Episode 14: Facing Your Fears

In this episode,

Lizzie shares some practical tips for facing your fears, expanding your comfort zone, and reaching a growth zone.

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Post-pod questions to consider

What's something that you're afraid of? Where does it come from and how can you use it as a growth opportunity?

Episode Transcript

Hey. You're listening to The Midnight Philosopher with Lizzie. Thanks for tuning in. Today, I'm going to talk about facing your fears. 

So all emotions are there to tell you something, and fear is no different. Fear is the emotion that lets you know that danger is approaching. For example, way back in the day when people were hunter gatherers and if they saw a bear or a tiger, they would feel fear. And that fear would rev up their system so that they could fight or flee. So that was the purpose of that emotion. 

However, emotions are really only supposed to last for about 30 seconds. So if you find an emotion lasting longer than that, it's usually because you are holding on to it in some way. And you might be holding on to it because it's fulfilling a need for you. 

So when you hold on to the emotion of fear, it's usually because it gives you the illusion of control and keeping you safe. Maybe you had past experiences that triggered something inside of you and the feelings of fear you experienced got stuck. And if you experience fear over and over perpetuating itself, fear actually becomes anxiety. So, anxiety is just perpetuated fear. 

And, for me, I've definitely felt a lot of fear and I've had to face my fears a lot. The, uh, the possibility of failure makes me feel worthless and not chosen. And that basically comes from a core wound of mine from childhood, uh, which is the feeling that I need to succeed in order to be loved. 

Now, my parents didn't intend for me to internalize this message, but, growing up, I felt a lot of pressure to do well academically and get good grades. You see, my parents had both grown up in very different circumstances than I did. Just background wise and economically, just very different than me. And so, for them, education was a way for them to escape those circumstances. 

And so their intense want for me to do well academically, I internalized myself. But I had to face this fear of not doing well academically in my first semester of college. I dealt with a variety of health things and some bad interactions with peers, and I couldn't really focus on my studies. So, I ended up getting a C- in chemistry. And I am so thankful to my professor to this day because she let me do extra credit, so I didn't fail. And that was really kind of her, so I barely scraped by with a passing grade. 

And I had to face a fear of not doing well. But I realized just because I didn't get a good grade, it didn't decrease my inherent worth as a person. And the disappointment I felt within myself was something I realized that I was capable of handling. I realized I could handle hard feelings and get through them. Facing your fears lets you know what you're capable of. 

Another fear I faced was auditioning and getting rejected from an improv team. I really wanted to make a team because I like performing. I like the thrill of it. And when I didn't make a team, I felt a lot of disappointment. And again, a core wound was triggered that I was somehow not good enough. And the truth is, maybe I did need to improve my skills. 

So I took this rejection as a learning lesson. Instead of giving up, I decided to learn more, take more classes, and improve. And I eventually did make another team. I was able to weather my disappointment and use it as motivation for change instead of a defeat. Facing the fear was scary, but I realized it was a chance to grow. 

So there's three zones: there's the comfort zone, the growth zone, and the danger zone. And if you face your fears in a paced way, you get out of your comfort zone and you get into that growth zone. So that's where the motivation can come in, to pump you out of that comfort zone. You need to face your fears in order to grow. And facing your fears doesn't always lead to disappointment as it did in my first two examples. 

I've faced my fears and had a really positive outcome as well. I used to be really scared of using kitchen knives. And I'm talking I was really, really scared of them to the point where I couldn't use them to cook. So, basically, I wasn't cooking at all. And I did this type of exposure therapy with my therapist at the time. 

So, basically, she had me write down a list of steps I could take and do them one at a time. And each time I did a step, I had to rate my fear before doing it, during doing it, and after the step. And it started pretty gradually. So, my first step was just looking at knives to order online. But it gradually got progressively harder until my final steps were using the knives to cut vegetables and my final final step was using the knives to cut meat, and that was my biggest fear. 

So, as I did the exposure therapy, I realized that my fear level was usually really high before the experience, peaked during the experience, and then was significantly diminished after doing the task. So, that helped me realize that the scariest part of something is usually before and during, but I actually felt calmer and proud of myself after the event. 

So sometimes, anticipatory  anxiety or that fear of what will happen is actually what's preventing you from doing the thing. And if you are able to get over that hump of anticipatory anxiety, that's hard to say, then you're able to face your fear and go out of that comfort zone into your growth zone. And the way the way I did exposure therapy with these steps is it prevents you from going into the danger zone. 

So, if you do if you gradually face your fears, you're more likely to grow and succeed. So, basically, in order to face your fears, sometimes realizing that fear is the scariest part itself, you're able to handle the disappointment if it comes, and you are able to weather feelings of discomfort while you're facing your fear. 

Facing your fears ultimately leads to growth. And, the fear of not succeeding, whatever that means to you, usually comes from a core fear of feeling worthless, which comes from your childhood often. If you had experiences growing up where you felt you weren't good enough for whatever reason, you're more likely to avoid experiences that might lead you to feel that way now. 

And avoidance is a natural human response to fear. However, when you avoid things, the fear usually grows. It gets bigger. It looks scarier. You know, imagine fear is this monster. When you're looking at the monster, it's pretty small. But when you start avoiding the monster, it grows and grows and gets bigger and its shadow looks really intimidating. That's fear. When you avoid fear, it gets bigger. 

And, also, when you're when you face your fears, disappointment is hard, but it's something you can work through with positive self talk and self compassion. You can talk yourself through failure and you can be your own cheerleader. Think of someone who cheered you along during your life and just channel that, channel that person. For me, it's some of my friends and my brothers that that they can talk me up, and I've tried to internalize that for myself. Fear itself is scary. But when there's no actual danger, it's often the scariest part of the experience. 

So, to recap what we talked about today, fear helps facing your fears helps you grow, and facing your fears can give you the motivation to get out of your comfort zone into your growth zone. 
And you can face your fears in a paced way, one step at a time. If you face your fears in a paced way, you're more likely to face them. And, often, a feeling with fear is to avoid it, but facing your fear and not avoiding it helps you get over that hurdle. It helps that monster of fear grow smaller. 

So, thanks so much for listening tonight. Please follow me on Instagram at the Midnight Philosopher, and I'm gonna go look at pictures of spiders now. Have a good night.