What is fear and how to get rid of it. Other Methods for Overcoming Fear

Canadian writer Joe Martino offers five ways to get rid of fear.

1. Scared? Move on anyway

The moment you need to act, fear reaches its peak and stops you. But if you overcome yourself and start doing what you have planned, in a matter of minutes there will be nothing left of him. So do not waste time thinking about how to get rid of fear - just take it and do it!

When you take that leap and face your fear, you will do exactly what the fear was trying to stop you from doing. Most likely, on this you will say goodbye to him.

2. Let go of the past

Sometimes we are faced with a situation that makes us remember past pain or failure. We have already gone through something similar, and the result was sad. But who said that this time we will certainly lose? Perhaps then we were not ready for the situation or we were just unlucky. This does not mean that you should give up trying forever.

When our eyes are turned back and we are afraid of repeating the failure, we are controlled by the past. But you are now a different person and are able to correct the course of events. Sometimes it's enough to make a few small changes - and what seemed difficult turns out to be easy. Either way, you will learn something. Let go of the past and don't be afraid to try again.

3. Stop looking for obstacles

“It's too complicated”, “I'm too tired”, “I don't have time”. How many times have these considerations caused you to turn down opportunities and not do something important? We invent obstacles so as not to admit to ourselves that we are simply afraid.

These excuses look convincing both in our eyes and in the eyes of other people. But in fact, the scale of the obstacle depends only on our assessment. We can see it as a barrier, or we can see it as a challenge. Do not exaggerate its scale, do not make an elephant out of a fly and move forward.

4. Try to avoid hasty judgments

Sometimes things don't turn out the way we would like. We get discouraged, we talk about failure, failure, bad luck. We see the future in gloomy colors, we do not know how to get rid of obsessive fears. And after days, weeks or months, it turns out that in the end everything turned out for the better. And it's worth reminding yourself of this.

When we lament that something unpleasant has happened, we do not take into account that the further development of events is still unknown to us, we still do not see the whole picture. In other words, do not judge the result prematurely and scare yourself with negative forecasts.

5. Don't get attached to the result, appreciate the process

Sometimes the fear of failure makes us put off something important until it's too late. Sometimes we are paralyzed by the fear that we will not have enough time to do something. In both cases, we will then worry, repent and regret the lost time and opportunities. Let's remember this and not repeat our mistakes.

Thinking about how to get rid of fear does not always increase our determination, sometimes it is just a convenient excuse for postponing things that scare us.

Better to act than not to act. Victory and defeat are very conditional concepts, they exist only in our head. After all, life is a journey and the process is more important than the result.

Everyone experiences anxiety or fear from time to time. This is normal, but only if fear and anxiety do not follow too often and for any reason. In this case, a person cannot lead a normal life, because negative emotions do not allow him to live in peace. Let's see what needs to be done to get rid of fear and anxiety, and what psychologists say about this.

Anxiety and fear are natural emotions that nature has given to man. In a difficult situation, they help him by mobilizing physical and mental resources, and in a moment of danger they can even save his life.

But in some people, these negative states appear as if for no reason. In fact, there is a reason, it's just hidden deep in the subconscious. For example, people who have experienced severe hardship or severe shocks begin to fear that a similar situation may repeat itself in the future.

Pessimists are also often anxious and afraid. A negative outlook on life makes a person expect a bad outcome of almost any event. And if this really happens, the pessimist is even more established in the correctness of his way of thinking, thereby strengthening his tendency to negative experiences.

Symptoms of anxiety and fear

When a person begins to worry or be afraid of something, he experiences not only negative emotions, but also certain physiological reactions. His muscles tighten, his heart rate and pulse quicken, there is a feeling of chills and lack of air in his chest. Hands begin to tremble, sweating intensifies. At the same time, obsessive thoughts swarm in the head, the imagination draws all sorts of unpleasant pictures, reinforcing the feeling of anxiety.

It is often difficult for a person to determine exactly what emotions he is experiencing. Anxiety is characterized by an unpleasant painful feeling in the chest, in the region of the heart, the expectation of trouble. Fear leads to a state of panic, in which a person turns off rational thinking. He cannot calmly sit down and analyze the situation, he is simply afraid and panicking.

If experiences do not leave a person for a long time, his appetite worsens or completely disappears, sleep becomes superficial and intermittent, he wakes up at night and cannot fall asleep for a long time. Some people, on the contrary, increase their appetite, and they try to "seize" their negative emotions.

The state of chronic stress takes away strength, so a person feels exhausted and tired. All this cannot but affect his life. If you do not get rid of the feeling of fear and anxiety in a timely manner, there is a danger that they will develop into a real mental disorder. Therefore, psychologists advise learning to cope with negative experiences on your own.

Ways to deal with fear and anxiety

Almost every person is able to overcome fears and anxiety, negative emotions and experiences. This is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. You just need to set a goal and follow the advice of psychologists. So, let's look at the most effective recommendations of specialists that can be applied at home.

• Find the reason for your feelings. If you want to get rid of anxiety and worry, be sure to find their cause. Think about the exact situation that scares you. Maybe you're afraid of heights, crowds, talking to strangers, or speaking in front of an audience. Remember when your fear first manifested itself, in what situation it happened.
• Don't hide from your fear, don't deny it. If you honestly acknowledge his presence in your life, it will become easier to deal with him.
• Learn to relax. Anxious states make you be in constant tension, take away energy and strength. Therefore, it is very important to learn how to relax. To do this, you can use any method: a warm bath, a walk in the park, an evening run in the fresh air, yoga or meditation, breathing exercises, listening to pleasant, soothing music. Try to distract yourself from the experiences that torment you and give yourself up to the chosen occupation.
• Discuss your fears with a loved one. There is nothing better than talking about your worries to someone you trust. This may be a close relative or friend to whom you can open your soul. Tell what worries and worries you and listen to the opinion of the interlocutor. Very often, after such a conversation, a person begins to treat his problem more calmly, and feelings lose their sharpness.
• Put your thoughts on paper. If you don't have someone you can trust, don't despair. Keep a diary and write down all your negative experiences. So it will be easier for you to understand yourself and understand what exactly worries you and in what situations fear manifests itself most strongly.
• Laugh and smile more often. Bring more humor into your life. Watch comedies or humorous shows, read jokes, search the Internet for various funny jokes. It's good to do this with friends. So you can laugh a lot, relieve stress and forget about your worries for a while.
• Don't sit idle. When a person is not busy with anything, negative experiences begin to attack him, and gloomy thoughts spin in his head and do not allow him to relax. The best thing to do in a situation like this is to get busy. Do whatever you want: clean the apartment, cook a delicious dinner, pay attention to your husband or wife, play with your child, go to the store.
• Set aside time for fear and anxiety. Most likely, you will not be able to constantly keep your experiences under control. This is not necessary. Set aside 20-30 minutes a day for them. At this time, let your imagination paint the most terrible pictures. Give free rein to your anxiety, give in to it completely. Don't analyze your emotions, just experience them. When the allotted time is over, return to your normal activities. If anxiety begins to overcome you during the day, simply write down the thoughts that disturb you on paper, and in the allotted time you can worry.
• Don't dwell on the past. If you have had unpleasant situations in the past that caused inner fear or anxiety, your thoughts may often return to these events. Don't let them. The past has already passed and it is not at all a fact that the negative scenario will repeat itself again. Relax, calm your nerves and live in the moment.
• Get into visualization. As soon as your imagination begins to draw scary pictures of possible events for you, immediately, by an effort of will, switch it to a positive direction. Brightly and in detail imagine the most successful outcome of the situation that worries you. Visualize until you feel that the anxiety has left you or at least significantly decreased. Psychologists and esotericists claim that regular positive visualization can influence life circumstances, turning them in the desired direction.
• Don't plan ahead. Usually, before an important event, people think over their every step, rehearse actions and words. If you are very anxious, then let your actions be spontaneous. Very often they turn out to be much more effective than planned. Trust the situation and act according to the circumstances.
• Don't feed your fears. If you have a tendency to worry too much, try to read or watch news, crime reports and other information on TV as little as possible, which will only exacerbate existing fears and create fertile ground for the emergence of new ones.
• Change your eating habits. Some foods that you eat tend to exacerbate anxiety. This includes tea, coffee and alcohol. Reduce the amount of these foods in your diet or eliminate them altogether. By the way, an excessive passion for sweets also increases anxiety, because with an increase in blood sugar, a person has an unreasonable feeling of anxiety.
• Communicate with people. If you feel that you are beginning to be overwhelmed by anxiety, do not sit alone. Go to a crowded place - cinema, theater, concert or exhibition. Meet your friends more often. Give preference to live communication, but if this is not possible, do not neglect talking on the phone, Skype, correspondence on the Internet.
• Use affirmations, mantras, mudras. In esoteric literature, you can find many effective means to combat negative experiences. One of the most popular are Sytin's moods. You can use ready-made texts or create your own based on them.

Helping a Psychologist to Deal with Anxiety

If you've tried all of the above methods of dealing with anxiety, but have not achieved anything, don't get discouraged. It is better to seek help from a psychologist or psychotherapist.

Often the roots of increased anxiety lie so deep in the subconscious that a person cannot find them on his own. The task of a psychologist is to help a person understand the causes of fear, remove them from the subconscious and teach him to overcome anxiety.

Some people are embarrassed to seek help from a psychologist. Do not do this. After all, you are not shy about a therapist or dentist, and a psychologist is the same specialist, only in the field of mental, not bodily problems. He will help you deal with your fears and give useful recommendations.

If you can't manage your anxiety, ask your therapist to prescribe anti-anxiety medication for you. You can also use folk remedies. Drink decoctions of medicinal herbs that have a sedative effect. This includes mint, lemon balm, valerian root, motherwort, chamomile.

Overcoming fears and anxiety - a step to victory

If you have anxiety or fear, don't be ashamed of it. Many people are afraid of something, but most of them try to overcome and remove their fears and, as a rule, they manage to win. Try it too.

Remember that negative emotions such as anxiety and fear can be turned into a positive direction by making them work for you. Many famous people have achieved success in life precisely because of their fear, which mobilized them, forcing them to work and go to new heights.

Doctors, scientists, athletes, poets, writers, artists and representatives of many other professions were afraid of being unrecognized, they were afraid of defeat and ridicule from other people, and these experiences helped them overcome difficulties and go towards their goal, making every effort to achieve it.

As you can see, anxiety and fear can be turned from enemies into your allies. Work on yourself, and you will definitely cope with your negative experiences.

Many people want to get rid of fear. They ask themselves and others questions: How to overcome fear? How to deal with fear? How to overcome the feeling of fear? How to get rid of fear forever? If people can get to know fear better, fear will seem to them only an illusion. Let's look fear in the face and see its true identity.

Looking into the World Wide Web, I realized that opinions about fear are divided. Here is what different people write about fear, and how they define it:

• Fear is a very strong fear or fear.
• Fear is an internal state that appeared in anticipation and anticipation of something bad.
• Fear is always slavery, depression and tightness.
• Fear is a consequence of the unfulfillment of the desire hidden behind it.
• Fear is a sign of weakness.
• Fear is a small death that brings oblivion.
• Fear is a sign of weak faith.
• Fear is a means of generating aggression.
• Fear is a disease.
• Fear is a brake that warns of a possible loss in the spiritual and material planes.
• Fear is a very strong feeling, but a person without fear is sick.
• Fear is a lack of trust.
• Fear is poison.
• Fear is an experience in front of the terrible, etc.
• Fear is the unknown.

Perhaps you, too, could add to this list the various opinions that people have about fear.

Reading various information about fear, which is presented by some psychologists, psychics and magicians, you can really get scared. As a result of reading, there is a feeling that it is impossible to cope with fear, it is stronger than us and will always haunt us. But this is only a conclusion based on incorrect or incomplete information.

You can get rid of fear just like you can get rid of any feeling, provided that you don't resist the fear. Because everything we resist persists and presses on us.
Fear is just an emotion that manifests in a person when he feels the threat of loss. This may be the loss of money, reputation, life, beauty, influence, loss of relationships, recognition, things, etc.

Like any emotion, fear can come and go, and it can be reduced or nullified, i.e. let go completely.

Here is what Gail Dvoskin, the man who helped me and many thousands of people overcome fear, writes:
“Fear tries its best to deceive us, intimidating that if we face it and free ourselves from it, the worst will happen. In my experience, nothing is further from the truth. It is the ignored feelings dormant in the subconscious that bear fruit. Any fear in the light of consciousness weakens, and in the depths of the subconscious it gains strength and power.

Gale Dwoskin also offers his own method of releasing fear.

A simple way to get rid of fear.

“Sit back and focus. Think of something that scares you or makes you feel anxious - you can start with something small. Try to determine how strong this fear is, perhaps it is just a vague feeling. The intensity of this feeling doesn't matter - just categorize it and accept it.

Now ask yourself:
Can I let go of wanting this to happen?
Many people laugh at this question. “Yes, okay, stop it, I don’t want this to happen!”

Well, ask the question again and pay attention to your feelings. Basically, if you go back to your rhinestone now, you can probably feel the difference. So, focus on your fear or something else; you have to go through the questions of freedom from fear.

What can happen that will cause you fear?
What do you not want to happen?
Now, can you let go of wanting this to happen?

Once you get over the first shock of somehow wanting negative things to happen, it will be easy to let go of the fear because you don't consciously want it.

Focus on what you are afraid of. This may be the same question or a different one. Be clear about what might happen that causes you fear. If, for example, you are afraid of heights, this may be a fear of falling.
Can you let go of wanting this to happen?

Focus again on your fear or on something you don't want to do, that makes you anxious or nervous. Perhaps public speaking scares you. This may include the fear of making a mistake or looking like a fool in front of a huge audience. Whatever your fear hides: Can you let go of wanting this to happen?

What do you feel? Isn't it easy to break free like this? This technique will help clear the hidden recesses of the subconscious. After you let go of what you subconsciously wanted to accomplish, major changes will occur in all aspects of your life, including your well-being. Try experimenting with this simple method for yourself...

This method is ideal for times when your mind is filled with disturbing, frightening thoughts and there is no time for a long, deep process. Once you catch yourself thinking about a potential negative consequence, release it by asking yourself: Can I let go of wanting this to happen?
For more information about getting rid of everything unwanted, you can get by reading the book by Gale Dwoskin "The Sedona Method".

“Take the first step and you will understand that not everything is so scary”
Senneca Lucius Annaeus

Today we will talk about how to get rid of fear of a very different nature: fear of death, fear of animals or insects, phobia associated with illness, injury, death as a result of an accident, etc.

In this article, I will not only talk about techniques that will help you overcome fear, but also how to properly deal with feelings of fear and how to change your life so that there is less room for anxiety in it.

I myself had to go through many fears, especially during that period of my life when I experienced. I was afraid to die or go crazy. I was afraid that my health would come to a complete disrepair. I was afraid of dogs. I was afraid of so many things.

Since then, some of my fears have completely disappeared. Some fears I learned to control. I have learned to live with other fears. I have done a lot of work on myself. I hope my experience, which I will present in this article, will help you.

Where does fear come from?

Since ancient times, the mechanism of the emergence of fear has performed a protective function. He protected us from danger. Many people are instinctively afraid of snakes, because this quality was inherited from their ancestors. After all, those who were afraid of these animals and, as a result, avoided them, were more likely not to die from a poisonous bite than those who showed fearlessness in relation to crawling creatures. Fear helped those who experienced it survive and pass this quality on to their offspring. After all, only the living can reproduce.

Fear makes people feel an intense desire to flee when faced with something that their brain perceives as danger. Many people are afraid of heights. But they cannot help but guess about it, until they are high for the first time. Their legs will instinctively give way. The brain will give alarm signals. The person will long to leave this place.

But fear helps not only protect yourself from danger during its occurrence. It allows a person to avoid even potential danger wherever possible.

Anyone who is mortally afraid of heights will no longer climb onto the roof, as he will remember what strong unpleasant emotions he experienced when he was there last time. And thus, perhaps save yourself from the risk of death as a result of a fall.

Unfortunately, since the time of our distant ancestors, the environment in which we live has changed a lot. AND fear does not always meet the goals of our survival. And even if he answers, it does not contribute to our happiness and comfort.

People experience many social fears that prevent them from achieving their goals. Often they are afraid of those things that do not pose any threat. Or this threat is negligible.

The chance of dying in a passenger plane crash is about one in 8 million. However, many people are afraid to travel by air. Getting to know another person is not fraught with any threat, but many men or women experience great anxiety when they are around other people.

Many quite ordinary fears can go into an uncontrollable form. The natural concern for the safety of their children can turn into acute paranoia. The fear of losing one's life or hurting oneself sometimes turns into a mania, an obsession with safety. Some people spend a lot of their time in seclusion, trying to protect themselves from the dangers that supposedly lie in wait on the street.

We see that the natural mechanism formed by evolution often interferes with us. Many fears do not protect us, but rather make us vulnerable. So you need to intervene in this process. Next, I will tell you how to do it.

Method 1 - Stop being afraid of fear

The first tips will help you understand fear correctly.

You ask me: “I just want to stop being afraid of mice, spiders, open or closed spaces. Are you suggesting that we just stop being afraid of fear itself?”

What reactions does a person feel fear? As we found out earlier this:

1. Desire to eliminate the object of fear. (If a person is afraid of snakes, will he run away? when he sees them
2. Reluctance to repeat this feeling (A person will avoid snakes wherever possible, not build a dwelling near their lair, etc.)

These two reactions are prompted by our instincts. A person who fears death in a plane crash will instinctively avoid airplanes. But if he suddenly has to fly somewhere, he will try to do everything so as not to feel fear. For example, he will get drunk, drink sedative pills, ask someone to calm him down. He will do this because he is afraid of the feeling of fear.

But in the context of fear management, this behavior often doesn't make any sense. After all, the fight against fear is a fight against instincts. And if we want to defeat the instincts, we should not be guided by their logic, which is indicated in the two paragraphs above.

Of course, during a panic attack, the most logical behavior for us is to run away or try to get rid of a fear attack. But this logic is whispered to us by our instincts, which we must defeat!

It is precisely because during attacks of fear that people behave as their "inside" tells them, they cannot get rid of these fears. They go to the doctor, sign up for hypnosis and say: “I never want to experience this again! Fear is tormenting me! I want to stop being afraid! Get me out of this!" Some methods can help them for a while, but all the same, fear can return to them in one form or another. Because they listened to their instincts, which told them: “Be afraid of fear! You can only be free when you get rid of him!”

It turns out that many people cannot get rid of fear, because they, first of all, seek to get rid of it! Let me explain this paradox now.

Fear is just a program

Imagine that you have invented a robot that cleans the floors of your house, including the balcony. The robot can estimate the height at which it is located by means of the reflection of radio signals. And so that he does not fall off the edge of the balcony, you programmed him in such a way that his brain gives him a signal to stop if he is on the border of the height difference.

You left home and left the robot to clean up. What did you find when you returned? The robot was frozen on the threshold between your room and the kitchen and was unable to cross it due to the slight height difference! The signal in his brain told him to stop!

If the robot had "reason", "consciousness", he would understand that there is no danger at the border of two rooms, since the height is small. And then he could cross it, despite the fact that the brain continues to signal danger! The consciousness of a robot would simply not obey the absurd order of its brain.

A person has a consciousness, which is also not obliged to follow the commands of his "primitive" brain. And the first thing you must do if you want to get rid of fear is stop trusting fear, stop perceiving it as a guide to action, stop being afraid of it. You need to act a little in a paradoxical way, and not in the way your instinct tells you.

After all, fear is just a feeling. Roughly speaking, this is the same program that the robot from our example executes when it approaches the balcony. This is a program that your brain starts at a chemical level (with the help of adrenaline, for example), after it receives information from your senses.

Fear is just a stream of chemical signals that are translated into commands for your body.

But your mind, despite the operation of the program, can itself understand in which cases it encountered a real danger, and in which situations it deals with a failure in the “instinctive program” (approximately the same failure that occurred with the robot when it could not climb over over the threshold).

If you experience fear, it does not mean that there is some danger. You should not always trust all your senses, as they often deceive you. Do not run away from a non-existent danger, do not seek to calm this feeling somehow. Try to just calmly wait until the "siren" ("alarm! save yourself!") in your head is silent. Often this will just be a false alarm.

And it is in this direction that you must move in the first place if you want to get rid of fear. In the direction of allowing your consciousness, and not the “primitive” brain, to make decisions (get on a plane, approach an unfamiliar girl).

After all, there is nothing wrong with this feeling! There is nothing wrong with fear! It's just chemistry! It's an illusion! There is nothing terrible in having this feeling sometimes.

Being afraid is normal. No need to seek to immediately get rid of fear (or from what this fear causes). Because in case you only think about how to get rid of him, you follow his lead, you listen to what he tells you, you obey him, you take it seriously. You think: "I'm afraid to fly on a plane, so I won't fly" or "I'll fly on a plane only when I stop being afraid of flying", "because I believe in fear and I'm afraid of it." And then you keep feeding your fear! You can stop feeding him if only you stop betraying him of great importance.

When you think: “I'm afraid to fly on a plane, but I'll still fly on it. And I will not be afraid of an attack of fear, because, it's just a feeling, chemistry, a game of my instincts. Let him come, because there is nothing terrible in fear! Then you stop giving in to fear.

You will get rid of fear only when you stop wanting to get rid of it and will live with it!

Breaking the vicious circle

I have already spoken about this example from my life more than once and I will repeat it again here. I took the first step towards getting rid of panic attacks, like sudden attacks of fear, only when I stopped obsessing about getting rid of it! I began to think: “Let the attacks come. This fear is just an illusion. I can survive these attacks, there is nothing terrible in them.

And then I stopped being afraid of them, I became ready for them. For four years I followed their lead, thinking: “when will this end, when will the attacks go away, what should I do?” But when I applied tactics against them that were contrary to the logic of my instincts, when I stopped driving away fear, only then did it begin to go away!

Our instincts lure us into a trap. Of course, this thoughtless program of the body is aimed at making us obey it (roughly speaking, the instincts “want” us to obey them), so that we are afraid of the appearance of fear, and not accept it. But that only makes the whole situation worse.

When we start to fear our fears, take them seriously, we only make them stronger. Fear of fear only increases the total amount of fear and even provokes fear itself. I personally saw the truth of this principle when I suffered from panic attacks. The more I was afraid of new attacks of fear, the more often they happened.

With my fear of seizures, I only spurred the fear that occurs during a panic attack. These two fears (fear itself and the fear of fear) are connected by positive feedback and reinforce each other.

The person covered by them falls into a vicious circle. He is afraid of new attacks and thus causes them, and attacks, in turn, cause even greater fear of them! We can get out of this vicious circle if we remove the fear of fear, and not fear itself, as many people want. Since we can influence this type of fear much more than fear in its purest form.

If we talk about fear in its “pure form”, then it often does not have a very large weight in the totality of fear. I want to say that if we are not afraid of him, then it is easier for us to survive these unpleasant sensations. Fear ceases to be "terrible".

Don't worry if you don't quite understand these conclusions, or if you don't really understand how to achieve this attitude towards your fear. Such an understanding will not come immediately. But you will be able to understand this better when you read my following tips and apply the recommendations from them.

Method 2 - Think long term

I gave this advice in my last article. Here I will dwell on this point in more detail.

Perhaps this advice will not help to cope with every fear, but with some anxieties it will help to cope. The fact is that when we are afraid, we tend to think about the very moment of realization of our fear, and not about what may await us in the future.

Suppose you are afraid of losing your job. It provides you with comfortable working conditions, and the salary at this place allows you to buy the things that you want to have. At the thought that you will lose it, fear seizes you. You immediately imagine how you will have to look for another job that may pay worse than the one you lost. You will no longer be able to spend as much money as you used to spend, and this causes you anxiety.

But instead of imagining how bad it will be for you when you lose your job, think about what will happen next. Mentally cross the line that you are afraid to cross. Let's say you lose your job. Ask yourself what will be in the future? Imagine your future over an extended period of time with all the nuances.

You will start looking for a new job. It is not at all necessary that you will not find a job with the same salary. There is a chance that you will find even a higher paying place. You cannot know for sure how much you are willing to offer a specialist of your level in other companies until you go to interviews.

Even if you have to work for less money, so what? You may not be able to frequent expensive restaurants for a while. You will buy cheaper food than you used to buy, prefer to rest in your country house or at a friend's cottage instead of abroad. I understand that now it seems scary to you, because you are used to living differently. But a person always gets used to everything. The time will come and you will get used to it, just as you are used to many things in your life. But, it is quite possible that this situation will not last your whole life, you can achieve a promotion in a new job!

When a child's toy is taken away from him, he stamps his foot and cries because he cannot realize that in the future (maybe in a couple of days) he will get used to the absence of this toy and he will have other, more interesting things. Because the child becomes a hostage to his momentary emotions and cannot think in the future!

Don't become this child. Think constructively about the objects of your fear.

If you are afraid that your husband will betray you and leave you for another woman, think about it? Millions of couples break up and no one dies from it. You will suffer for a while, but then you will begin to live a new life. After all, all human emotions are temporary! Don't be afraid of these emotions. They will come and go.

Imagine a real picture in your head: how you will live, how you will get out of suffering, how you will make new interesting acquaintances, how you will have a chance to correct the mistakes of the past! Think about prospects, not about failures! About new happiness, not suffering!

Method 3 - Be Prepared

When I'm nervous on a plane that's coming in, it doesn't help me much to think about the statistics of plane crashes. So what if accidents happen rarely? So what of the fact that getting to the airport by car is statistically more life-threatening than flying by plane? These thoughts do not save me in those moments when the plane starts to shake or it continues to circle over the airport. Any person who experiences this fear will understand me.

In such situations, fear makes us think: “what if I am now on exactly one of the eight million flights that should turn into a disaster?” And no statistics can help. After all, improbable does not mean impossible! In this life, everything is possible, so you need to be prepared for everything.
Trying to reassure yourself, like “everything will be fine, nothing will happen” usually does not help. Because such exhortations are lies. And the truth is that it will happen, anything can happen! And you need to accept it.

“Not a very optimistic conclusion for an article about getting rid of fear” - You might think.

In fact, everything is not so bad, willingness helps to overcome fear. And do you know what train of thought helps me out on such intense flights? I think, “Airplanes really rarely crash. It is very unlikely that something bad will happen right now. But, nevertheless, it is possible. At worst, I'll die. But I still have to die at some point. Death is inevitable in any case. It ends every human life. The catastrophe will simply bring closer what will happen someday with 100% probability anyway.

As you can see, being prepared does not mean looking at things with a doomed look, thinking: "I will die soon." This means simply realistically assessing the situation: “it is not a fact that a catastrophe will happen. But if that happens, then so be it.”

Of course, this does not eliminate the fear completely. I'm still afraid of death, but it helps to be prepared. What is the point of worrying all your life because of what will definitely happen? It is better to be at least a little prepared and not to think about your death as something that will never happen to us.
I understand that this advice is very difficult to put into practice. And, moreover, not everyone always wants to think about death.

But people who are tormented by the most absurd fears often write to me. Someone, for example, is afraid to go outside, because they believe that it is dangerous there, while at home it is much safer. It will be difficult for this person to cope with his fear if he waits for this fear to pass so that he can go outside. But it can become easier for him if he thinks: “Let there be danger on the street. But you can't stay at home all the time! You can not completely protect yourself, even being within four walls. Or I will go outside and put myself in danger of dying and getting hurt (this danger is negligible). Or I will stay at home until the day I die! Death that will happen anyway. If I die now, then I will die. But it probably won't happen any time soon."

If people stop dwelling so much on their fears, and can at least sometimes look them in the face, realizing that behind them there is nothing but emptiness, then fears will cease to have so much power over us. We shouldn't be so afraid of losing what we will lose anyway.

Fear and emptiness

The attentive reader will ask me: “But if you take this logic to the limit, it turns out that if there is no point in being afraid of losing those things that we will lose anyway, then there is no point in being afraid of anything at all! After all, nothing lasts forever!

Exactly so, even though it contradicts ordinary logic. At the end of every fear lies an emptiness. We have nothing to fear, because all things are temporary.

This thesis can be very difficult to understand intuitively.

But I'm not trying too hard for you to understand it on a theoretical level, but to use it in practice. How? I'll explain now.

I myself use this principle regularly. I am still afraid of many things. But, remembering this principle, I understand that my every fear is meaningless. I don't have to "feed" him and get carried away with him a lot. When I think about it, I find in myself the strength not to submit to fear.

Many people, when they are very afraid of something, subconsciously believe that they "should be afraid", that there are really scary things. They think that in relation to these things, no other reaction is possible than fear. But if you know that in principle there is nothing to fear in this life, since everything will happen someday, if you realize the meaninglessness, “emptiness” of fear, if you understand that there are no truly terrible things, but there is only a subjective reaction to these things, it will be easier to deal with fear. I will return to this point at the end of the article.

Method 4 - Observe

The following few methods will help you deal with fear as it arises.

Instead of succumbing to fear, try to just watch it from the side. Try to localize this fear in your thoughts, feel it as some kind of energy that is formed in certain parts of the body. Mentally direct your breath to these areas. Try to make your breathing slow and calm.

Don't get caught up in your fear with your thoughts. Just watch it form. Sometimes it helps to remove fear altogether. Even if the fear doesn't go away, it's okay. Becoming a dispassionate observer, you begin to realize your fear as something external to your "I", as something that no longer has such power over this "I".

When you are watching, fear is much easier to control. After all, the feeling of fear is formed like a snowball. At first, you are just scared, then all sorts of thoughts start to creep into your head: “what if trouble happens”, “what kind of strange sound did this make when the plane landed?”, “what if some kind of trouble happens to my health?”

And these thoughts feed the fear, it becomes even stronger and causes even more disturbing thoughts. We find ourselves again inside a vicious circle!

But by observing the feelings, we try to get rid of any thoughts and interpretations. We do not feed our fear with our thoughts, and then it becomes weaker. Don't let your own mind reinforce the fear. To do this, simply turn off reflections, evaluations and interpretations and go into observation mode. Don't think about the past or the future stay in the present moment with your fear!

Method 5 - Breathe

During attacks of fear, try to breathe deeply, taking longer breaths and exhalations. Diaphragmatic breathing is good for calming the nervous system and, according to scientific studies, stops the fight-or-flight response, which is directly related to feelings of fear.

Diaphragmatic breathing means you breathe from your belly instead of your chest. Focus on how you breathe. Count the time of inhalation and exhalation. Try to keep this time equal for inhalation and exhalation and long enough. (4 - 10 seconds.) Just do not need to choke. Breathing should be comfortable.

Method 6 - Relax your body

When fear attacks you, try to relax. Gently move your attention over every muscle in your body and relax it. You can combine this technique with breathing. Mentally direct your breath to different parts of your body, in order, starting from the head, ending with the feet.

Method 7 - Remind yourself of how your fear didn't come true

This method helps to cope with small and recurring fears. For example, you are constantly afraid that you could offend a person or make a bad impression on him. But, as a rule, it turns out that your fear never came true. It turned out that you did not offend anyone, and it was just your own mind that scared you.

If this is repeated from time to time, then when you again become afraid that you said something wrong when communicating, remember how often your fear was not realized. And most likely, you will understand there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of.

But be prepared for anything! Even if there is a possibility that someone is offended by you, then it's not a big deal! Make peace! Don't give too much importance to what has already happened. Most of your own mistakes can be corrected.

Method 8 - Treat fear as a thrill

Remember, I wrote that fear is just a feeling? If you are afraid of something, it does not mean that there is some kind of danger. This feeling is sometimes not related to reality, but is just a spontaneous chemical reaction in your head. Instead of being afraid of this reaction, treat it like a thrill, like a free ride. You don't have to pay money and put yourself in danger by skydiving to get an adrenaline rush. This adrenaline you have appears out of the blue. Beauty!

Method 9 - Embrace Your Fear, Don't Resist

Above, I talked about techniques that will help you quickly deal with your fear at the time of its occurrence. But you don't need to get attached to these techniques. When people hear about ways to control fear or fear, they sometimes fall into the trap of believing in self-control. They start thinking, “Wow! It turns out fear can be controlled! And now I know how to do it! Then I will definitely get rid of him!”

They begin to rely heavily on these techniques. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. And when people fail to manage their fear using these methods, they start to panic: “I can’t control this! Why? Yesterday it worked, but today it doesn't! What should I do? I need to deal with this urgently! I have to manage it!"

They begin to worry and thereby only increase their fear. But the truth is that far not always everything can be controlled. Sometimes these techniques will work, sometimes they won't. Of course, try to breathe, observe the fear, but if it does not pass, there is nothing terrible about it. No need to panic, no need to look for a new way out of the situation, leave everything as it is, accept your fear. You don't "should" get rid of it right now. The word "should" does not apply here at all. Because you are feeling the way you are right now. What happens, happens. Accept it and stop resisting.

Method 10 - Don't get attached to things

The following methods will allow you to remove fears from your life.

As the Buddha said: “the basis of human suffering (dissatisfaction, the inability to come to final satisfaction) is attachment (desire).” Attachment, in my opinion, is understood more as dependence than love.

If we are strongly attached to something, for example, we strongly need to produce an effect on the opposite sex, to achieve permanent victories on the love front, then this will lead us into a state of eternal dissatisfaction, and not happiness and pleasure, as it seems to us. . Sexual feeling, conceit cannot be fully satiated. After each new victory, these feelings will demand more and more. New successes on the love front will bring you less and less pleasure over time (“inflation of pleasure”), while failures will make us suffer. We will live in constant fear that we will lose our charm and attractiveness (and sooner or later this will happen anyway with the advent of old age) and again we will suffer. At a time when there will be no love adventures, we will not feel the joy of life.

Perhaps it will be easier for some people to understand attachment using the example of money. As long as we strive for money, it seems to us that by earning some amount of money, we will achieve happiness. But when we achieve this goal, happiness does not come and we want more! Complete satisfaction is unattainable! We're chasing carrots on a stick.

But it would be much easier for you if you were not so attached to it and rejoiced at what we have (it is not necessary to stop striving for the best). This is what the Buddha meant when he said that the cause of dissatisfaction is attachment. But attachments not only give rise to dissatisfaction and suffering, they form fear.

After all, we are afraid to lose exactly what we are so strongly attached to!

I am not saying that you need to go to the mountains, give up your personal life and destroy all attachments. Total disengagement is an extreme teaching, suitable for extreme situations. But, despite this, modern man can derive some benefit from this principle for himself without going to extremes.

To experience less fear, you do not need to get hung up on some things and put them at the basis of your existence. If you think: “I live for work”, “I only live for my children”, then you may have a strong fear of losing these things. After all, your whole life comes down to them.

That's why try to diversify your life as much as possible, let in a lot of new things, enjoy many things, and not just one thing. Be happy because you breathe and live, and not just because you have a lot of money and you are attractive to the opposite sex. Although, as I said above, the last things will not bring you happiness.

(In this sense, attachments are not only the cause of suffering, but its effect! People who are deeply unhappy inside begin desperately clinging to external things in search of satisfaction: sex, entertainment, alcohol, new experiences. But happy people tend to be more They are self-sufficient. The basis of their happiness is life itself, not things. Therefore, they are not so afraid of losing them.)

Attachment does not mean lack of love. As I wrote above, this is more understood as an addiction than love. For example, I have very high hopes for this site. I love developing it. If something bad happens to him, it will be a blow to me, but not the end of my life! After all, I have many other interesting things to do in my life. But my happiness is formed not only by them, but by the very fact that I live.

Method 11 - Nurture your ego

Remember, you are not alone in this world. The whole existence is not limited to your fears and problems. Stop focusing on yourself. There are other people in the world with their own fears and worries.

Understand that there is an immense world around you with its laws. Everything in nature is subject to birth, death, decay, disease. Everything in this world, of course. And you yourself are part of this universal order, and not the center of it!

If you feel yourself in harmony with this world, not opposing yourself to it, realize your existence as an integral part of the natural order, you will understand that you are not alone, that you, together with all living beings, are moving in the same direction. And so it has always been, forever and ever.

With this consciousness your fears will disappear. How to achieve such consciousness? It must have come along with the development of personality. One way to achieve this state is to practice meditation.

Method 12 - Meditate

In this article, I talked about the fact that you can’t identify yourself with your fear, that it’s just a feeling, that you need to be ready for anything, that you can’t put your own ego at the center of all existence.

This is easy to understand on a theoretical level, but not always easy to apply in practice. It is not enough just to read about it, it needs to be practiced, day by day, applying in real life. Not all things in this world are available for "intellectual" knowledge.

That attitude to fears, which I spoke about at the beginning, needs to be brought up in oneself. The way to come to these conclusions in practice, to realize that fear is just an illusion, is meditation.

Meditation gives you the opportunity to "reprogram" yourself to be happier and freer. Nature is a wonderful "constructor", but her creations are not perfect, biological mechanisms (the mechanism of fear), which worked in the Stone Age, do not always work in the modern world.

Meditation will allow you to partially correct the imperfection of nature, change your standard emotional reactions to many things, move away from fear to calmness, come to a clearer understanding of the illusory nature of fear, understand that fear is not part of your personality and free yourself from it!

With practice, you can find the source of happiness in yourself and not become strongly attached to different things. You will learn to accept your emotions and fears rather than resist them. Meditation will teach you to observe your fear from the outside, without getting involved in it.

Meditation will not only help you come to some important understanding of yourself and life. The practice has been scientifically proven to calm the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for feelings of stress. It will make you calmer and less stressed. It will teach you to relax deeply and get rid of fatigue and tension. And this is very important for people who are afraid.

You can listen to my short lecture about that, at the link.

Method 13 - Don't let fear be imposed on you

Many of us are used to the fact that everyone around them only talks about how terrible it is to live, what terrible diseases exist, gasp and groan. And this perception is transferred to us. We begin to think that there are really scary things that we "should" be afraid of, since everyone is afraid of them!

Fear, surprisingly, may be the result of stereotypes. It is natural to fear death, and almost all people are afraid of it. But when we see the constant lamentations of other people about the death of loved ones, when we observe how our elderly friend cannot come to terms with the death of her son, who died 30 years ago, then we begin to think that this is not just scary, but terrible! That there is no chance to perceive it any other way.

In fact, these things become so terrible only in our perception. And there is always the possibility of treating them differently. When Einstein died, he accepted death quite calmly, he treated it as an unchanging order of things. If you ask any spiritually developed person, maybe a religious ascetic, a staunch Christian or a Buddhist, how he feels about death, he will certainly be calm about this. And this is not necessarily connected only with the fact that the first believes in an immortal soul, an afterlife existence, and the second, although he does not believe in the soul, believes in reincarnation. This is due to the fact that they are spiritually developed and have tamed their ego. No, I'm not saying that you need to seek salvation in religion, I'm trying to prove that a different attitude to those things that we consider terrible is possible, and it can be achieved along with spiritual development!

Do not listen to those who say how scary everything is, These people are wrong. In fact, there are almost no things in this world that are worth fearing. Or not at all.

And watch less TV.

Method 14 - Do not avoid situations in which fear arises (!!!)

I highlighted this point with three exclamation marks because it is one of the most important tips in this article. I briefly touched on this issue in the first paragraphs, but here I will dwell on it in more detail.

I have already said that the instinctive tactics of behavior during fear (running away, being afraid, avoiding some situations) are the wrong tactics in the context of the task of getting rid of fear. If you are afraid to leave the house, then you will never cope with this fear if you stay at home.

But what to do? Get outside! Forget about your fear! Let him appear, don't be afraid of him, let him in and don't resist. Don't take it seriously though, it's just a feeling. You can get rid of your fear only when you start to ignore the very fact of its occurrence and live as if there is no fear!

• To overcome the fear of flying on airplanes, you need to fly on airplanes as often as possible.
• To overcome the fear of the need for self-defense, you need to enroll in the section of martial arts.
• To overcome the fear of meeting girls, you need to meet girls!

You must do what you are afraid to do! There is no easy way. Forget about the "must" as soon as possible to get rid of fear. Just act.

Method 15 - Strengthen the Nervous System

The extent to which you are prone to fear depends very much on the state of your health in general and on the health of your nervous system in particular. Therefore, improve your work, learn to cope with stress, do yoga, quit. I covered these points in my other articles, so I will not write about it here. Strengthening your body is a very important thing in the fight against depression, fears and bad mood. Please do not neglect this and do not limit yourself to "emotional work" alone. In a healthy body healthy mind.

Conclusion

This article does not call for immersing yourself in the world of sweet dreams and hiding from fear. In this article, I tried to tell you how important it is to learn to face your fears, accept them, live with them, and not hide from them.

Let this path not be the easiest, but it is the right one. All your fears will disappear only when you stop being afraid of the very feeling of fear. When you're done trust him. When you won't let him tell you how to get to the place of rest, how often to go out, what kind of people you communicate with. When you start living as if there is no fear.

Only then will he leave. Or won't leave. But this will no longer be of great importance to you, since fear will become only a small obstacle for you. Why give importance to the little things?

Everyone is equal before fear

There are two types of fears: natural and phobias. The first type, under certain circumstances, is inherent in all normal people, the second is a pathology that is a disease and requires special treatment. If you do not promptly ask yourself how to get rid of fears-phobias, then this will cause a person to be inadequate and will restrain him in certain decisions and actions.

Fear is a certain mechanism for controlling a person, capable of making puppets out of people. If a natural fear, which is caused by some real threat, makes a person analyze the circumstances, become more alert, thereby protecting himself from potential danger, then in the case of phobias, everything happens the other way around! Pathological fear begins to fetter our consciousness, depriving us of the ability to rationally reason and analyze the situation - we turn into a puppet, a phobia begins to control us. Over time, this condition begins to arise systematically, and then constantly ... People have to look for ways to get rid of fears. Otherwise, a person first becomes depressive (a passive form of phobia), and then mentally unhealthy, and this is the right way to the “yellow house”.

An attack of fear can be similar to a disease. For example, frightened, a person begins to feel dizzy, and his breathing becomes difficult, the heartbeat noticeably quickens, trembling begins throughout the body. In addition, the frightened person may sweat profusely, experience an attack of nausea and discomfort in the stomach. In this state, a person is unable to understand how to get rid of fear and anxiety, most likely, he will lose his sense of reality, thinking that all this horror is happening to someone else, but not to him! The worst thing that such a person can have is a phobia that inspires him with an overwhelming fear of death. This can drive him crazy, thereby provoking him to commit any actions that are dangerous both for himself and for those around him.

All this is fantasy...

Remember, any phobia is a figment of your imagination, its game! There are no mermaids in the river who can grab your leg and drag you into the water; the walls of your apartment are not going to close and crush you at all, and in the bedroom under the bed there are no evil and furry creatures constantly watching you ... In general, do not pull the cat by the tail, but consult a doctor who will explain to you how to get rid of fears created by your wild imagination. We will only give a few tips for solving this problem.

So, here are some tips on how to get rid of the fears caused by our imagination:

• never think about your phobia, switch to other thoughts, preferably of a political nature;
• imagine how some of your idol would behave in this situation (for example, Jensen Ackles, or, at worst, Dmitry Nagiev), then imagine yourself as him, feeling your success and confidence to the fullest;
• draw your phobia on a piece of paper, depicting it not as terrible, but as humorous;
• push away your far-fetched fear by thinking of it as something useless and unnecessary.

If you still do not find a solution to the problem of "how to lose fear" - contact a psychotherapist. The doctor will do everything possible to return you to society, restoring harmony in life.