Tag Archives: reduce fear

How To Rewire Your Fears

Re Wire Your Fears

I’ll never forget the first time I went skydiving.

It was about an hour drive to the jump place. All the way out I was secretly hoping we’d get into a car crash so we wouldn’t have to go.

The first split second I jumped out of the plane, I was pretty out-of-my-head terrified.

But the next sixty seconds (free fall) was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever experienced.

They say that’s one way to get over your fears.

“Feel it and do it anyway.”

And they are right. Truth is that most of our fears are false. So if we just FORCE ourselves through that, we’ll notice the fear is not there. The experience can be exhilarating, or it could be boring.

But who the heck wants to FORCE themselves through their fear?

Sure it works, but just because it works doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

Yeah, on the other side of your fears are your greatest resources. Your greatest strengths.

There’s that old story that the gods who created us hid our greatest powers behind our fears, since that’s the last place we’d look.

(I guess the gods didn’t want the competition.)

But still, who the heck wants to make a daily habit out of getting into a brawl with your inner demons?

We’re hard wired to NOT do stuff like that unless we feel our lives are dependent on it.

(or we’re afraid of wimping out in front of our buddies).

Is there another way?

There sure is.

See, our fears are based on FALSE assumptions. A lot of them. We imagine doing something, and then our lighting bast brain imagines the WORST possible outcome. Then delivers a horrible feeling to keep us from doing what we want to do.

This keeps up from realizing that WORST possible outcome (that we didn’t even know about since it happens below conscious awareness).

The trick is to RE-WIRE your brain, so that when you think of doing something, instead of your lighting fast reptile brain automatically going to the WORST possible outcome, it either goes to the BEST one, (giving you a really POSITIVE feeling) or a more likely, neutral outcome.

Think of it like a circuit. One wire splitting into two wires. At the end of each wire is a possible outcome. One good, one bad.

But since our brain’s PRIME DIRECTIVE is to keep us safe, the “wire” leading to the WORST outcome is a lot thicker. So our brain impulse more easily travels down THAT wire to the WORST outcome.

But by taking the time to BUILD UP the BEST possible outcome, so that wire is AS THICK as the “fear” wire, you’ll have a more realistic imagined outcome. Meaning BOTH WIRES will be “checked” by your brain impulse, and you’ll have a more neutral feeling.

There are plenty of ways to do this.

You’ll find them all here:

Fearless