Episode 137 Do you ever think about your comfort zone? You know, the thing that keeps you doing the same things over and over. And helps you stay calm, minimize anxiety, and do the things you need to do. I think of the comfort zone as being like a cocoon that surrounds our bodies. When we get into situations where we are uncomfortable, scared, or unfamiliar we start to experience negative emotions. Sometimes we’re afraid.…
I spent most of my pre-teen and teenage years terrified of people. I was very shy. I stayed at home on Friday and Saturday nights while I was in high school. And don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed my time. I played a lot of video games on my Commodore 64 computer. I learned to play guitar. I read cool books like the Carlos Castaneda series. I enjoyed my life. But I didn’t interact with…
Are you afraid of anything? Many people claim they are not. And I can understand why. It takes a lot of courage and vulnerability to admit we are afraid. For me, it was easy. Once I realized that many of my emotions are fueled by fear, it was obvious. But it isn’t obvious on the surface. Anger, especially, seems like, well, anger. We get mad. Furious. Heated. We turn red and get hot. Silly things…
If you don’t like this question, you aren’t alone. Not many people like talking about, much less admitting, what they are afraid of. But I have found, in my work and over a decade meeting with therapists and coaches, that fear is a HUGE motivator. It turns out that a lot of our behaviors and beliefs are rooted in fears. In the Internal Family Systems model, we talk about ‘parts’ of ourselves that are born…
Fear can be crippling, but it can also be helpful. Fear certainly got us through some tough evolutionary times. “no, don’t pet the big kitty, be afraid of it eating you.” Or something like that. Nowadays though, we’re afraid of everything. Failure. Looking bad. Getting made fun of. Making mistakes. Pretty sure our ancestors didn’t intend for us to live in a fearful state of what people might think about us. I don’t think natural…
We all have fears about a lot of different things. Some are benign and don’t really affect our daily lives. Like a fear of spiders. Yeah, we freak out when we see one but most people don’t worry every time they put their shoes on that a black widow will bite them. Other fears can be absolutely crippling, like the fear of public places rendering some folks to never leave their houses. Fear is also…