Oh man, I’m excited to get into this. I’ve had a super interesting couple of weeks, filled with rad late-into-the-night conversations, epic a-ha moments & multiple quantum shifts.
The thread connecting all these moments? The subject that I’ve been diving deep on? Fear.
And here’s the thing. I’ve already written about fear. I’ve spoken about it a lot. I kinda had my own theory on it and assumed I had it all figured out.
Haha. Turns out I didn’t.
And I realised it just 2 weeks ago, sitting at the back of a surf shop, watching my friend Chris present his movie (the story of his epic ten-year journey chasing & charging BIG waves across the planet & winning the Mavericks contest). I’d seen the movie before, but for some reason, this time around a lightbulb switched on and seriously blew me away.
Picture the scene …. Chrissa’s movie has finished, everyone in the room is feeling super inspired, sipping beers and asking him their burning questions. He’s talking about training techniques, mindset & his upcoming plans for more crazy adventures. On the screen behind him, an image of him dropping in on a ridiculously massive wave. And he starts talking about fear.
He explains that contrary to popular belief, fear is actually a good thing. Fear is manifesting physical responses in your body that heighten your senses and prepare you to deal with whatever is coming for you. So in those moments of pure fear, your body is capable of achieving far more than it normally would.
As I sat there I found myself thinking about the amount of fear I’ve been dealing with in the last 3 years. And how, really, the fear I’ve been feeling isn’t actually real fear at all. The response in my body has felt the same as if I were facing monster waves (shortness of breath, pounding heart, tense muscles) but the situations I’ve been dealing with didn’t require any of these things.
The fear I’ve been experiencing? Totally fake.
I know that many people would disagree. I know that emotional fear feels very very real and that it can impact your life in many ways, but I’ve realised that it’s actually very useful to remind myself that it’s not real.
I am in no danger. There is no tiger chasing me down.
And when I recognise this, my fear (and all the panicky BS that goes with it), seems quite… Um… insignificant.
After the movie screening, Chris & I sat up late talking about it all. And I realised that because he’s dealing with legitimate fear on a regular basis, he just doesn’t have much energy for the fake stuff. That’s not to say he doesn’t have it (although I did have to double check haha), but more than fake fear seems so much less significant and so doesn’t have as much control over him.
It got me thinking about my fearful gremlins and how best I should deal with them. Because let’s be honest, they still show up, and I’m probably not about to start charging big waves to get some perspective on them*. I asked Chris how he copes with the fake stuff, and he said that in his mind, fake fear is just showing him that he needs to make a decision. Smart cookie huh? (haha trust a guy to come up with such a black & white, simple way of looking at it, as opposed to my complicated inner ramblings).
Steven Pressfield (another smart cookie) once said:
“Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do.
Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That’s why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there’d be no Resistance.”
So here it is… my brand new how-to-deal-with-fake-fear** protocol:
Recognise that it’s fake fear & call it out — Haha fear…you are NOT a tiger.
Get to the root of it — Dive deep … What is it that you’re scared of? What triggered it?
Discharge the feelings — This sounds a little crazy, but you have to feel the feelings to discharge them. Meditate/breathe & forgive yourself for having junky thoughts.
Switch it up — Take a step in the right direction. Tell your fears to take a hike. Tell them that you don’t believe their BS anymore. Make the decision. Say yes. Say no. Step into your power. Go for a surf. Get outside. Move. Whatever you need to do to physically shift the energy.
Let that shit go.
*Oh, except that I just signed up for a freediving course, because I figure I could use a tad more real fear in my life to remind me of how lame the fake stuff is.
** For a rad how-to-deal-with-real-fear protocol, you need to check out Chris’s work (he is waaaaay more qualified to talk about it than I am). Read his book‘Stoked’ (good title huh !) or hustle your way to a screening of his movie. At the very least, follow him on IG or FB to remind yourself what playing BIG looks like.