Accepting fear and using ERP to desensitise your body

The key message of the video

In this video, we explore practical ways to embrace fear, allowing you to expand your world by leaning into fear rather than avoiding it.

Because if you can tolerate unpleasant feelings and scary stories, it allows you to be that person who can add value to themselves (and society at large) by going anywhere, doing anything, and talking to anybody.

That might sound fearful, but it also might sound exciting. As we know, excitement is just fear with a positive story!

I’ve called this video – There is nothing to fear but fear itself – which I believe is a smart quote attributed to Franklin Roosevelt.

So, could it be that we can learn to accept fear (or even befriend it?) – and perhaps consider, – does fear even need to be an issue?

Can our horsey be afraid but the rider be indifferent to that bodily emotional response?

And I am talking from experience when I say you can reprogram the brain to be less fearful, less negative, and less pessimistic, and you can radically desensitise the body to remain much calmer.

And it’s worth doing this work – because unless you develop a new relationship with fear, worry and stress, your inner subjective experience of life (which we might call your happiness) will always be regulated by what is external to you.

This means you’ll either fear (that which is external to you) or attempt to control (that which is around you) or distract yourself (from fear) by working hard or trying to save or rescue others (or the environment) around you.

And in my experience, most anxious people have unconsciously developed a unique mixture of all three coping strategies!

Now, I am not saying these behaviours are right or wrong; I am just asking – do they make you calm, happy and energised or do they stress and exhaust you?

Is there another way to experience life that is braver, yet calmer and less stressful?

Anxious and depressed people seem overly sensitive to external stressors, which cause their brains to generate negative, scare-mongering or catastrophising stories, which induce within them the battle we call mental health issues rather than the dance we might call life.

These external fear stressors often include

• The people around you
• Worrying what others think of you
• The belief systems of those around you
• Your own belief systems
• Your sources of information
• Your Health
• Your living environment
• Your working environment
• Religion
• Finances
• Mainstream media fear-mongering
• And the events happening all around the world

I am asking you to consider… Is it possible to be in this world and not be driven by fear but instead be driven by love, desire, hope, calmness and positive intentions?

Surely, if some people can handle fear well, it tells me that anybody can develop a new relationship with fear should they choose to do so and put the required reprogramming work in – I managed it, why not you?

I started by asking myself, “What is fear anyway?”

The dictionary says fear is a very unpleasant or disturbing feeling caused by the presence (or imminence) of danger, be that real or perceived.

Let’s break that sentence down into smaller pieces…

Fear is a very unpleasant or disturbing feeling – well, what if you can learn to tolerate that unpleasant feeling? It’s only a feeling, right?

Because if you can tolerate unpleasant feelings, then you naturally evolve into a person who can add value to other humans and society at large.

Because those who are not overwhelmed by their emotions, or you might say, can inhibit the fight or flight response can go anywhere, do anything, and talk to anybody.

These guys retain the use of their brain’s problem-solving (and intellectual) prefrontal cortex during times of intense danger or stress.

Whilst those who can’t inhibit it – limit their lives by seeking safety or security (or, we might say, unknowingly imprisoning and limiting themselves).

And should danger arise, their logical brain is turned off and replaced by the brain’s more basic limbic animal responses (which is my little eight-year-old story) of lashing out, running away or just helplessly freezing on the spot.

I know you know this stuff – but to consciously comprehend and apply this knowledge to reprogram the unconscious brain is a very advanced human skill that few take the time (and apply the repetition) required to master it.

But if they do the work. They will be desensitising their central nervous system, which deregulates the brain’s hypersensitivity, thus releasing less fear and stress chemicals into their bloodstream, which in turn, reduces the body’s workload at a cellular level, which (obviously) leads to more health and vitality both physically and mentally.