FEAR

In this episode, we’re diving deep into FEAR: what it really is, why it feels so intense, and how to stop letting it run your life. Whether you’re launching something new, putting yourself out there, or just trying to live a braver, bolder life… fear is going to show up. That’s not the problem. The problem is when we treat it like a stop sign.

I’ll walk you through 5 truths about fear that will shift how you relate to it (including one that might surprise you). I’m also sharing real stories, from safari animals to summer camp nerves, and giving you two simple practices you can start using right now to move forward, even when fear is along for the ride.

This episode is part mindset shift, part pep talk, part soulful coaching session, and I hope it helps you feel a little braver today.

Want to take this work deeper and see these theories and skills I discuss on the podcast come to life? Book a free coaching consult at:

www.tamarcoaching.com/consult

Transcript

Speaker 00: 0:12

Welcome back, my friends. I hope you guys are doing so well. You know, at the time of recording this right now, we are deep, deep into summer. And guys, let me just tell you, I freaking love summer. If you don't know that about me yet, you do now. It is my favorite season of the year. Summer is so in line with my style and my brand. It's just so full of play and freedom, beach time and lots of the unknowns. And truly, in my opinion, running a business, at least the way I do it and the way I coach my clients to do it, it's a lot like a good summer road trip, which is my favorite, right? It's loose plans, lots of openness, curiosity, and all the joys you can pack into your little, you know, what's that little car called again? The little Volkswagen, right? Volkswagen buggies. You guys remember those? We used to play those games. You're like punch somebody if you see a Volkswagen buggy. So yeah, I'm loving life right now. I'm just enjoying the evening, sunset, beach swims, and just like the playfulness, the openness, the whole thing. I'm loving it for my kids. I'm loving it for me. I'm loving it for the world. I'm loving seeing these adventures and these getaways on people's stories. I'm just loving the whole thing. So I hope you guys are too. So today we're talking about something super, super fun. Fear. Don't you guys love fear? Don't you guys love talking about fear? I do. But this is going to be a kind of longish episode, just warning, because fear is a biggie, especially when we're talking about brave living, which is what we do here. And it deserves a lot of spacious time to really sink our hands into it. But I promise you it'll be well worth sticking around for. So go for a long drive, go for a long run or walk, have a good pile of dishes to be washing, laundry to fold, whatever it is, but plug in and stick around for this whole one because fear comes up for everybody, everything at all times. And it's a topic that we should really be talking about all the time. So As I know, it might sound like the opposite of everything I just said about summer, everything I love about summer, right? The freedom, the play, the fun. But I promise you that your relationship with fear, your understanding of it, and your ability to move with it is a secret sauce behind all the good stuff that we get at the end of the day. So don't be mad at fear. And hang with me here so you really learn all the reasons why. So, yes, I hope you stick around here. So a little story, you know, this morning, I woke up my nine-year-old for his first day of a new summer camp, dog training camp, which is so fun, so cool, right? He's been excited about it forever, you know, but this morning he was filled with all this fear and all this anxiety. What will it be like? What will the other kids be like? I was like, dude, buddy, I'm recording a podcast on this exact topic. So like, I got you, right? I got this. By the way, this nine year old, my little, my youngest, he is a totally down. With all the life coaching and self-help propaganda, I throw down his throat. Yesterday, I was giving his sister some advice. And he turns to her and says, take advantage of this free advice that she's giving. Because Ema's a life coach. Mom's a life coach. I was dying. I was loving it. His sister was like giving the eye roll. But he was like, dude, she's a life coach. And she's giving you advice. And it's free. So take it. I was so happy about that. Made my day. All right, so let me be clear. This is not going to be an episode with a three-step process for eliminating fear forever. Because, I mean, wouldn't that be so nice? But that's just like not a reality. And I'm not here to tell you to not be afraid. I'm here to tell you fear is just part of the game. It's part of the deal when you're building dreams, making brave moves, and becoming more of who you are, which is what we are all doing here. Day in, day out with brave little things, right? We're here to do all those things, build dreams, make big moves, brave moves, small and little, small and big, and becoming more of who we want to be, who we really are. So what we can do is learn how to stop fear from stopping us and find ways to ease the discomfort just enough to blast off into all those things that we want to be doing anyway. And that's what we're going to be doing here together today. So there are five things I want to share with you about fear today. And these are mindset shifts that can support you when you're on the edge of doing something brave. So before we dive in, though, think of one brave move you want to make. Something that feels like it's been in your mind, been in your heart for a really long time, maybe in your business, maybe in your art, your creative life, maybe in your life life, whatever it is, just kind of hold that thing in your mind. Because we're going to walk through all five truths about fear. I want you to have that in mind when we do it. Okay? Makes it more tangible for you. But first, before we get started, let's name the fears. Because part of being human is being afraid of, you know, like absolutely everything. We're afraid of everything. Because the bottom line is that the very first fear, emotion, the very first thing that walks into a room always is going to be fear. No matter where you are, where you're going, what you're doing, fear is like, okay, I got this kind of pushes up to the front. It's like, I'm going to walk in here first. Don't worry. Fear will always be the first one in the room. So we got to talk about it. We want to name a couple of them so we can kind of get our fear, our fear juices going here. So some of the fears, and these are just a few of them that I hear all the time in my coaching is And I also feel all the time personally. These are just a few of them. You're afraid you'll be rejected or criticized or worst of all, ignored. You're afraid there's no market for your dreams. You're afraid if you share your ideas, someone will steal them. That's always a good one. You're afraid you won't be taken seriously. And you're afraid you will be taken too seriously. You're afraid you don't have the right kind of training. You're afraid you have the wrong kind of training. You know how many people are like, I just need to do this one more workshop, this one more training. I need to hire this one more person, and then I can go and do my business. It's like, no, sorry, dude. You're afraid of upsetting your family with what you might reveal. You're afraid you're too young. You're afraid you're too old. You're afraid of being a one-hit wonder. You're afraid of being a no-hit wonder. And listen, bottom line, because I have clients to coach and kids to pick up and dinners to make today, I'm just going to stop there. But believe me, I could go on for another 7,000 hours naming the different fears that we have. Because again, fear, she knows how to enter a room and stay there and stick around and be whispering us sweet nothings in our ear all day long. Okay, so because knowledge is power, wouldn't you all agree with that? Would you agree with that? Once we understand what fear actually is, you get to decide what to do with it. And that's what we're going to do today. So I want to give you five very specific pieces of information about fear, right? And different as well as different kind of mindset shifts. At the end, I'm going to offer you two different, very practical exercises you can do to really help loosen fear's grip on you, right? So that we can really walk into the brave things that we want to be doing here. So the first thing I want to share might be surprising to you. You might be like, okay, that's not what I thought you were going to say. But fear is a freaking blessing. It is a blessing that we have fear. Fear has literally kept us alive for thousands of years. Back in our cave dwelling days, it told us when to stay hidden, when to run from bears, how to prioritize food, water, and sex, you know, the essentials, right? How to survive. It's a natural protective mechanism built inside of our brains, every single human one of us. And when fear shows up, it's just your brain saying, hey, you sure that's safe? Because it's literally its only job. Its only job is to keep you safe, to allow you to survive. Also, something I want you to know is that this is how I look at it. Fear is just part of the human privilege, right? because there's no other species on the planet that can create fear out of thin air. Only we can imagine, plan, and forecast danger that hasn't happened yet. So yes, fear means you're anxious, which sucks, right? It doesn't feel good. It feels the opposite of good. But it also means you're creative and you're a visionary and that you can plan for the future, which is, again, something that no other animal can do, which is a pretty amazing thing. So I really do feel like fear has gotten a bad rip. And the bottom line is that we all, like I would not be here recording this podcast if fear did not exist. My ancestors would not have survived, right? I would have not been born the same as you. And because we have it, right, we also are able to do things like plan and, you know, and really be creative and all those kinds of things. So it's pretty, it's really, I do see it as a deep blessing. Okay, you ready for number two? Fear in the mind lives in the future. Well, real fear lives in the present moment. And I'm going to explain this so it's not so like, what is she talking about? Can you say what? What is she saying? So like I said, right, humans are the only animals who can generate fear without anything actually happening. So let me give you an example of this. As I mentioned this morning, my son was spiraling about camp. You know, what if another kid drinks from his water bottle? And he had that thought. It was actually a really big anxiety for him because last year someone did, and it was like so gross to him. Like there's a kid who apparently picked up his water bottle accidentally, and he had cheese all over his mouth, and he drank from it, and my kid was like beyond himself. And he woke up literally like, what if someone drinks from my water bottle? What am I going to do? You know, da-da-da-da. He was like, what if, you know, I'm too shy because last year he was, and that was really worrying him, right? What if it's not fun? Because last year it was really fun, but maybe now it won't be. Right now he was like, maybe it won't be. Maybe things are going to change. It's going to be really not fun. He was afraid, but nothing, literally nothing was happening. It was all in his mind. It was all the what ifs, what if, what if, what if, what if, right? And he was just like stuck in there. And I know just by saying this, that all of you can connect to this and understand this in your own what if world, right? Like how many, I think, especially as mothers, as parents, right? You worry about your kid if they don't call at a certain time or whatever it is, like we can go into this fear-based mode mentality of like, what if this happened? What if this happened? What if this happened? And that's what was happening to my kid. So although I will share something cool that happened. for him, as he got ready, he actually instinctively, sorry it's a hard word, instinctively started breathing deeply. and moving his body, kind of like moving around as he was like getting himself ready. And he was like regulating his fear, which it was pretty amazing. My husband does Wim Hof breathing every day. We do a lot of like, we have ice baths here. I teach a lot about somatic, you know, movement and things like that. So he definitely has things in his back pocket. And it was cool to see that he was like taking them out like automatically, you know, like, I don't think he was thinking like, okay, I feel afraid I should be doing these things, but he just kind of automatically started doing them. And it totally calmed him down where was amazing. So now contrast to my kid, right? That what I saw on safari in Tanzania was totally different, right? It was a, I was watching, I had, I mean, there's many, many moments here, but one particular moment was I was a gazelle being chased by a cheetah, which was crazy, like crazy, crazy. I will tell you, actually, when I went on safari, I told my safari guide, I do not want to see any babies being killed. I'm a mom and I don't want to see this. But then once I was in there, I was like, show me everything. So we were watching a gazelle being chased by a cheetah. She was running for her life. I mean, I was definitely like, go, go, go. It's only rooting for her. Don't think I was rooting for the cheetah guys. And she just barely escaped. Once the cheetah lost her, she immediately started munching grass like she had forgotten everything. It was no big deal. Now she's on to her five star dining experience. fear over, nothing happened, it completely vanished, right? That's the difference between the humans and the animals, right? That's real fear. The gazelle was experiencing present, real fear that was happening, right? For many of us in the world, you know, in this particular region of the world, in the Middle East, we've been experiencing real fear, not this like, well, what if, what if like missiles coming, rockets being shot, soldier, like, Lots of fear, like the real deal, right? So the difference is that it's not just living in our minds, that it's actually something that's like actually really happening, right? So that's it. Our minds, they keep imagining fear running all day, right? Align the bushes, real fear. Align your imagination. It's still real feelings. You're feeling the fear, but it's your brain playing tricks on you. So how do we stop spinning out an imagined fear? We have to come back to our senses. We have to come back to our present moment because like I mentioned, what happens is when you are imagining fear, when you're what if-ing yourself, you're taking yourself to the future. Well, what if this happens? What if that happens? But if you bring yourself back to the present moment, right, then everything changes. You bring yourself back and the fear dissipates, right? So you want to literally be touching bases with all of your senses. You want to look around. What do you see right here in this moment? What do you hear right here in this moment? What can you feel, smell, or taste? That tiny practice, right? It literally can take you four minutes, three minutes, brings you back to the present moment. And nine times out of 10, your present moment is safe. Right? I usually like to end this particular practice when I'm kind of like, right, if I'm kind of freaking out about something. And I'll just remind my, you know, then at the end of it all, I'll touch base with all my senses. What am I seeing right now, right here? What am I feeling? All those things. And then I'll put my hand on my heart, on my chest, and I'll say, right now, I am safe. Right in this moment, I am safe. Because that is the truth. And that immediately kind of brings me back down, which is amazing. Okay, you guys ready for the next one? Kind of lost count. Are we at number three? I think we're at number three. Okay, let's say we're at number three. Your brain doesn't know the difference between physical and emotional danger. Your survival brain reacts the same way to being injured, feeling embarrassed, posting a vulnerable caption on a reel as it does to tigers and fire. The same exact thing. Why? Right. We mentioned a piece of this because his job is not to help you thrive. It doesn't give a crap about if you thrive or not your brain. His job is to keep you freaking alive. It's just doing what it's built to do. Literally. You know, I love metaphors. You guys know that. Here's a really great metaphor. I think when I give to you that I think will help kind of understand a little bit better. OK, so fear is like it's like an overprotective guard dog. barking at the poor UPS guy. You know, the guy who's just like here to deliver your package and your dog is like flipping out on him. Your nervous system is the dog flipping out. The UPS guy is the public speaking or writing a book or asking for help or posting the post or running your first workshop, whatever it is. It doesn't know the difference between a like real intruder and who's like coming in to like rob you and someone bringing you something like really cool that you like literally ordered and you're like, want this guy to come to you, right? You don't need to kick the dog out or obey it either, right? You just kind of need to say, thanks, bud. Like I hear you. Thank you for barking for me. I know that you're a little scared, but it's just Henry, right? Henry's a good delivery guy name, right? Henry, Bob, one of those. Just Henry delivering those awesome new sandals I ordered. Like it's all good, right? It's like literally what we have to say to our fear because it does not understand the distinction between them. All right, on to the next, I think number four. Fear is just a feeling. Fear, it feels really dangerous. It feels awful. It feels uncomfortable, but it's not dangerous at all. It's literally a vibration in your body. That is all. If you know that it's a feeling, feelings are just vibrations in our bodies. We take them so seriously. We live out our lives. We don't do certain things because of them. We do do other things because of them. But they're literally just a vibration and a feeling like in our bodies. It tightens, it heats, shakes, shallow breathing, all those kinds of things. Most of us will do just about anything to not feel fear. But what if feeling is is the actual key, right? The willingness to feel fear is what creates courage, literally. You can't grow without fear. You can't be brave without fear. They go hand in hand, right? When you are able to do something that you're wanting to do, even though you're feeling such an immense amount of fear, what happens on the other side is courage. You have gained courage. You have showed yourself how courageous you can be. Here's a visual that I love to think about. Most of us think fear is like a wall, right? It feels like it's what's kind of like, what's fear always telling us? Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, right? It's like nonstop, stop. But something we need to go round, right? Or break through. That kind of was what it feels like. There's a wall. It's saying stop. And we need to like go around it or break through it or it just stops us. Like we cannot get through that. But what if fear was more like a wave? I'm a beacher. I'm always gonna use that as a metaphor, right? What if fear is like a wave? And if you're a surfer, like my kids are, the bigger the wave, the better the ride, right? You get a big wave and you're just like riding high, right? So if you're feeling fear, that's a sign that you're about to catch something really good. I personally freaking love that idea, that metaphor, that thought, because anytime fear is feeling like really intense, I'm kind of like able to really relax into it and like, yes. This feels crazy. My body, it feels totally insane. And it also means that I'm like about to like ride a big wave and that is going to be freaking fantastic. So have that image in your mind when you're like going into doing something that feels like fear is like, again, the first one in the room, doing lots of chatting, lots of talking, lots of directing. Just remember, you're about to like get out your surfboard and go for like the wave of your life. And if you don't like the beach, swimming or surfing, well, first of all, I don't know what you're doing on this podcast, but you can use a different metaphor. I give you permission. Okay. The last thing I want to say, guys, the number five is just straight up. I want to tell you something. I want to tell you that fear is the most freaking boring thing about you. And I want to say this with lots of love, but your fears are not what make you special. You are a creative, beautiful unicorn, a wild light in the world, a soul with brilliance, all the other amazing metaphors that are just actually true about you. But your fear, it's not original. It's not even interesting. And it's the same recycled script every one of us hears and says to ourselves every single day. You're not good enough. You'll look dumb. You're too late. You're too much. Don't do it. It's ridiculous. It's not going to work out. That voice has zero depth and it never grows and it never surprises you. It definitely does not surprise me. It's literally sucking all the energy you could be using to discover your magic, be taking brave steps forward. And I will tell you, most of my clients will sit down and share their fears with me in this particular way. We're like, I know that I, I know this is really weird to say, and I know this, and there's so a lot of shame around this and you know, dah, dah, dah, dah. And I'm like, guys, I've heard it all. It's like the least interesting thing about you. It's literally sucking up all your time and energy that you could be using from the actual interesting things about you. And so let's like, let's figure out a way to make peace with this so that we can actually start to discover what's really freaking fantastic and makes you the unicorn that you are, right? It literally, we need to like stop fighting for our lives for these fears and start fighting for our dreams, right? We will be defending these fears. It makes sense. And I'm going to follow this because I've heard this my whole life. We fight for these fears. We need to start fighting for our dreams even more than we're fighting for our fears. Like I promised you, I've got two powerful fear practices that you can use as you're going. And again, I want you to keep in mind, like I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, that particular thing that you're thinking about. right? Whether it's like raising money for a healing center you want to start, or you're a new coach, and you're just starting your practice and starting your business, or you're somebody who is wanting to start writing a book and don't even know how to, what does that mean? I don't know. And can I be a writer? All the things, right? Or maybe it's somebody, one of you out there who wants to plan a solo adventure to Bali for one month. How does that work, right? So, okay, so there's Yeah, these are just two good practices I want to land here that will be powerful tools for you, okay? So number one is to write a letter to fear. I do a lot of letter writing in my coaching practice. I find it to be an incredible tool to do a lot of healing. And I'll just say this. It doesn't also have to be writing it. It could be also a voice message to yourself, whatever it is. But where you are speaking to fear and being very clear, and I like to be like, I like to tell fear what I'm actually, what's happening here, right? So if I'm like, let's say I'm running a new workshop and I'm just the day of, I'm like, there's so many anxious things happening, so much fear coming up for me. I will literally like have a speech written for fear, right? Right. I'll take her for a walk on the beach. It usually happens there. And I'll say like, hey, this is what's happening. This is going down. I'm running a workshop. The funniest time was, by the way, when I was running a workshop on fear, I think, or on bravery or whatever was something, you know. And I was like, you know, it's at 8 p.m. tonight. I have 15 people signed up and I'm going to be speaking about this, this and that. I'm going to be running, you know, this different exercise. Like I'll give all the details, you know. And I'll say, listen, I'm not going to say you can't come. You totally can come. But you're going to be sitting on in the seventh row, right? Like away from the participants, away from me. You're going to be quiet. You can totally like be there and watch and whatever it is. I give like all the specific directions. So they like fear knows it's placed there, right? And then in a letter writing, I will like, you know, really kind of pour my soul out there. I'll say like, I see you. I know you're trying to protect me. Like, thank you for caring for me so much, but I've got this. You can relax. Like, you know, I'm not shutting you out, but I'm not letting you be the one who's running the show right now. And like, thank you very much. And oftentimes I'll have, I'll let fear write me a letter back because And then when you're done with that, you could either burn it, you could read it out loud, you could read it in the mirror, you can, you know, whatever it is. You can make it into a play script, whatever you want to do, but really communicate, right? Because like I said in the beginning also, our relationship with fear will make or break any next steps we make. It's so important. We need a relationship with fear that works for us. Okay, the second one, the second little exercise is, you know, science says, has proven over and over that fear shows up in our bodies, that vibration I was talking about, for 90 seconds. That's it, 90 seconds in our body. Like 90 seconds, what can you do in 90 seconds? Like you can pee and wash your hands and it's so short. So next time fear hits, I want you to consciously stay with it for those 90 seconds. You can say to yourself, it's just 90 seconds. I can be in this for 90 seconds. I can be focused on it for 90 seconds. I want you to even set a timer. Don't run, just breathe and be with it. And before that, I would like you to actually make a master list of different things that you can do for 90 seconds. So for example, 90 second, you know, dance break, 90 seconds of drawing a doodle or a mandala on your piece of paper. 90 seconds of holding a yoga pose, 90 seconds of watering a plant, or shaking your arms, or naming five things that you can see or hear. So I want you to really just have this list available so that when you're feeling fear coming up, you grab one of these, you stay focused, you put on the timer for 90 seconds, you're just there with your fear. You want to ride the wave. Let it move through. then get on with your brave and beautiful freaking life. Because we know, guys, fear isn't your enemy, right? It's not. It feels like it. It could feel like that in our body. But like I said, it's a blessing. When we know how to use it and work with it, it's a total blessing. And it's just a feeling. So the more willing you are here to feel it, the more free you will become. I promise you that, which is the ultimate goal, guys, right? We just want to feel free in our lives. So try one of these practices this week. See what changes. See what comes up. Even specifically do something where you know fear is going to come up just to try out these practices. And let's make sure to come back next week because we will be taking this fear talk one level up and be discussing the fear of success, which is always a funny thing, right? I think like most we're talking all day long usually about the fear of failure, right? But I have surprisingly discovered with all the coaching I do and all the humans I do it on how much this is a big deal, how much the fear of success comes up for people. So and if your fear has really been running the show in your business or your life and you want someone to walk through it with you. I've totally got you. You can book a free consult so we can discuss and you can learn more about, I can learn more about what's going on for you. And I take you through how I coach and how I work. You can book a free consult with me. You can go to www.tamarcoaching.com/ consult, T-A-M-A-R coaching.com slash consult. And you can just go ahead and book yourself a consult. We can get on the phone and we can have that together. So remember, guys, you don't need to be fearless. You just need to stop running from fear. And I promise it will change everything. I love you guys so much. Thank you for being here. And again, we're going to be discussing the fear of success next week. So come back for more. I love you all. Have a beautiful day. Enjoy those summer days out there. Sending lots of love.