Tackle your fear and stress head-on with these 10 techniques

• Have you stayed in an unrewarding job for far too long because it pays the bills?
• Do you have problems in your relationship, yet you bury your head in the sand, hoping that the issues will all go away?
• Do you tolerate abusive behaviour from your family because you don’t want to rock the boat?
• Or worse, are you starting to suffer from serious health problems like a sore back, or allergies, or high blood pressure but shut your worries down?

If you are familiar with these scenarios, it is safe to bet your security is threatened.

You are living in survival mode.

I am not telling you this to blame or shame you!

Seeking safety and security is one of our most primitive instincts.

It gets activated at around 9 weeks of gestation when you are only the size of a jellybean, and your whole nervous system develops around it.

Why is it that some people are hardly ever scared (Pete springs to mind) and others (like me) have overactive, hyper-vigilant safety and security radars going overtime 24/7?

Well, science now has an answer for that now.

Your ‘set’ point for safety and security was fixed by how safe or unsafe your mother felt when she carried you in your womb.

The fight and flight chemicals that were produced by her nervous system were programmed into your brain.

This is like a ‘curse’ that is passed down from mother to child for generations to come.

In my opinion, we also carry inherited trauma from many of our ancestors, as heightened fear levels are passed down through the energy field. (Energy work is my forte.)

Unresolved traumas and stresses carry themselves in the bodies and brains of multiple generations, keeping people stuck in a nightmare of a reality that is tainted by fear.

When our security is threatened, we no longer think rationally.

We don’t see opportunities for growth, for increased joy or love.

We sometimes act out like a cornered animal, unable to have a productive conversation.

Or we run and hide, shutting down, making us no longer available to be present for our loved ones or ourselves.

This is the bad news.

What is the good news?

Well, there is some very good news, but first, let me give you some examples of where some of my clients get it very wrong.

HERE ARE 4 STRATEGIES THAT DO NOT WORK!

1. Positive Thinking

Positive thinking isn’t going to put a dent in your innate fear response.

If your body thinks its running away from a bear but you tell yourself that your life is wonderful, your body is going to get all confused and go into hyper-vigilance.

Your fear will turn into panic or chronic anxiety.

If you take an honest look at yourself, you realize that positive thinking is often driven by fear itself.

You fear that if you stop being positive all the time, you will be devoured into a bottomless pit of fear and stress.

So you hold the darkness at bay by positivity.

Perhaps we need to stop labeling things ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ and choose to speak our truth, whether it is popular or not.

Being yourself and saying what you mean and feel frees up a lot of energy.

2) Another strategy that doesn’t work is to push fear away.

The more you push it away, the more energy you give to it.

What you resist persists!

It just goes deeper underground, making your life harder and slower and draining your immune system and money flow.

3) When you feel the fear arise, you start thinking of all the things that can go wrong in the near and far future.

Is this you?

That used to be me … I used to confuse worrying with problem-solving.

I believed that if I just thought about it long enough, suddenly the problem would disappear.

Nothing could be further from the truth. 

I was just energising the problem…

4) Fight it…

Parents sometimes believe that their kids need to overcome all their fears by confronting the fearful situation.

Like bullies at school, or abusive situations at home, or phobias and nightmares they might have.

The kids are told to ‘man up’ or ‘grow some ovaries.’

Little do parents know that these kids are going to be scarred so deeply that it’s going to take another 10 generations to release the trauma energy.

If you force your child to override their natural instincts by throwing them in the bear pit every day, your child is going to dissociate from his or her body and become a deeply repressed fragmented individual.

If those 4 harmful strategies were successful, we wouldn’t have the problems in society we are experiencing today.

But statistics show they don’t work.

Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the US.

Over 40 million people are affected, including children whose school performance and self-esteem are under constant attack.

Here are some incredibly effective techniques that will help you overcome the fear, stress, and anxiety in your life.

It works great for your children as well.

1. When fear arises, ask yourself “am I in danger right now?”

If the answer is no, continue to point 2.

2. Now ask yourself:

• Which part of my body is the fear arising from?
• Where do I feel it?
• Become really focussed on it, and place your hands on that spot of your body

3. Stay with the feeling…. Notice the quality of the energy… and really concentrate on the emotion you are experiencing.

4. Your thoughts will want to come up with a story or multiple stories. 

Ignore your thoughts and take your attention back to your body part that is offering the feeling of fear to you.

5. I find it helpful to tell myself:

• I love myself for feeling fearful.
• I love myself for feeling scared.
• And so on.

This is often enough to lessen the intensity (while still dealing with the root cause).

6. While you are in the thick of it, talk to your body, and ask it the following questions and give yourself the answers:

• Is the fear big or small?
• Does it have a colour?
• If it had a smell, what would it smell like?
• What would it feel like if it touched it with my hands?
• Is it moving or still?
• If it had a sound, what would it sound like?

7. Don’t rush these questions, really experience every sensation and awareness that arises for you in this exact moment.

8. After the fear reaches a peak, it will start to dissipate so wait for that to happen.

It will start to leave your body.

If you try to push it away or fight it, it will continue to have a hold over you.

9. Once it is going, breathe the sensation of unconditional love into your body.

Give it a colour and imagine breathing this colour into every space of your body.

10. Ground yourself by feeling the weight of your bottom on the chair, your feet firmly on the ground and continue to take another 6 slow, deep breaths into your lower belly.

Focus on the out-breath, which is the healing breath.

Now walk around a bit and enjoy a newfound sense of freedom or spaciousness in your body.

You are one step closer to living from your core self … and now your body has the energy to heal itself and to have fun and play.

When you do the internal work on yourself and never give up on yourself, miracles will unfold.

You can release yourself from the generational ‘curse’.

If you are ready to find out what’s causing you pain or holding you back, be courageous and book in for a session at the Purple House.

The way we work, heal deep trauma and empower you is different from what you are used to, or might have tried before.

We are open Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 9 AM to 5 PM.

Much love as always