraid? Good. Here’s Why — and What to Do About It.
Fear is part of being human. Anyone who claims they never feel it is either lying — or living such a carefully controlled life that they avoid anything remotely challenging. And here’s the thing: most of what our brains warn us about today isn’t actually dangerous at all. If we can learn to recognise fear for what it is — a prehistoric protection mechanism — we can stop beating ourselves up for feeling it and start working with it instead of against it.
I've explained many times why we feel fear as a human species, in short it boils down to our prehistoric brains trying to protect us from perceived threats. Which is all very well and good when you’re living in a cave and trying not to become a sabre tooth tiger’s next meal. However, the world that we live in today contains a lot of stuff our brains claims is dangerous, but which simply isn't.
So, if we accept that as an objective truth, and stop beating ourselves up for feeling the emotion in the first place, accepting that it's simply a part of being human, then the best thing I think we can all do is to find easy-to-implement ways to work with and around our fears.
The first step is to acknowledge when you’re feeling fear. Learning to identify, accept and understand it, rather than pushing it away from ourselves is a massive thing to learn how to do.
Everyone does this to a certain extent, and how we do it, while personal to each one of us is usually one of a certain subset of predictable behaviours.
Here's a short list, which is by no means comprehensive:
Drinking alcohol
Eating junk food
Mindless TV watching.
Playing games for hours and hours upon end
Impulse shopping
Inadvisable sexual encounters
I could go on. While these are very different activities, with various impacts on our health—both mental and physical as well as our wallets—the one thing they have in common is that the net effect is to help you to turn your face away from the thing that is bothering you, and a lot of that time the thing which is bothering you is actually fear.
This can be fear of failure, fear of succeeding, fear of judgement — from people that you know or even people that you don't. Fear of dying, fear of really living. Fear of taking a risk.
Learning to deal with fear then, requires a two step approach. First, we need to be able to identify and accept the fact that we’re feeling afraid, and find a way of identifying what it is we are afraid of. And secondly, we need practical tactics to help us to bust through that fear.
Step 1: Learn to identify and short circuit fear
We need to become intimately familiar with the physical and mental sensations that accompany our fears.
Does your mind race? Do you feel your heart rate increasing? Do you feel sweaty and nervous, or do you have more physical symptoms such as a lump in your throat, tightening around your chest or do you feel your stomach rolling?
For me, it's the last one. When you take that into account, it's hardly surprising that my go to coping mechanisms of choice in the past were always eating, sometimes binge eating, and also drinking alcohol. Anything to make my stomach feel better, or at least different. That is to try to make my feelings go the hell away.
It was only when I came to understand what that sensation actually meant that I was able to find ways to do something differently.
This isn't necessarily going to be as easy as just flipping a switch though, it'll take time and some failed attempts in order to be able to consistently and successfully short circuit your habitual reaction to feeling fear.
While this isn’t easy, it also isn’t anywhere near as complicated as it might sound.
What you need to do is to do as I did above, and identify what your behaviour is when you feel fear. For me, it was the desire to binge eat, or to attempt to drown my feelings in alcohol.
Then, whenever possible, sit down with a pen and a piece of paper (or your phone, laptop or other device and a note taking app) and ask yourself some questions.
You may want to come up with your own set, but these are some ideas to get you started:
What am I afraid of?
Why am I afraid of it?
What feelings am I experiencing in my body or in my mind? This’ll help you to become more aware of it in the future, so you don’t get all the way to the distracting behaviour in the first place.
Is there something else I could do to soothe myself, other than the habitual behaviour which isn’t constructive? (for me, this was making a cup of hot tea with a dash of honey in, going and taking a bath (candlelit and with bubbles as an ideal) or going out for a walk. Boy did I walk a lot when I was first working on this!)
Notice we’re not actually trying to do the thing which has scared us in the first place.
Rather we’re just becoming familiar with how we react when we feel afraid, and by extension how fear feels to us physically & mentally.
Sometimes we may still act in our habitual way, but this simple act of self-analysis can often be enough to stop us in our tracks.
Step 2: put strategies in place to help us to do something different
Once you’ve created some breathing space between feeling fear and reacting automatically, it’s time to experiment with simple strategies to help you move forward — even if it’s just a tiny step at a time.
1. Just do five minutes
Set a timer for five minutes. That’s it. Tell yourself you can stop after that if you want. (Most of the time, once you get started, momentum will carry you further.)
2. Use the 5-Second Rule
Mel Robbins’ method is simple but powerful: when you feel hesitation creeping in, count “5-4-3-2-1” and move before your fear brain talks you out of it. Learn more here.
3. Try the Pomodoro Technique
Work for 25 minutes, take a 5-minute break — repeat. Keeping the work blocks short tricks your brain into staying calm and focused. Learn more here.
4. Ask yourself: “What can I do?”
Instead of focusing on the full scary thing, break it down into the tiniest next step. Small steps reduce overwhelm and keep you moving forward.
5. Create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
Borrow this idea from software development: what’s the smallest version of this task that would still feel like progress? (e.g., instead of deep-cleaning the whole house, clean just the windows today.)
6. Do something for someone else
Fear pulls you inward. Love moves you outward. Doing a kind act for someone else — even something tiny — can instantly shift your emotional state and help fear loosen its grip.
Fear isn’t something we “outgrow” or erase. It’s something we learn to live alongside, to understand, and to move through with compassion and courage. The next time you feel afraid, remember: you’re not broken. You’re just human. And you have so many tools available to help you keep going, even when fear is riding shotgun.
If you’d like more down-to-earth strategies like this to help you show up fully in your life, make sure you’re subscribed to my Substack — I’d love to have you there. 💛