BrenWise Tips for Better Living

Bren O’Rourke, Ph.D. is a certified Life Coach and retired clinical psychologist with 37 years experience in medical settings and private practice. She specializes in trauma recovery, anxiety reduction, couples work, and self-improvement. Recently she translated her work and wisdom into a life coaching business called Dr Bren Coaching. Website: Drbrencoaching.info

Question: Can fear be eliminated? Have you ever felt like fear, worry, or the obsession with control, controls you?

Answer: Let’s go back to the beginning. Fear was apparently non-existent for Adam and Eve until they ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Then, suddenly a different awareness burst forth. They felt ashamed of their natural state and hurried to cover it up. They lied and tried to deceive God. Insecurity took root in their souls. Voila! Intense anxiety mushroomed and morphed over the next four or so thousand years. And now, anxiety is a part of our human nature, – fear of not being as good as we want or “should” be or worry over the unknown. Our heart rates spike when a threatening, abusive, or bullying person enters the scene, or even when we think about that happening. In the COVID19 era, the bully has become an ambiguous virus. We have not reached the point of feeling confident that we are unlikely to suffer because of it.

Fear is a universal emotion. We have all eaten huge chunks of the “apple.” The question is, “What can we do about it?”

Many bestselling authors have tried to advise us. No one has eliminated fear from our planet. We keep inventing more ways to be scared. Fear is actually programmed into the nervous system and works like an instinct, from the time we are infants. Psychologists’ research has confirmed that the threat doesn’t even have to be real. If you perceive that you are in danger, your mind may react the same as if the threat is real and imminent.

For five years, I worked with warfighters who had witnessed horrific events that ended in horrific cruelty and loss, worse than any of them had ever known. They returned home with no idea where to file those experiences and a memory bank that kept them on red alert all the time. Consequently, they couldn’t sleep or relax or enjoy anything. Fortunately, the 17 providers on my team at the Warrior Resilience Center at Fort Bliss were able to treat these wounded men and women with multiple therapeutic experiences designed to release fear and traumatic stress reactions. After 4 weeks of intensive therapy, most of them regained their lives and were able to come to terms with what happened. Not completely, but enough. What I learned from those brave soldiers was that conquering trauma requires investing time in your self and finding acceptance that no one can remove fear or trauma from their lives. The fastest recovery comes when you enlist guides along the way. Trauma changes what you know about life. But it does not have to ruin your life. You learn to manage it. An old Native American story tells of a leader who said that he had a good dog and a bad dog inside him. When asked how he dealt with that, he commented, “I feed the good dog.” Following post traumatic experience, you learn to “feed the good dog and starve the destructive one.”

Tips: Countless patients of mine who dealt with phobias, panic attacks, general anxiety, and PTSD taught me this:

• Accept that fear is part of reality. Build resilience, not more ways to try to avoid the feelings. Strengthen your “bounce-back” muscles. Come to terms with what happened without trying to erase it. The information can help. The better you know yourself, the better armed you are to battle life’s stress. Get help if you want to achieve this more quickly.
• Recognize the signals. Listen to your body. Your stomach, respiratory system, heart rate, and muscles will try to get your attention. The body does not lie. Become an expert at translating what your body is expressing. One way to do that is to place your hand over the part of the body that is reacting and ask, “What are you telling me right now?” And then listen. Thank your body for letting you know what it knows.
  
• Do the opposite of what your instinct tells you. If the natural reaction is to hunker down and hope it blows over or to work harder at ignoring the messages, that won’t help. Instead, signal your brain. vagal nerve responses to let go, open up, and trust God. You can do this by (1) using a deep exhale. Breathe deeper than normal for a couple seconds. In fact inhale all the way up to the back of your shoulder blades, then exhale slowly.(2) Modify the self-talk happening in your head. Instead of criticizing yourself or others, tell yourself, “I can handle this,” “I‘m scared and that makes me tense. Nothing wrong with feeling scared, this is scary,” “I’m going to slow down and think as clearly as I can for two minutes. What are my choices right now?” “Which of these choices will be best? Sometimes the best choice is to just breathe.
  
• Make a decision and do it. The main thing is, don’t shut down. Two minutes of dialing back the stress reaction can do wonders to give you more resilience. Two short minutes of opening your chest and diaphragm by stretching your arms backward instead of pulling inward will flip the stress switch off in your brain. Calm is your friend if you are freaking out, right? One life coach calls deliberately flipping that switch, ” Relaxation Re-engineering.” In calm mode your rational mind has a chance to work for you. When you learn to do that, you have control of your reactions and the fear does not. You won!!
  
• Tell the chatter in your head to stop. The chatter is inevitable because most of us have been programmed since birth to believe negative messages about ourselves. Few parents knowingly thrust that on their children, nevertheless we all absorb several key messages that convinced us the negative messages were true, even though they weren’t. Then that message took root and repeated until we don’t even realize we are criticizing ourselves. A few examples are “No one cares.” “I’m alone.” “I don’t matter” ” I don’t deserve love.” “I’m not good enough.” “I can never get it right.” Recognize any of those? When you do, yell “Stop!” before those kinds of thoughts become a runaway train headed for disaster, you have a chance to correct faulty thinking. Takes repetition.
• Update the data in your emotion bank. You will probably need frequent friendly chats with your younger wounded self. Reassure that part of you and inform her or him that you are a highly functional adult who turned out pretty well. You will find a way to handle whatever happens. If you are a person of faith, you will call upon your source of hope and enlist help. So fight back. Get a reality check. If you do, you will win.

Summary: Think about the truth. God tells us that he did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control. 2 Timothy 1:7. Remind yourself to love what is wonderful and truly good about you. Embrace the fear and change your reaction to it. You can reset your mindset by following the six tips above.

Keywords: fear; anxiety, overthinking; loss of control; self love; negative beliefs about self, power

Bren’s website: Drbrencoaching.info