I used to be fearful of the dark, or so I thought!
Around the age 13-14, I could be found scuttling from lamppost to tree: my heart would pound, I’d be sweating, my brain conjuring up images of all the nasty things that could happen, oh they were dark, dark, dark times.
I would launch out my skin (bizarre play on words there) at the slightest rustle, movement or scratchy noise. I’d crisscross streets and walked in the middle of roads to avoid open gates! Oh, brr, I’m getting the shivers even now.
How powerful our brains are: I’m having an experience: an emotional and physical response to something that happened years ago, it’s only a memory, it’s not happening this moment, but my brain (dammit) remembers!
We lived at the ‘top’ of the ‘scheme’ (that’s a posh Scottish name for housing estate)…lamp posts were few and far between, and to tell you the truth they weren’t that bright. (Aside: why do we have orange streetlights, is there a reason for that, would white not be better, answers on a postcard please to…)
This fear went on for years, then in one night it ceased. What happened?
Fast forward to 1995, I traipsed across the pond to the States (Boston) to become a dogsbody, sorry camp counsellor for children (I’m joking, it was great, loved it, wouldn’t do it again though, wait, for a million pounds you say…)
Just before the children arrived we ‘Brits’ had to be inducted and part of ‘duct-ing’ was an Adventure/Skills/Beat the Lions, Tigers and Bears 3 day Boot camp affair. It was (apparently) to be a gruelling, tough, wilderness adventure, no contact with the outside world, remote, an emotional and physically taxing experience – mmm, we thought it was at first, until we heard the distant, then nearer, then very close clear crispy chimes from an ice cream van, then we realised we were actually on a rather nice 5* campsite! They thought they had fooled us by taking us in the back entrance.
The ‘Commander’ assigned to our ice cream loving group was non other than a living, breathing, talking, and walking Action Man who thought he was leading up an SAS mission!
The first night on ‘campout’ we had a spot of improvisational theatre, acting out the Blair Witch Wimp Project at his request: just like the father in Hansel in Gretel (minus the sweets to find our way back) he led us into the woods, dumped us, and then told us we had to return one at a time (20 minute intervals apart) back to ‘base camp’.
Now, as this was my first night with a group of strangers there was no way I had disclosed my ‘hidden fears’, we were still at the social/group ‘norming’ stage, you know, niceties, pleasantries and talk of the very small variety!
Here’s what happened…
I walked back to ‘base camp’, in the pitch black, alone. Instant belief change.
I know! Weird eh? How? This is the technique I used, ready? You don’t need a pen…
Before I give it to you: as I set off and took those first steps into pitch blackness my thoughts were all over the place:
‘you’ll get mugged’, ‘no you won’t walk’, ‘someone will steal you’, ‘who’s going to steal you’, ‘you’re ‘gonna cry soon’, ‘just say you can’t do it’, ‘no, don’t do that someone will laugh’, ‘just run’, ‘don’t do that, you’ll fall, noone will find you for days’
that sort of thing.
Have you ever noticed that? The conflicting voices or thoughts that wake up when at the point of breaking through a fear are heightened! It’s a horrible ‘mental space’ to be in. I call it the Uncertain Memento or the Indecisive Minute. Do I? Don’t I? Will I? Won’t I?
Right the technique. Ready?
When you’re thoughts are overwhelming you: when they are conflicting, noisy, full of advice and YOU can’t think straight or decide which thought to go with…stop, breathe and say to yourself ‘shut the f*ck up’!
That’s a technique? Yep! Then…
Manage your own thoughts. How?
Okay, back to the walk in the woods, when you stop the thought (using abovementioned technique) you have created space in your head to really listen, you relax, and (with practice) you can hold onto that calm, peaceful state. You control what you think, always. You’re smart, you’ve more than enough mental capacity to create states that are good for you.
An example: public speaking, that fear is renowned and yet the ‘nervous’ speaker makes it a thousand times worse by saying or even thinking:
- I’m ‘nervous’
- I’m going to dry up
- I’m shaky, sweating
- I can’t speak in front of people
Then on top of those are the other thought streams…
- It’ll be fine
- Ill be okay
- I can do this
Talk about mismatch! By the time they get onto the podium they genuinely are confused, rattled, incoherent, lost and spaced out, then the talk/speech is the same! All their own doing. Their subconscious has no idea how it should be instructing them to behave, too many conflicting messages.
Stop, breathe (breathing is good you know!), deep breathe in, and slow breathe out. Pause your thoughts. Focus on the internal dialogue not the fear itself. There is nothing in life we cannot overcome; there is NO fear bigger than you. None.
Maybe like what I did, you have convinced yourself that YOUR fear (because it’s YOURS and noone else’s) is so very real. It’s not. The only thing that is real is your thoughts and your emotional and physical reaction to those thoughts.
Okay, suppose you have a ‘fear of flying’, what is the truth? Are you frightened of flying or is the truth you are frightened of crashing: the wings falling off, sticking your head between your knees as you make an emergency landing into some shark invested waters? In order to overcome fear, we have to be genuine and honest to ourselves, and acknowledge the truth.
And my last note about fear, lampposts and wilderness walks. Here’s what I DID learn that night…
Up until my GI Jane moment, I was living someone else’s fear: my mums.
Who to this day still says ‘you walked in the DARK, WHAT alone?’ (with verbal emphasis on the capitalisations) and the clanger ‘you don’t know WHAT can happen in the dark’. Her fears, not mine, I’ll put in the therapy bill at some point, my Dad’s had his, only fair.
The truth for me was, I was never actually frightened of the dark, I was fearful of what could happen in the dark. This was based on ‘fake evidence’ I had gathered through my formative years that turned into beliefs: parents telling me to ‘be careful’, media, my peers as we told ‘horror’ stories in the dark.
In order to breakthrough and let go of a fear, you don’t need to know where they came from.
If you’ve collected so called ‘truths’ that are stopping you, start questioning them. Who gave you them? Did they give you them in good faith? Are they true? Are you’re thoughts your own or hand me downs?
You may have needed the hand me down beliefs at one time in life, but not as an independent adult. Time to give them back, return them to their rightful owner!
Have you overcome a huge fear?
How did you do it?
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