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Nov 29 2008
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5 reviews
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psychology
• facetothesun.com
From the page: "How to change a fear reaction
A person can change their reaction to fear. If fear is getting in the way of what you want to do, consider these actions. Iâ€ve used them all over the years, to cope with overwhelming fears.
Become aware of fear and label it. â€oeI am feeling fear, but I am NOT my fear.â€
Determine where the fear is coming from and make a judgment. Is this a realistic fear? If so, action is needed. If not, work to lessen its attention field.
Learn to meditate. Research has found that the amygdula is the emotion center of the brain, where fear and other intense feelings are generated. However, individuals who regularly meditate experience fear not in the amygdula but rather in the neo-cortex. They have been able to moderate their emotional reactions.
If the fear is overwhelming, seek out a good counselor. They may be able to moderate your fears through systematic desensitization techniques.
Work toward acceptance. Feeling fear is OK. Letting it rule oneâ€s life is not OK.
Imagine the worst. Thank Albert Ellis for this one. Deliberately conjure up the worst possible scenario. Then judge. What is the true likelihood this might occur? Assign a percentage to it. Choose to continue worrying or take action only if the percentage is really high.
Write out your fears in a journal or a letter to yourself. Often seeing them on paper de-tracks them from the well-worn grooves you have worn in your mind.
Talk to a trusted friend. Sometimes the mere fact of having a neutral witness can scare the boogeyman out of the closet.
Take responsibility for your own problems. If ills are blamed on another, you also lose the ability to solve those problems, as well. Nothing is more frightening that being in a car on an icy road, with someone else at the wheel!
Breathe. If you find that you are using internal memories to fuel fear and panic, ground yourself with external cues. Ground yourself by paying attention to your breath, to the sounds and sensory cues of the outside world.
Some of these suggestions operate on the dominance of the rational mind over the emotional one. Others by distraction. Still others by lessening the obsessive hold that fear can have on our imaginations and our lives.
Recognize fear for what it is: a signal that something is wrong. Then take a moment to determine if that danger is present, here and now. And finally, decide if you need to take action.
If you can accept and make friends with your fears, they can serve as useful allies rather than an experience to be avoided at sometimes a very high cost."