One of the hardest parts of healing is the fear of the unknown.
A huge reason why a lot of us don’t want to step into our healing journey because it’s like, “well, I don’t know what’s on the other side of it. What’s going to come up when I begin to process these things, what am I going to go through? What is my life going to look like?”
Because of that fear, we have gotten stuck in the comfortable uncomfortable.
What on earth does that mean?
Basically, while you may not like the way your life is right now, you would rather sit in the discomfort because you know what’s going to happen day after day after day. You know how things are going to feel and what’s going to happen.
Even though it’s uncomfortable, you’d rather stay there than branch out and try something new.
With this fear being recognized, how do we manage it? How do we begin to push past it?
The following information I learned from Brendon Burchard. Breaking it down this way really helped my own healing in ways I never even thought possible.
There are 3 types of fear.
Every fear comes back and is rooted into at least one of them.
- Loss Fear/Fear of loss
- Process Pain Fear/Fear of processing pain
- Outcome Fear/Fear of the outcome
Let’s break them down.
Fear of Loss
This is a fear of losing love, a fear of losing work, of losing family. It’s a fear of losing yourself. The fear of loss is literally the fear of losing something. This is especially prevalent when talking to survivors. They’re fearful of losing themselves, financial security, the person that they love, even though this person is hurting them.
Recognizing that this fear of loss plays a really big part of our lives, just having that awareness is going to really help.
Now that we recognize that, how do we fight back? What do we do with this?
Number one, I want you to take a step back and think about the times that you were scared to lose something.
Did you really lose it?
What is that thing that you thought you lost? That friend that you lost? Did you really lose a friend? Or did you “lose” someone that was disrespectful to you and didn’t really care?
When you have a fear of putting up a boundary because you’re scared you’re gonna lose your your partner, your boyfriend, your wife, or girlfriend, whatever?
If you lost them, are you going to lose someone who didn’t respect you in the first place?
Whatever stands out to you or hits a nerve – journal on that. Write down what didn’t sit well with you or made you uncomfortable and begin to brain dump all of your thoughts and see what comes up for you.
Now that you’ve processed through the things you’re worried about losing, I want you to think about what you could gain.
Could there potentially be a gain from this thing you’re scared of?
For example, what could you gain from setting a boundary?
You can gain respect from those who care about you. You could gain freedom and the ability to think for yourself.
No matter how ‘big’ or ‘small’ you’ve decided these things are, process and think through the things you can gain.
What matters is that you are putting in the work and you have the recognition. So if it’s a game for you, write that down, think that through, have that be front of mind.
Then begin to do the work to strengthen yourself. Instead of letting fear hold you back, let it fuel this work. Whatever it is you need to do, do that. Get Worthy of Recovery, my downloadable journal for survivors. Build the boundary muscle, build the confidence skill, push forward and do that thing you’ve been putting off.
Acknowledge how strong you are. You’ve survived some hard things. Recognize how far you’ve come and celebrate the heck out of it.
Finally, engage in learning.
Dig in and focus on that journaling. Pay attention to those things you’re scared of. Learn about yourself and the fears holding you back.
Check out the why test if you’re feeling stuck.
Knowing yourself is the key to moving forward.
What are you going to amplify?
What are going to amplify here if you’re worried about loss over there?
How is this fear in this area going to impact the rest of your life? What is that fear going to hold you back from? What is that fear going to cause other things to escalate?
How is the fear of loss holding you back? What is it keeping you from?
These are really hard hitting heavy questions, but they’re really powerful. So don’t skip over journaling them.
Fear of Process Pain
The next fear is fear of process pain; fear of pain during the process.
You’re worried about hardship, you are scared that you’re going to struggle. If you truly commit to this, you’re scared about the pain that’s gonna take you a really good example of this is my own journey.
I’m working towards becoming a bodybuilder and I want to stand on stage by the time I’m 30. Now I’m already several months into being 28. So I’m running out of time but I still haven’t done the work. Why? It’s gonna be hard. It’s gonna suck.
I know that I want the end goal. But do I want it enough to go through the pain? Do I want it enough to commit to eating the same thing consistently? Do I want to commit to getting up early and doing my Zumba workouts? Will I commit staying up late and doing my strength workouts? Do I want to commit to chugging water all day long until I can get hydrated?
All of those things are uncomfortable. That’s fear of process pain.
There’s also this fear that we’re not capable of meeting the difficulties. Meaning we fear that it might be too difficult and that we’re not capable of it.
We fear the limits of our capabilities, that we can’t do it.
We may say to ourselves things like “I don’t think I can emotionally handle that” or “I don’t know if I can do it.”
All of these things are coming up in the brain. We know that it’s ready and we’re bracing for the things it’s going to release. But what if we don’t want to go through that pain? What if we don’t want to relive and process that trauma? What if we get stuck and we live in that down place forever?
How do we fight back?
As Brendon Burchard says, honor the struggle.
Recognize that things aren’t going to be easy and in fact they’re going to get harder.
When you’re aware of that, you can brace yourself and keep going when it happens. Awareness is key.
Think ahead and anticipate your reactions.
If you know that you’re going to act a certain way when things happen, how can you prepare for it?
If it’s a reaction you want to change, what can you do to work on changing it?
Or what can you do to recover from it? Do you need to schedule an hour long bath or maybe arrange for your therapy appointment to be right after the event? Do what you need to do.
Fear of outcome pain.
This is the fear of what’s going to happen on the other side. After you climb this mountain, what’s gonna be on the other side of it? Is it gonna be pretty, is it gonna be ugly? Is there going be a dragon?
When you have this fear of outcome pain, you lean into that worst case scenario. If you’re anything like me, the worst case scenario is the most illogical worst case scenario possible.
You’re so busy worrying about the bad things that might happen that you don’t even consider all of the great things that can, and probably will, happen.
How do we fight back?
You’re already leaning into the worst case scenario, so go all the way.
Think through what would happen if your absolute worst case scenario actually came true.
What then? Would you go back to the life you’re already living today? Would things not change?
There’s a good chance you’re already living your worst case scenario. So really it can’t get any worse.
Begin to process through like, “what do I need to do to make this happen? I understand that I’m scared. And I’m under I understand that this could be the worst case scenario. So A, what can I do to prevent the worst case scenario? And B, what can I do to get my best case scenario?”
What can you do to fight for those things? Journal on this, make a list, and process these things, don’t skip over this work. This can seriously change your life if you let it.
I’ve got two questions for you.
One, which of these fears resonated with you the most?
Which one really stuck out to you? Because if one did, that’s the one that that you need to focus on first. That’s what you really need to hone in on.
The second question is, what are you going to do about them?
Now that you’ve recognized that this is a fear, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do to push past this fear and go after the life that you deserve?
There’s so much more life out there than you even see. There is more life out there than you’re even allowing yourself to see.
And you deserve to have it, it’s yours.
But you’ve got to put in the work and you’ve got to fight past fear.
Fear is what it is, and it’s always going to be there. But you don’t have to let it win.
If you don’t know where to start with all of this, check out my free five day confidence course. This course is going to walk you through all the skills you need in order to build you r confidence and finally get the life you serve. Why is this important? As you build your confidence, it’s going to get easier and easier to fight those fears.
Click here to grab it!
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