Day 18 fear and worry

after reviewing some of my journals, the emotions that seem to be present during many of these writings are fear and worry. why so afraid, whats the purpose of the fear in my self preservation. it appears i have been afraid my entire life, afraid of my father, afraid of failure, afraid of not being good enough, afraid of letting others down. need to find away to break this chain, hoping this program is partly designed to help with that.

 

The SEP program is definitely helpful in overcoming fear and worry.
We learn that most of what we fear never really happens.
We learn to live in the present moment, not in the past or future.

Being afraid of people, of failure, of not being good enough, fearful of letting people down
all relate to a perfectionist and "goodist" personality, so you will need to learn to modify and adjust that.
Don't expect so much of yourself. You're doing a lot better than you give yourself credit for.

Think of the good things you've done for others. How that has helped them.
Even make a list of those things, to remind you. It's like "positive" journaling.

 

Danny,
You have identified a pattern. That is already great work. And you are questioning how the fear is serving you, more great work. My suggestion is to keep going. The answer will come.
How are your TMS symptoms as this unfolds?
Angel

 

Hi Danny,

Something that helps to dissolve my fears even before I have taken any other steps to face it head on, is simply knowing that I actually don't have anything to fear, logically, 99.9% of the time. And that once I emerge on the other side of my fears, I will feel better. This knowing in itself kills most of my fear immediately. The rest, I just take a breath and go for it. Because I know that there's no other way once I identify a fear within me. Sometimes it takes me a bit to work up to face it, and I always wish I had just gotten it over with, because in the end, it wasn't as bad as I built it up to be.

You know what?

You can't be brave if you have no fear.

So be brave!

You can do it

Peace.

 

Hi Danny,

Fear is a big issue for me too and I have a lot of the same ones as you.

What helps me is to pay attention to my thoughts and by doing so, I realize how often I scare myself. Alan Gordon talks about that in his program on tmswiki. Listening to his audio tapes has been so helpful. I think the main idea is to recognize the fear thoughts and then soothe ourselves instead of engaging in them. When it comes to my fear thoughts, I tell myself that I've been down that road a zillion times before and it never ends on a positive note. When I soothe myself though, I usually end up feeling better. But it's something I practise every day, all day.

Best of luck and keep us posted!