Diminishing Fear

[Tanner40]

Good morning! It seems that we all talk a lot about fear. Fear of physical symptoms, fear of anxiety, fear of panic attacks, fear of deadly diseases. Me included. The nature of the beast, so to speak. There is much of the time that I'm not living my life to the fullest extent because I'm allowing my fears to control me.

Someone on here recommended a book to me and I downloaded it onto my tablet. Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway. I've only read the first eighty pages but the revelations (for me) have been astounding, yet simple.

"At the bottom of every one of your fears is simply the fear that you can't handle whatever life may bring you."

"All you have to do to diminish your fears is to develop more trust in your ability to handle whatever comes your way."

I stopped and thought, and as bad have thing have been in the past, there has never been anything that life threw at me that I couldn't handle. I didn't fall to pieces and not recover. I didn't go mad. I didn't die. I may not have liked how I felt and it may have been terribly unpleasant but I did handle it.

So it's not really the fear of the unknown that gets me; it's the fear that I won't be able to handle it and all the ensuing "what if's" that go along with it.

Something really clicks with me and resonates about this. Just wanted to see what others thought?

[NE21 worrier]

Yeah, seconded here. It's a really good book by Susan Jeffers - I even love the title: 'Feel the fear and do it anyway'. Trust in yourself and in others and know that, whatever life throws at you, you can handle it and you will cope.

It's great in advising on how to deal with generalised anxiety in the same way that 'Hope and Help for Your Nerves' by Dr Claire Weekes deals with panic brilliantly IMO. Indeed, those were the two books I bought when I first started to tackle my issues seriously and they have turned out to be adept purchases, always there to be looked at again when any difficulties come up :)

[Tanner40]

Glad to hear that you found it helpful as well. I haven't read any of Claire Weekes' books. Maybe that will be next on my list. Thanks for the suggestion.

[NE21 worrier]

Dr Weekes is a bit old school but it is amazing how much of it is still relevant today. I guess it's because panic/anxiety is an illness which can never really change or develop. It is what it is and it'll always affect its victims in the same way.

At the time she was writing in the 1960s, she broke away massively from the received thinking at the time which considered psychoanalysis was the only way to solve anxiety issues. Now, her advice on acceptance - "utter, utter acceptance", as she terms it - seems to form the cornerstone of the likes of CBT, whether directly or not.

Happy reading! :)