Podcast – Episode 34 – Emotions in the Body: Fear
Written by Ségolène
Hello Lovely Voices!
Another Thursday, another episode, another moment in our Emotions in the body series. And today I’d like for us to talk about the monster under the bed, the stare over your shoulder, the ominous and the dreadful: Fear.
For most mythologies and energetic systems, fear is the opposite force to love. When you’re scared, everything around you represents danger. It’s alienating. It’s stressful for the body and the mind.
We cultivate fear a bit too much for my liking: horror films, horror scenarios on the news, the morbid side of social media feeding scare mongering into our brains… My zombie survival video game should definitely make that list too.
And yes, a lot of these help our brains find establish warning signs, but do we need to feed our fears and into Fear to this extent?
Fear wants you to REACT
Fear wants you to react to a situation. To respond through an action. By default your
brain will offer you three options: Fight. Flight. Freeze.
Fight the demon.
Flee from the demon.
Freeze facing the demon.
I think a lot of films and narratives have a tendency to push us towards fighting more
than anything. I’m not sure it’s the best solution. Because it cultivates a language of
violence and wrestling… It’s effort, it’s gonna require all your strength to destroy the
big evil demon. And this can discourage us to take action.
But if you looked at the big evil demon in the eyes first, you’d realize that it’s actually
made of a few different smaller ones. Wouldn’t that be easier to handle first? Identify
each of the smaller demons, the smaller fears. And soon enough you may just find
that a lot of them were acting as a screen: there were only two real fears, the rest of
them were projections, add-ons that your mental installed in.
Instead of spending time and energy fighting a huge monster, why not take time to
talk, hang out and deal with your fears regularly?
I really believe that it’s the key to a balanced relationship between life, mental and emotions.
rather than waiting for the demon to appear, or for the wave to engulf you, drown you from within, leading you to believe that this is your destiny, that you don’t stand a chance: taking the time to explore what you’re scared of, allows you to break it down in manageable chunks. You learn to name these fears and thus making them less scary.
Because fear is the unknown. Fear is ignorance, lack of knowledge and certainty. We fear what we don’t know and what we don’t understand. Once you’ve identified the fear, once you’ve named it, it shrinks down. Because originally it was feeding off of your uncertainty.
So, when you’re in this fight / flight / freeze mode – and trust me your body will tell you by draining you of energy, keeping you awake, making you double check behind your shoulder as often as it wants, you need to build trust and bring sweetness and grounding back in. You need to round your edges: be more circle and less square! No angles in a circle, meaning you remove the chances of you being cornered and powerlessness.
Remember that everything is ok. Everything you fear installed itself in your psyche for a reason: through experiencing or witnessing. Through anticipating the worst. But anticipation can help you avoid the burning out. It can help you avoid the helplessness. It can teach you to reach out, to seek support, to learn what having a loving attitude even towards these “nasty little demons” can do.
As mentioned in this week’s episode, mind and body go hand in hand.
So when exploring your fears, and traveling down a path that feels gloomy and full of shadows, bring some light with you. Bring some sweetness, bring some wholesome and hearty foods. Engage in a creative and releasing practice. Put in some TLC and rest in your schedule.
And you’ll be fueling your recovery and connection to life, rather than the fears.
Enjoy this week’s episode! And yesterday’s mindful chat with Lynsay!
Much love,
Ségo xx
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