1. 4 Reasons We Should Overcome Fear
2. Understanding the Root of Fear (only available in Personal Excellence Book, Volume 1)
3. How To Overcome Fear (only available in Personal Excellence Book, Volume 1)

This is part-1 of a 3-part series on How To Overcome Fear.

© D Sharon Pruitt

“Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.” – James Thurber

“Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.” – Marie Curie

Are you more of a courageous person or someone who is often filled with fear? Do you get intimidated easily? Do you make decisions based in fear? Do you look toward your future in fear of what will ensue?

What is Fear?

Fear is “a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined“. In other words, fear is state whereby you feel frightened or afraid, regardless of whether you should be afraid or not. Note the key word here is regardless. Which means even it’s possible to feel fear even when you rightfully shouldn’t be scared.

Let us first talk about how fear came about. Fear is actually a tool to help us escape danger. It is part of an evolutionary, survival mechanism. When we experience fear, our adrenal glands (located directly above our kidneys) release adrenaline into the blood stream which causes a series of biological reactions in our body.

• It increases blood and oxygen flow to our muscles so we can run faster.
• It restricts blood flow to other areas such as our stomach.
• It dilates our pupils so we can better see things around us.

This is also known as the ‘fight or flight’ mode. In this state, our senses and reflexes become heightened and it’s easy for us to escape real and physical danger.

However, these reactions are only helpful when we are facing real physiological danger. They do not aid us when we are facing self-perceived dangers which actually do not result in any physical harm. If anything, we only become held back by such responses when we don’t need them. For example, imagine when people get into stage fright or when they have to make a career move in apprehension. Having increased blood flow to muscles, restricted blood flow to stomach and dilated pupils do not help us in those scenarios. If anything, we might make worse moves/decisions due to these biological reactions. Imagine someone rambling off on the stage due to his/her stage fright. Or someone making a wrong career decision as he/she could not process the information clearly. In these scenarios, we want to be grounded so we can deal with things logically and calmly, not become over-stimulated.

The problem is, about 99% of the fear people experience today are non-physical fear – fear that only exists in our head. We think we’re in danger but we really aren’t. Such fears include:

• Fear of public speaking
• Fear of people
• Fear of strangers (e.g., introverts who find it hard to make new friends)
• Fear of authority
• Fear of losing out
• Fear of not failure
• Fear of loss
• Fear of changes
• Fear of judgment
• Fear of humiliation
• Fear of growing old
• Fear of being alone
• Fear of being hurt
• and more

Does any of the fears above apply to you? Chances are, you’ll be able to relate to at least one or more of them at some point in time. I know I definitely do – all of the above applied to me before, even if for just a short period of time or on a small, subconscious level.

Overcoming this mental fear is what we’re focusing on in this series. We’ll look into the root cause of fear in part-2 and how to overcome fear in part-3. But first, let us understand why there is a need to overcome fear itself.

Why Overcome Fear?

Maybe you might be wondering – “Why overcome fear? I’m doing fine living the way I am right now. Fear drives me to make decisions sometimes. Fear has kept me safe from danger.”

There are a whole host of reasons why you should overcome fear. I’ve condensed them into 4 key ones:

1. Fear Limits Your Full Potential

As someone reading a site called Personal Excellence, I trust that you believe in personal growth, becoming a becoming a better person and living your best life. Unfortunately, being driven by fear blocks all of that. It prevents you from growing and progressing in life.

The problem is majority of our society today vibrate at the level of fear. In the Map of Consciousness – by David Hawkins, fear is the 5th lowest level in the whole map of 17 levels. Not only that, fear is at an energy level of 100, which is quite a distance below 200, the first awakening point from being a sleepwalker. To be mired in fear means you are being held back from rising to the higher levels of Courage, Acceptance, Love, Joy, Peace, Enlightenment. As long as you entrench yourself off in the land of fear, you can’t reach the higher levels of consciousness.

When you let your thoughts, feelings and decisions be driven by fear, you are reduced to a slave of fear. I have come across people whose lives are very centered on the theme of fear and it is a very disempowering state to be in. Their fear drives their thoughts, feelings, decisions and behaviors so much that their life has become a byproduct of fear, rather than their own desires. For example, someone who is scared of changes will become scared whenever there are changes in his/her life. He/she will scramble to maintain the status quo and protect the illusion of safety. He/she lives in reaction to fear, rather than proactively lead his/her life. As long as we’re just reacting to fear, we can’t be reaching our fullest potential.

2. You Can Never Fully Run Away From Fear

It might not be obvious, but realize that you can never fully run away from fear. Mental fear is pervasive. As long as you let it permeate, as long as you run away instead of dealing with it, it will always be there, haunting you in everything you do. Running away only gives you an illusion of security – you may feel safe for a short moment, but only for that short moment.

For example, if you see fear in point A, you can run to point B – but the fear will catch up to you at point B in the form of other things. You can keep running and running, but eventually you are going to find yourself backed into a corner, with nowhere to escape. No matter how you run, you are just living in captivity of fear. In fact, the more you run, the more fear tries to catch up with you. When that happens, you either have to learn to deal with it, or cower in its presence eternally and become a fraction of the person you can be.

Since you have to deal with fear at some point, you might as well learn to overcome fear now, rather than avoid it again and again only to deal with it eventually. It doesn’t make sense otherwise – not only are you draining yourself emotionally, you waste time and energy avoiding the fear. Time is precious – you can never get back lost time. Between the 2 options: Option A, where you run initially but need to deal with fear ultimately when you have nowhere to run, and Option B, where you deal with fear immediately at the onstart, Option B clearly comes across as a more effective approach.

3. Fear Is A Waste of Your Energy

As I mentioned in Reason #2, fear is illogical and a waste of emotional and mental energy.

Every moment you spend swirling around in fear, you are cultivating a seed that gives rise to subsequent similar thoughts. The more you do it, the more you are set back by it. Instead of calmly processing the situation and rationally identifying solutions and ways forward, you are feeding energy into something non-constructive.

Some may say this fear is what triggers them to move the situation forward. While there have been cases where fear seems to push people forward, a more accurate summation is that these people move forward in spite of the fear that is present. As mentioned in the beginning of the article, fear leads to a rush of adrenaline that gives you increased physical performance, not increased mental performance. You can perform just as well, if not better, without all the adrenaline that’s pumping through your body. Having more adrenaline in your body for prolonged periods of time strains your body and gives you jittery nerves instead. Think about how much more you can do if you’re not spending your energy counteracting that fear and its aftereffects.

Also remember that for every moment you spend being fearful, you have one less moment for positive thoughts and feelings, which can blossom into a whole other spring of positive aftereffects. How would you rather spend your time – being happy and positive, or being negative and scared? I pick the former any day.

4. Fear Is All In Your Mind

Having mental fear is like letting yourself be scared by a scarecrow – it looks scary and seems scary, but it’s actually harmless.

As I’ve mentioned at the onset of the article, mental fear is based on danger made up in your mind. This fear arises because your brain somehow formulated a perception these non-physical dangers are real dangers – when they are not. Let’s take public speaking as an example. Public speaking is a top ranked fear among majority of people – even more so than death or disease. Why are people afraid of public speaking? Realistically, speaking publicly does not result in physical bodily harm of any sort.

Some people will point out that it’s not from the physical harm that people draw fear from – but from the thought of slipping up, people judging you, embarrassment that will occur, and so on. These fears are all in your mind. Thoughts of you forgetting the speech, the presentation going wrong, audience feeling bored, etc are all made up. None of that has happened yet. Even if it has happened in the past, it does not mean that this is going to happen in the future. You are in the present and the future has not occurred yet. You are still in the position to shape the future into whatever outcome you desire.

Read on in part-2 on uncovering the root cause of fear. Available exclusively in Personal Excellence Book, Volume 1.

1. 4 Reasons You Should Overcome Fear
2. Understanding the Root of Fear (only available in Personal Excellence Book, Volume 1)
3. How To Overcome Fear (only available in Personal Excellence Book, Volume 1)

Related Posts

• How To Overcome Fear Of Loss And Pursue Your Dreams
• How To Overcome Procrastination – Part 4
• How To Overcome Procrastination – Part 5
• How To Handle Bullying: An Important Guide

As this is an article on Escapism, it might trigger some level of discomfort and resistance as you read it. If so, do not resist it – be aware of it, understand the source of the resistance and confront it.

Take a good look at your life now. Is there anything you are trying to avoid dealing with? Your work? Your responsibilities? Your relationships? Your singlehood if you are single? Your deteriorating health? Your poor dietary habits? Your poor exercise regime? Your lackluster financial status? Your goals? Your aspirations? Your personal issues? Your past?

Escapism in Life

Escapism occurs when you try to avoid something. It can come in different forms. Some people escape by seeking out alternate activities, such as sleeping and playing. Some drown themselves in work. Some immerse themselves in addiction, such as emotional eating (bingeing), smoking, alcohol or even drugs. Some physically run away from their homes. Some may even go as far as to migrate to a new place where they can start ‘afresh’.

In life, many people try to escape from various things. No matter what they are trying to avoid, these things ultimately ladder down to their fears, their deepest sorrows, their pains, their past, their disappointments.

In relationships, you see escapism come into play when people move into rebounds after painful breakups. Rather than deal with the situation, they seek solace in someone else. The feeling of being wanted and desired, by someone – anyone – covers up the pain of their breakup. While the person may seem to have escaped having to deal with the pain head on, in reality this wound has never been properly addressed nor healed. It just stays dormant, throbbing silently until the day where it will resurface in a different manner.

In other areas of life, you see people escaping from other things. For example, socially shy people who stay away from public spots. People who stay put in passionless jobs because they are afraid of failure in pursuing what they love or because they are afraid to know there is something far better for them elsewhere. People who avoid challenges because they are afraid of supposed ‘pain’ and ‘suffering’. People who avoid their past because they are reminded of their deepest sorrows. People who avoid their issues because they think they have no strength to face them. There are even some who basically spend their whole lives trying to escape from their issues.

Escapism by Others

I worked with many people to achieve their life goals on an ongoing basis. Some have progressive, forwarding goals. Some desire to overcome their personal issues. No matter what their objectives are, it would eventually come down to having to confront their personal limits.

In the process, it is not uncommon for some to become resistant and start displaying escapist behaviors. The level of resistance depends on the severity of the issues and the level of consciousness of the person. The deeper these issues are, the stronger the resistance;  The lower their consciousness, the more they seek avoidance behaviors. It is then my job to bring them into a heightened level of self-awareness, reconnect them with that inner-self which drove them to engage a life coach in the beginning and enable them to overcome these limits.

However, there are times when their resistance and fears are so strong that their escapist personas kick in big time, to the extent where they become lost in their mental struggles and are unreachable through coaching. Some may start finding different reasons to avoid the sessions; Some start avoiding contact or even request to terminate the coaching prematurely.

When that happens, it goes beyond my means as a coach. Free will is precedent above everything at the end of the day. When they want to avoid being coached, it’s not the coaching they are trying to avoid. It’s not the coach either. It’s themselves. As a coach, I cannot force them to deal with their personal issues if they, as owners of their lives, have given up and decided to avoid them. Accountability is one of the 3 key behaviors needed for a successful coaching relationship and that means being directly accountable for their lives. In these instances, I can only let them go, send them my well wishes and positive energy and keep the communication channel for them in the meantime.

Even in my daily encounters with friends and acquaintances, my attempts at generating conscious conversations are not always met with fervor. Some feel uncomfortable by the discussions and start avoiding the topics. Many prefer to stick to ‘light’, ‘easy’ conversations such as the latest celebrity gossip, TV shows and just casual banter. Having conscious conversations can be quite fearful and confrontational for some, as the conversations directly or indirectly bring up things which they are trying to avoid on a personal level.

My Escapist Behaviors in the Past

When I was a student, there would be times when I wasn’t prepared for tests or exams. Instead of studying, I would be busy playing games, working on my websites (from last time), chatting or immersing in recreational activities. Basically, anything but hitting the books. It didn’t help that I was quite a restless student; I hardly payed attention during classes. Studying was boring and a dread to me.

When that happened, I would sometimes try to avoid school altogether by feigning illness or coming up with some excuses. By sitting for the papers, my lack of preparation would be validated by me not knowing how to do the questions and eventually, my results. I didn’t want that to happen. I wanted to do well; I wanted to be the best I could. It was an all-or-nothing mindset from the perfectionist side of me.

Because having results that were anywhere short of what I envisioned was a symbolism of many different things on many different levels to me. It represented my irresponsibility towards my studies and life. It represented how I lacked the leadership and discipline to get my immediate priorities straight. It represented how I was messing up my life, my future, my dreams and how I was setting myself up for failure. It represented how I was letting myself, my family and people who believed in me down.

In the end, it wasn’t the papers which I was trying to avoid.

It was me. I was trying to avoid myself. I was trying to avoid tainting my own perceived self-image. I was trying to avoid acknowledging that I was messing up in my studies. Excellence was (is) a key value of mine and I didn’t want to acknowledge I was anything less than my idealized self image.

The process of doing the papers, having it marked by a teacher and finally receiving the grade were physical, tangible consequences which would slap the cold, hard truth of my (in)actions in my face. By avoiding taking the papers (and there were times I did succeed in that), I was trying to gain extra breathing space for myself for the exams. I was trying to avoid that one moment of truth.

However, I was just deluding myself. It didn’t matter whether I did the papers or not. The truth was as such – I was irresponsible towards my studies; I lacked discipline; I wasn’t properly managing myself and my life. By trying to avoid the issue altogether, I was letting the issue perpetuate. The same thing would eventually arise again and again in different forms, as I eventually observed later on. It was when I started facing it head on that I was finally embracing my value of Excellence. It was only through accepting, coming clean and taking responsibility of my actions that I could truly move forward and progress.

Dealing With Escapism

Ask yourself this: Is there anything in your life which you feel most confronted by; Anything which you are trying to escape from?

It is important to understand that escapism is a form of defense mechanism. It occurs as a product of you trying to protect yourself from something. Specifically, your ego trying to protect yourself.

Except it really isn’t.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that avoidance does not solve anything. The proverb, Ignorance Is Bliss, is probably one of the single most deluded proverbs of all time. If there is an issue you are facing with, that issue doesn’t disappear by avoiding it. It’s still there; it always will be until you face it. It’s like an ostrich burying its head in the sand – Just because you are turning your head away from everything else and pretending everything is okay, does not mean it is okay.

Sure, it may seem easy to just avoid your issues. It may seem easy to just sleep everything away and wake up to a bright and sunny morning the next day, with everything faded away into a semi-distant memory.

But these don’t solve anything. You may get a temporal sense of relief from not having to face what you are trying to avoid. But who are really lying to? Seriously, who? You don’t get anything solved from hiding, avoiding or escaping. You just end up backing off from them all the way until you are eventually walled into a corner one day and you have no choice but to face them.

Until you acknowledge and muster the courage to deal with what you are trying to escape from, your issues will not miraculously disappear. They will continue to be there, creating looping patterns in your life. You will keep finding yourself getting stuck in similar situations and contexts, thinking the same things, feeling the same emotions, doing the same things – over, and over, and over again – until the day you finally decide to do something about them. Loops require conscious intervention in order to break out of them.

As long as you are trying to avoid something, apart of you is vibrating at a conscious level of shame or guilt. So long as a part of you, however small, is trapped in that level, it makes you unable to wholly progress and evolve as a person. To grow, you need to confront what it is you are trying to avoid.

I’m not saying facing your issues is easy. It’s not. When you are trying to avoid something, it is usually a reflection of deeper inner issues which you have not resolved. These issues are delicate. These issues are very real. It takes true strength and courage to be able to face them head on.

And in the process of working through your issues, you don’t always win. Sometimes you may make some headway, only to be subdued afterward. Sometimes, you get beaten back down almost immediately. This is especially so if it involves dealing with something you have been struggling with since a while back.

But that’s okay. What’s important is you never stop trying. For example, in running Personal Excellence, I witness readers face new blocks every week as they pursue their personal goals. That’s perfectly normal in the pursuit of goals. Sometimes, they may fall short of what the targets they set. They may get discouraged and dismayed. But in the coaching process, they eventually regather themselves and continue to press on and fight back. They stay receptive to external enablers to move forward. And because they keep going at it, they eventually succeed in the end.

As long as you keep going; As long as you keep confronting your issues; As long as you keep fighting, you *will* become stronger and stronger. You will grow bigger than your problems such that they are no longer problems. You will level up. If you need additional ammo, engage a life coach to battle these issues together. I promise you it will simply be a matter of time before you emerge victorious.

When that happens, you will be living a life where you are truly liberated; a life where you are no longer running or hiding from something. A life of courage and bravery. A life of truth, authenticity and honesty to everyone. A life of real integrity to yourself.

Related Posts

• How To Overcome Fear Of Loss And Pursue Your Dreams
• 4 Reasons We Should Overcome Fear
• How To Be The Most Confident Person In The World
• How To Handle Molestation: A Real Encounter

1. Passion or Money?
2. Pursuing Your Passion With No Money
3. How To Discover Your Ideal Career: Your Message and Your Medium
4. Overcome Fear Of Loss And Pursue Your Dreams
5. Passion Paycheck
6. A Guide To Pursue Your Passion With Success: 14 Essential Steps (bonus article in Personal Excellence Book, Volume 2)
7. Top Entrepreneurs Interview Series
8. Million Dollar Tip Series

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“Hi Celes, having been a sleepwalker all my life, I awoke and realized my purpose in life. I know what my purpose is, I know what my goals are. I know what I *should* do.

But I fear to step out. I fear to lose everything I have now, even though it could or could not turn out better.

How do I address this fear?” – Stevens

Dear Stevens, thanks for your question It’s absolutely great that you already have full clarity of your purpose and your goals. This clarity is what’s going to bring you through a long way later on.

However, right now you have something that’s blockading you from your dreams. And that’s fear. While it’s possible there are several aspects of fear involved, such as fear of change, fear of loss, fear of the unknown, what comes through most strongly is the fear of loss.

When there is a fear of loss, it signals a form of attachment to the item that is at risk of being lost. The fear of loss has caused many to freeze into a mode of inaction in their lives today. People have grown attached to the things in their lives they have come to have. Things like their career, their status, their salary, their lifestyle, etc. To pursue something different would possibly mean relinquishing all of these things they have come to know. Because of this fear of loss, some people choose to put their dreams perpetually on hold.

However, this attachment is illogical and comes about as a byproduct of being too entrenched in our physical world.

The reason why it’s illogical is because everything in our lives, except our consciousness, is impermanent. This includes everything in the physical world: from our wealth, our salary, our material possessions, our status, our careers, our property, our physical bodies. We were born into this world as ourselves, with our consciousness. When we die, we will lose everything and bring with us only our consciousness.

[I have written about attachment before in the context of material possessions, which you can read in the article Materialism Breeds Unhappiness.]

The full understanding and realization of this fact can result in quite a powerful shift in our minds. Suddenly, it doesn’t matter what we have in our lives, as much as how we are living it.

Instead of concerning ourselves with what we have, the important question to ask will be – Am I living my life to the fullest? Am I living my purpose, my passion and my dreams? Am I living my life in the best manner possible? Am I living my life in a way which I will stand true to even the day I die?

When I first realized this a few years ago, it resulted in a total paradigm shift. I suddenly realized all these structures I was focusing on creating in terms of career, wealth, possessions, status, etc were meaningless. They formed a nice, candy fort which I could proudly exhibit and keep building upon as I grow older, but for what – some 40, 50 years? That’s about it. After that – when I die, they would just crumble and disintegrate. They were not things I could take with me beyond death.

This was what drove me to pursue a life of higher purpose and meaning. When I decided to quit my job last year in Oct ’08, I wasn’t concerned with the lucrative pay check I was relinquishing. I wasn’t thinking about the attractive career track I was giving up. I wasn’t thinking about all the material goods and wealth I could be accumulating by staying on.

All I was thinking was how I would be wasting my life away if I continued doing something that’s not my passion. All the time and energy I would be wasting on acquiring different worldly possessions which were not going to last forever anyway. When I looked at my life in the broadest spectrum, beyond life and death, it was starkly clear that I needed to be pursuing my passion full-time. Everything else just didn’t matter at all.

The bottom line is this – If you are not living your passion, then you really have nothing to lose.

Ever since then I started pursuing my purpose full-time, life has been incredible. I’m serious. I’m living my best life ever yet, and I just know that everything is going to be even better and better from here on. And I’ve just scrapped the surface of what’s in-store for me. There’s just SO much more just waiting to be uncovered and unveiled that I can’t even begin to imagine.

Think about the day when you are going to die. Would you rather look back at having spent your life holding on to things which you can’t carry with you after death or look back at how you have passionately and fervently lived out your dreams?

Start by releasing your attachment to the things in your life. That’s when you will start making your best decisions for yourself and your life, devoid of ego and fear.

This is part of the Passion & Career series.

1. Passion or Money?
2. Pursuing Your Passion With No Money
3. How To Discover Your Ideal Career: Your Message and Your Medium
4. Overcome Fear Of Loss And Pursue Your Dreams
5. Passion Paycheck
6. A Guide To Pursue Your Passion With Success: 14 Essential Steps (bonus article in Personal Excellence Book, Volume 2)
7. Top Entrepreneurs Interview Series
8. Million Dollar Tip Series

Related Posts

• 4 Reasons We Should Overcome Fear
• Pursuing Your Passion With No Money
• How To Overcome Procrastination – Part 4
• How To Overcome Procrastination – Part 5