Fight or Flight

When we face fear, we are hardwired with two alternatives, fight or flight. In the upcoming issue of PT, Laz Parking’s Dane Neilson takes a slightly different view. He calls it “Forget everything and run” or “Face everything and rise.”

Dane puts it like this:

Facing fear has its challenges. It often pits us against things we’d rather not do. Stand on the roof of a building, speak in front of a room full of people, sit in a room with a house spider dangling from the ceiling, get stuck in a confined space… follow your heart… stand up for what you believe… be a leader during a crisis…

The first definition may help you survive the initial fears you might face: Avoid tall buildings, never speak up in a team meeting, ask someone to crush the spider, never take the elevator… don’t take chances… stay silent… wait for someone else to take the bull by the horns. But running from fears will never set you free.

Dane Calls on Dr. G Nielsen from the University of Reno for some hints on how to face fear and get through it.

STEP 1:

• Do whatever it takes to move out of your identification with fear and move into an expanded state of relaxation and emotional calm. Whatever gets your mind and feelings off the fear, do it.
• Here is a list of possibilities: Take a walk, take a day off, exercise, talk to a friend, take a trip, do something creative, take a moment and breathe, etc. Do whatever works for you.

 STEP 2:

• Focus on gratitude.
• Be grateful for everything you see, hear and touch.
• Be grateful for the big things and the little things.
• Keep focusing on gratitude until you feel powerfully grateful.
• Just thinking you are grateful is not feeling gratitude.
• Start each day by being grateful: Start a gratitude journal and write down what you’re grateful for.

STEP 3:

• Be open to new, creative ideas which offer a creative solution to a difficulty that generates fear.
• It’s hard to say where the creative idea will come from. Just be open. It could be a hunch or an intuitive flash. A friend or stranger could say something that sparks a creative idea.
• You might be watching television, listening to Spotify, or reading a book.
• Who knows where it will come from? Be open. It will come.

Read Dane’s entire article in the September issue of Parking Today.

JVH