Fear is a good counselor
When you are crossing the street and a truck comes speeding around the corner. The adrenaline released by fear makes you jump away.
Or if a tiger came at you. You would make to get away because of that fear. Fear keeps you safe. People who don't know fear don't live very long. Who calmly cross the A4 during rush hour because that's the fastest way to the McDonalds.
Not very smart. Deadly stupid even. Fear makes you turn around or find a way to get there safely. Hopefully it also causes you to not even go into that McDonald's
Fear is an excellent counselor in these cases.
But unreal fear is an entirely different story. It doesn't make sense. For example, people are afraid of public speaking. As long as you're not standing in front of a group in North Korea who will then shoot you if you made a bad presentation, it's perfectly fine.
Yet a lot of people are afraid of this. They don't dare to stand up in front of themselves, to make a presentation, and then fear is not a good counselor at all.
Anxiety causes you to focus on what is important. The bus approaching, the tiger coming at you or anything else that could be a danger. When you start turning that around, it works just as well.
Turning around? Yes, when you start focusing on those people in the audience, say on one face, you get scared. The adrenaline rises and you completely paralyze. You become ready to run or fight.
Doesn't make sense, but yes go about it any other way. There are roughly two ways you can do it that will help.
- Label the process differently. So don't call what you do fear but enthusiasm.
- Relax your eyes and so stop focusing.
These two things work wonderfully well. Often it's even more convenient to be able to hypnosis, because then you can solve it yourself, but these two ways work great too.
How do you deal with this when you do unreal fear?