Fight your fears!
Battle your demons!
Stand against the darkness that envelops you!
Yeah, yeah, we get it. To have fears is to be weak, to have anxious fears (i.e. unfounded, melodramatic, or unrealistic fears) is even weaker, and if you don’t stand up right this instant with a fear-tuned flamethrower and FIGHT THE LIFE OUTTA THOSE FEARS you’re a weakling who deserves to weak.
Sound familiar? Probably not in such baldfaced terms, but it’s definitely a Thing in western society (and possibly/probably others). And you know what?
I’m calling bullshirt. (You know what I mean.)
Because here’s the thing. Quite beside the fact that the idea that having fear makes us weak is stupid and illogical, the whole concept of ‘fighting your fears’ just doesn’t work.
Ever been upset before? Ever had someone respond, probably with the best of intentions, with something like:
Oh, don’t worry about it, it’s not a big deal.
Oh, well, it could be worse.
There, there. Don’t be upset.
Why are you so upset? Just calm down!
Wow. Yeah. Way to be helpful. The thing is, these empty platitudes very rarely work because they are essentially dismissing the feelings of the person who’s upset. They are essentially saying: STOP BEING UPSET. RIGHT NOW. GO ON. DO IT. And I don’t know about you, but if you’re genuinely upset about something, being told just… stop being upset ain’t exactly wisdom.
‘Fight your fears and slay your demons’ is more of the same. Instead of acknowledging that fear is useful, normal, ordinary, and just plain okay (which is different to comfortable), it says that fear is abnormal, base, and we should just… stop being afraid.
Yeah. Uh huh. Come back to me when that’s worked out for you.
(And look, okay, determination can go a long way: you can legitimately convince yourself that you’re just not going to be afraid any more. But that’s more about mindfully changing your mood than ‘fighting’ the fear itself.)
So what? I hear you ask. We just lay down, quit fighting, and live at the mercy of our fears? Is that what you’re saying?
Ha. Of course not. I’m suggesting a third option entirely: that we make friends with our fear.
Radical though that may sound, I’m certainly not the first to think of it; it is a legitimate Thing. See, for example, this wonderful series of posts by author Susan Dennard, where she talks about fear-related artistic blocks in particular, but gives excellent advice that I’ve personally found to be very broadly applicable to many kinds of fear and anxiety.
Because here’s the other thing: many times, fear is actually legitimate. Public speaking? Yeah, man, that can be super scary. You could make a fool of yourself, people could laugh… it’s legitimately scary. But the trick to moving through that, to doing it regardless, is not to shout at your fear, trying to drown it out. It’s not berating yourself, or beating up on yourself for not being fearless. It’s not to give in to the fear either, and live a knock-kneed jelly-spined life at the whims and mercy of your terrors.
When you’re upset, it’s amazing what a simple acknowledgement of that fact can do. I try to do this with my children as much as my all-too-human patience will let me: if they’re crying, instead of asking them to explain how they’re feeling (duh, they’re feeling upset, and IDK about you, but I certainly can’t explain myself articulately when I’m in the middle of sobbing), or trying to convince them that it will be alright, or giving advice, or trying to hurry up their tearful process because it’s awful and uncomfortable to watch someone you love be distressed… Sometimes, when I’m at Peak Human, I remember to just sit with them, and hold them, and say only things like, “Yeah, it’s pretty upsetting when that happens.” “Yeah, I can see that/understand why you’re upset.” And shockingly enough, they don’t stay upset forever just because I didn’t remind them to stop being upset. Oddly enough, they get over whatever it was pretty quickly – often more quickly, because they feel heard and supported.*
* Child psychology experts note that sometimes problem solving is actually needed and more effective than just emotion coaching (the official term for what I just described), and also that emotion coaching is at its most effective when used about 40% of the time; sometimes emotion dismissing is also totally appropriate.
Your fears, your anxiety… it’s just the same. It wants to be heard. It wants to be acknowledge. And with practice, you can move from letting it control you to treating it like a large, lovely lion who just wants to protect you. When it’s scared, when it’s freaking out, you hold it, you pat it, and you reassure it by literally saying to it things like: You know what? You’re right. It is really scary speaking in public. So I’m going to take some measures to protect myself against the fallout, okay? I’m going to make sure I’m really prepared and know my topic. I’m going to make sure the IT all works beforehand. I’m going to plant someone friendly in the audience so I can focus on speaking to them and ignore everyone else. I’m going to… whatever else it is that you can think of to do that will help show your little lion that its fears are okay, its fears are legitimate–and that you, because you are amazing, have already thought of these things that could go wrong, and have taken steps to counter them.
It’s harder to do this with irrational fears, but it is possible. Sometimes, given the perfect storm of stress, sleep deprivation and food-intolerance exacerbation, I fall into a mindset where I end up with frequent, high-intensity, hyper-vivid, worst-case-scenario daydreams that are so intense and vivid it’s difficult to pull out of them. I ended up sobbing my eyes out one night while ironing because my husband was home late (which he’d told me he would be, but I forgot) and I’d imagined him crashing and dying on his motorbike on the way home so intensely and vividly that by the time he got home a few hours later, I’d actually gone through an entire miniature grieving process. It can be hard to reassure/counter against that, but first of all I’m better at avoiding my triggers these days (food, lack of sleep, etc), second I’m better at noticing them coming and stopping them before they start, but third, I know how to work with the fear to reassure it.
Yes, it would be awful if my husband was killed, I tell my fear. Yes, it would be horrible, and I would be devastated, and so would the kids. Yes, that is a legitimate thing to fear. And yes, if it happens, this is what I’ll do: Find a cheaper house to rent. Get family and friends to help me move asap. Move Kid 1 to a cheaper school. Invest my husband’s life insurance to provide something of an on-going growth financially. Organise time off work. Consider moving to a cheaper location, balancing that with making sure I’m still close to family/friends for the support I am definitely going to need.
See, fears? You are perfectly legitimate. I am taking you seriously. So seriously, that I have a plan of action if that thing should ever occur. You don’t have to worry about it now, not because I think you’re being silly, but precisely because I think you are being so serious that I have made you a plan. It’s okay. I appreciate you trying to look out for me, and I have this handled.
(Note the lack of the word ‘but’ in there anywhere. ‘But’ is entirely de-legitimising. Try erasing it from your daily conversations and conflicts and see how you’re forced to change your mindset: I disagree with you AND I am going to work with you anyway. You have thought of those things AND here are a couple of others you missed. Etc.)
So I still have the worst-case-scenario daydreams sometimes, but as I said, I’m better at nipping them in the bud, and when they do come, they are usually much shorter and much less vivid/emotionally intense, because I have a plan. I’m not fighting the fear; I’m working with it.
So. This turned out longer and more personal than planned, but I guess in a way that’s kind of fitting. I have just been writing about lions all week, after all.
Don’t fight your fears. It’s a losing battle, for the most part. Instead, dare to be kind to them, to reassure them–and one day, maybe you’ll hear your lion purr.