How to overcome your fear. The role of cognitive distortions in the development of fear

Probably each of us has experienced a feeling of fear at least once in our lives. This may be a fleeting fear, imprinted in childhood memory, or it may be an obsessive panic fear of the dark or air travel that haunts us throughout life. How to overcome such fears in yourself?

In a dark, dark room

Not everyone retains their fear of the dark in childhood. But adults most often hide it not only from others, but also from themselves. And, surprisingly, almost everyone has a fear of the dark, however, of course, this fear becomes so-called nyctophobia, acquiring an obsessive character, not for everyone.

There are many ways to combat such fears:

1. It’s a good idea to leave the lights or TV on all night.

2. You can listen to an audiobook.

3. It’s not a bad idea (especially if you live alone) to have a pet - you will be much calmer with a cat or dog next to you.

4. It is better to change work that involves moving at night (in a park, square, dark streets) to daytime work.

5. You can acquire an interesting hobby, start going on hikes, travel, play sports and generally expand your social circle.

6. You need to go for walks more often fresh air(starting a kind of “functional training” with walks at dusk).

7. To gain confidence in yourself and your safety, you can arm yourself with self-defense means - pepper or gas spray, stun gun, etc. And in general, a late trip home will be much easier if a person is sure that one of his relatives, friends or relatives will meet him at the bus stop.

8. If no one can meet you, then it is best, when you find yourself face to face with your frightening fantasies, to start talking to yourself. It's not bad to tell yourself funny stories and jokes. Better yet, start singing cheerful, cheerful, life-affirming songs.

10. You need to fill your day as much as possible with positive deeds and thoughts.

11. You should go to bed early, avoiding watching negative news stories and horror films before bed.

12. It’s a good idea to analyze what range of feelings you experience when you’re afraid of the dark. And then you need to imagine, think through, and fantasize a happy ending. So, if you remember how you were left to fall asleep alone and how terribly you were afraid of the dark and loneliness, then you need to “remember” that your mother came into the room and turned on the light. Or, if someone really attacked you in the dark, you need to “build” a situation in which you were able to fight back the bully, knocking him down or even twisting him and calling the police.

13. People with good developed imagination It is recommended to face your fears head on. Why do they need to walk through the dark corners of the room, look at everything and understand that nothing really threatens them. There is another option - every night, little by little, gradually reduce the amount of light in the room.

14. It is necessary to follow a daily routine.

15. And you still need to go to proper nutrition: eat less fatty, fried foods, do not drink carbonated drinks before bed.

Takeoff cleared

Alas, a person is neither biologically nor psychologically created to move through the air, which is why his body and psyche can give quite severe (and not only emotional) reactions to the unnatural conditions that arise during air travel.

The fear of flying an airplane arises not only from awareness own dependence from someone else, but also from a feeling of one’s own helplessness in the event of the possible occurrence of catastrophic circumstances, albeit very rare according to statistics. But this especially infuriates and frightens those who are accustomed to always, everywhere and in everything, taking their fate only into their own hands (and this is primarily successful people). And if they are also distinguished by a hypertrophied manifestation of the instinct of self-preservation, then such features of their character often give rise to the fact that modern psychologists called the “Icarus complex” (the son of Daedalus, who built the Cretan labyrinth for the monster Minotaur). Surely you remember the ancient Greek legend in which Icarus, having built wings for himself, tried to be the first to get off the ground. But his wings were attached to his hands with wax, and when Icarus began to approach the sun, the wax melted, and this hero himself, “being wrecked,” fell to the ground.

Those who find themselves on an airplane, but begin to experience fear and even panic during the flight, are susceptible to just the so-called. complex of Icarus, and those who experience obsessive, insurmountable fear even at the mere sight of a winged car and who cannot be dragged onto a plane for any amount of gingerbread are already “aviaphobics” (like the same Adriano Celentano, who categorically refuses to use air services).

Aviation phobia affects up to 20% of people. The rest are just experiencing quite natural experiences for the safety of your life during takeoff, flight and landing. And approximately one in four air passengers are in a state of anxiety, tension and anxiety.

Have a fearless flight!

If fear takes hold of you during a flight (and more often it happens at the very beginning), then:

First, unbutton the collar of your shirt or blouse, loosen or remove your tie, and you can also remove your belt.

Secondly, apply napkins or handkerchiefs moistened with cold water to your forehead, temples, neck and wrists.

Thirdly, to calm a rapid heartbeat, you can sharply press on the eyeballs (of course, after closing your eyes).

Fourth, if you were unable to fall asleep after taking something sedative, do something that requires attention. For example, count down from 1000, subtracting 3 from it, or take deep breaths, counting your exhalations.

Fifthly, many people manage to simply eat away their fears (by chewing the same apple or gnawing on candy). You can even take some delicacy with you on board the plane - tasty food stimulates the release of special biological substances in the body. active substances, giving calm and preventing the release of the fear hormone.

Sixth, it helps a lot (especially for men) to flirt with one of the representatives of the opposite sex sitting next to you.

1) If you are afraid of heights, do not sit near the window.

2) If you are afraid of turbulence, then it is better for you not to sit at the end of the plane, where the turbulence is noticeably stronger.

3) If you also have claustrophobia (an obsessive fear of closed spaces), then it is best for you to find a place near the exit.

Evgeny Tarasov, psychologist.

So what to do with your fears? Fight? This activity is absolutely useless.

The more you fight fear, the more power you give to it. Fighting fear only makes it stronger.

It is difficult to completely overcome your fear, but you can try to reduce the fear yourself.

Look fear in the eyes

To do this, you need, firstly, to recognize it, agree with the fear, say to yourself: “Yes, I’m afraid.” More often than not, we are ashamed to admit even to ourselves that we are afraid; we avoid talking and thinking about it. Thus, we strive to “run away” from our problems, from our fears.

But, unfortunately, you can’t run far from yourself. And those problems that we try to run away from, to which we close our eyes, only worsen and begin to haunt us.

Fear - this is an obstacle on our way, that “brake” that prevents us from achieving our goals. The absence of fear and self-confidence already ensures 50 percent of success in any business.

To overcome your fear, you cannot “turn away from it”, pretend that there is no fear. On the contrary, you need to fearlessly “go” to your own fear, to your problem, and for this you need to “turn your face to it”, “look your fear straight in the eye”, admit to yourself: “Yes, I’m afraid to speak in front of the public, I’m afraid of change, I’m afraid make a mistake." Then the fear will subside.

Analyze your fear

Then determine what you are afraid of. For example, if you are afraid to walk the streets when it gets dark, then you are either afraid of the dark (the darkness is oppressive), or you are afraid of aggression from others (robbery, rape).

See how likely you are to be attacked. If you are afraid of flying in an airplane, determine whether you are afraid of heights or that the plane will fall and crash. How likely is it to fall? Tell yourself: “This is just my fear. In reality, this situation does not exist.”

Play with your fear

This technique will help you overcome your fear by living it. When we experience a negative situation mentally (we get to know our fear in detail, “go to our fear”), we seem to be rehearsing the negative situation, and after several such rehearsals, fears decrease and even disappear completely.

Imagine that the worst thing happened in your life. For example, you went on stage to read important report and they couldn’t help but utter a word, they turned red, turned pale, stood there, they threw rotten tomatoes at you, and you left the stage in shame. After which you could no longer look your colleagues in the eye, your boss yelled at you and fired you from work, and you, to your surprise, remained alive and well.

Then imagine that this negative situation turned out to be a great uplift in your life. For example, you found an even better, more paid job, where you no longer need to perform on stage, or you changed your profession altogether.

As you can see, the worst thing in life can turn out to be a great success.

Play out this situation mentally several times, your fear will decrease. Moreover, you will understand that there is no reason for fear. This can be just a small nuisance in your otherwise pleasant life. Or maybe you really should change your job if it brings you more fear than pleasure?

Or, for example, if you are afraid of becoming infected with some terrible infectious disease, imagine that you became infected with it, and you were cured (and no one even found out about it, and if someone found out, they reacted to it completely calmly). In general, the world did not turn upside down as a result of your illness, you remained alive and well, loved and adored by everyone.

If you are afraid of an incurable disease, imagine that you managed to recover, and as a result you became wiser, more soulful, more cheerful, and reconsidered your life values, wrote a book on how to recover from this disease. In general, it did you good. Of course, you can reconsider your life values, become more soulful and cheerful right now, without waiting serious illness, and fear will go away by itself if you live it and understand that any illness (as well as any negative situation) is life lesson. And if you learn it right now, then negative situation, illness will have no reason to come into your life.

In general, mentally replay the most terrible situations several times a day. different options, but always complete them safely so as not to “turn on negative program"Your fears will be greatly reduced.

These techniques do not help to work out the underlying causes of fears, but if fears consume you, then it is better not to delay and consult a psychologist for CONSULTATION

Article by a psychologist at the "5 YES!" CENTER Marina Morozova

Source - http://www.5da.ru/art27.html

Fear is one of the innate emotions that appears in every person from time to time. Performs positive function, serving as an alarm and helping to survive in the event of a threat. Fear mobilizes our body, preparing it to escape. But in some cases, fear manifests itself in an unhealthy, neurotic form (phobias, panic, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder) and significantly ruins a person’s life.

Fear is classified as a negatively colored emotion. Experiencing states of severe anxiety is very painful, so people, as a rule, are looking for any ways to quickly.

Chemical addictions

As a result, they make many erroneous actions that, instead of easing the problem, on the contrary, aggravate it. Such actions include drinking alcohol, uncontrolled use of sedatives, eating emotions with sweets, and smoking.

Of course, all these options for getting rid of fear are a road to nowhere. They allow you to disconnect emotionally only for a short time. Therefore, a person regularly returns to the tried and tested method to feel relief. As a result, increasingly larger doses of “anesthetic” are required. This is how they are formed bad habits and addictions.

Non-chemical addictions

More sophisticated and hidden ways to escape from negative experiences include immersion in some kind of activity that fills everything free time person. A person strives to constantly be in the company of other people, immerses himself in work, computer games. As soon as he is left alone for a while and cut off from his usual activities, an inexplicable feeling of anxiety arises. A neurotic person, without understanding why, turns on the phone, starts scrolling through the news feed or calling friends - just to get distracted and not have to deal with the contents of the subconscious, ready to emerge in forced silence.

Another way to deal with psychological stress- compulsions. This is a thoughtless, obsessive repetition of the same actions, often of a ritual nature and supposedly preventing frightening events. For example, counting, knocking on wood, snapping fingers. Compulsive behavior helps to partially turn off consciousness and, in turn, phobias force you to change your entire lifestyle so as not to encounter frightening objects and circumstances. But such tactics result in the price of a significant reduction in the quality of life and personality degradation.

How to get rid of fear in a healthy way

Don't blame yourself for bad habits that you developed as a result of trying to get rid of attacks of fear. At a certain stage of development, this was the only way known and available to you to overcome fear. But if you want to grow as a person and be truly happy man, you need to look for other methods of how to get rid of fear.

People often wonder how to kill fear in themselves, not realizing that any, even the strongest negative emotion- this is their friend and assistant, signaling some kind of problem. It’s just that in the case of so-called irrational fears, the danger does not come from external environment, and from inner world person.

The source of fear in this situation is an erroneous perception of reality, obsessive negative thoughts and beliefs that interfere with normal life activities. Sometimes a person is his own worst enemy. By internalizing and maintaining negative mental attitudes in his mind, he inevitably drives himself into the net of stress. The problem is that destructive thoughts that create anxiety are perceived by a person as objective reality, not errors of perception.

Paradoxically, human thinking- a largely unconscious and thoughtless process. develops when a person ceases to control his imagination and the course of his thoughts. If you want to get rid of fears and phobias, you need to learn to think differently than you do now. When dysfunctional and repetitive patterns of fear responses can be changed into healthier ones, anxiety disorders disappear.

The role of cognitive distortions in the development of fear

Cognitive distortions (errors in thinking that are common to each of us) give rise to many groundless fears. For example, two people hit the same life situation- they need to propose to their girls. Of course, there is a possibility of failure. But how such a scenario for the development of events is perceived differently depending on the type of person’s thinking.

An optimist will regard refusal as an invitation to work on himself. Find out the reasons why the girl said no. He will try to change in order to achieve a positive response, or decide that it is worth finding another person as a life partner. A pessimist perceives a possible refusal as a life catastrophe, confirmation of his unworthiness. If he is sure that he cannot love anyone else, pictures of forced loneliness will loom in his mind. If, in addition to the above, a person is convinced that “loneliness is terrible,” then imagine the level of panic that will seize him at a crucial moment. Will he even be able to decide to propose and, perhaps, find out the “terrible” truth?

How to get rid of anxiety and fear through thought control

Such absurd and bad thoughts about various things occur to any person from time to time. Any thought, in turn, causes an emotion. It is important to understand that those thoughts that cause intense fear are based on deep and unconscious erroneous attitudes. They cannot be taken into account when assessing the situation.

For example, a fear thought: my partner will definitely leave me. Options erroneous beliefs, as a result of which fear arose:

people cannot be trusted;
being abandoned is humiliating;
I'm not worthy of love.

Fear thought: if I go to work, my husband will be angry with me. Variants of erroneous beliefs that resulted in fear:

I must devote all my time to my husband;
if someone is angry with me, then it is my fault.

Remember that you yourself give power to certain thoughts that end up frightening you. There is a huge gap between the accidentally flashing unpleasant thought “I will be left alone” and a firm, but nevertheless unfounded conviction in this. You yourself take a step towards fear by giving your attention negative thoughts. The mind is designed to seek confirmation of any thought you focus on. That's why it's so important to look at things from a positive perspective. After all, by cultivating confidence in future success in any situation in the present, you inevitably rise on the emotional scale - to hope, enthusiasm and anticipation.

How to overcome your fear with positive thinking

Positive thinking is not about burying your head in the sand, but about organizing your thoughts. Most people are very scrupulous about the quantity and quality of food they consume, understanding the importance of a healthy diet for their body. But with regard to thoughts, the same selectivity is absent.

Be careful with funds mass media. Stop Mindlessly Browsing social media and news. Most messages are structured in such a way as to grab people's attention. And the easiest way to do this is by broadcasting frightening information and savoring the details of various disasters and natural disasters.

Many wonderful events happen in the world every minute - healthy children are born, people find new friends, fall in love, get well, and drive safely to work in their car without any incidents. But that doesn't make good news. And as a result, the world is presented through the media as threatening and dangerous.

Stop watching news that does not lead to joy, but only, on the contrary, increases the level of anxiety. Fill your brain with only pleasant food for thought. Switch your attention to watching comedies and entertainment programs, reading life-affirming novels and communicating with optimistic people.

Only you can determine whether a certain thought is positive or limiting for you personally. If a thought brings you pleasant emotions, then it suits you and should be included in your belief system.

For example, you want to change your profession, but you are afraid of the inevitable changes. Possible thoughts that may come to your mind:

doing what you love (negative thought);
but there are people who somehow succeed (positive thought);
the chances of succeeding are too small - I will waste my time and energy (negative thought);
It is better to fail than not to try at all (positive thought).
all successful people are selfish (negative thought);
people will envy me (negative thought);
my friend will definitely support me (positive thought);
if I succeed, I can help others (positive thought);
people don’t have money to pay for my services (negative thought);
I want too much from life (negative thought);
no one will be better off if I give up on my dreams (positive thought).

How to remove fear through meditation

Meditation is a useful skill that allows you to disconnect from negative influence environment, cope with an anxiety attack or obsessive thoughts. Just 15 minutes of practice a day can provide mental rest and significantly reduce stress levels.

There is nothing difficult about meditation. You just need to retire, sit comfortably, close your eyes and begin to concentrate on inhaling and exhaling. At first, you will notice how your mind is bombarded with various thoughts. You can't allow yourself to be carried away. But at the same time, there is no need to try to suppress thoughts. Treat the thoughts that arise like passing clouds. Notice impartially the appearance of another thought and return to breathing.

When you learn to separate yourself from thoughts and the emotions that give rise to them, becoming an outside observer, you will gain control over your emotional state. Being an impartial observer helps you rise above your emotions and choose more uplifting thoughts to think about. Even when you hit stressful situations(dismissal, divorce, death loved one), 15-minute helps to find positive thoughts and develop a healthy response to the event.

How to remove fear using visualization

There's another one effective way how to overcome fear. Try to work with your imagination. Every day before you go to bed, draw pictures in your mind of how you successfully cope with a situation that frightens you.

Let's say you have, and the thought of leaving the house, even to the nearest store, frightens you to the point of horror. Your task is to go to shopping mall only in your imagination. Imagine how one fine day, when the weather is good outside, you get dressed and leave the entrance. The sun is shining, there are friendly people around, and you are in in a great mood. Enjoying your walk, you reach the end of the block and enter the store. Shopping slowly and with pleasure, and then successfully returning home. Gradually positive image will take hold in the subconscious, and the fear of going outside will pass.

How to overcome your fear in an extreme situation

In a state of panic, a person is extremely nervous emotional state and has difficulty understanding what is happening around him. If you have an idea about how to overcome fear and stop hysteria, then you are able to take control of your condition. Try the following:

Inhale through your nose for 4 counts, hold your breath for 1–2 seconds, exhale through your nose for 4 counts, hold your breath for 1–2 seconds, and so on.
Calming movements: Lean forward, completely relaxing your head, neck, shoulders and arms, hanging freely downwards. Breathe slowly and deeply, and then slowly rise up. If you feel that you cannot calm down the fear and still feel trembling in your body, try to move: walk, swing your arms. This will help neutralize the release of the stress hormone adrenaline into the blood.
Washing with cold water will help you come to your senses and put your disturbing thoughts in order.
Take action. Focus on other people's needs, rather than on your own worries and anxious thoughts. Nothing mobilizes internal resources more than love and a sense of responsibility for your neighbor.

Preparing for the worst-case scenario

Another way to overcome fear is to get used to worst case scenario development of the event. Sometimes it seems to us that some things are simply unbearable. But when tested, our psyche turns out to be much stronger. For example, you have a fear that you will be fired from your job.

Cross the line in your thoughts that you are afraid to cross. Let's assume this scenario. What will you do after the event occurs? Have to look for a new place, and there is no guarantee that you will find it quickly? Will you have to save hard? Will you become financially dependent on your spouse and get into debt? Imagine all the possible options that frighten you, and think about what actions you will take if you fail. Having done this exercise in your thoughts, you will find that instead of fear, you feel an energy boost and a desire to act.

How to overcome fear by transferring experiences to the future:

How to remove fear from the subconscious

To overcome fear, you need to work with its root cause. Many of our fears seem groundless and irrational. This happens when the psyche defends itself in order to minimize the power of negative experiences. Often, in order to justify the emotion, the unconscious comes up with a false explanation for the existing fear.

For example, a man is afraid of dogs. At a meeting with a hypnologist, it turns out that a deeply suppressed feeling of one’s own inferiority became the reason for the development of the phobia. The feeling of being a victim, the lack of healthy aggression and the inability to defend one’s interests in relationships transformed into a fear of animals. The logic of the unconscious is this: it is better to be afraid of dogs than to admit your inadequacy.

Identify the subject of fear and try to understand what it may be symbolically associated with. It is important not to deny emotions, not to push them far into a corner, but simply to deal with the source of their occurrence. For example, acrophobes are afraid not so much of heights as of uncertainty; claustrophobes are afraid not so much of closed spaces as of restrictions in actions. Of course, such introspection is quite challenging task. If none of the methods described above on how to get rid of phobias and fears on your own have helped you, it is better to contact

Hello! I will tell you how to do the impossible - overcome yourself and achieve success in all your endeavors. I will start the story with my story, and then I will draw a conclusion.

Story

I used to drink and smoke. I understood that this was bad for my health, but somehow I liked these activities - the addiction was stronger than me. I watched Zhdanov’s lectures and read Alain Carr, but these materials gave only a short-term effect, for a week or two. Periodically, I beat myself in the chest, proving that I could cope with my addiction, that I was strong. I gave up, but after some time, after another stress, I sat with friends over a glass of beer, discussing the painful issue. It will probably be easy for those who like beer or smoke to understand me.

Now I am a completely sober young man, a vegetarian who goes to the gym four times a week. What I previously thought was impossible happened by itself. I thought for a long time about the reasons for my failures, and came to the conclusion that the only thing that prevents me from becoming successful is fear. Fear of a new future, fear of change, fear that things could be worse, fear that I will lose my friends, fear that in the eyes of others I will look like a loser.

Change

And then I accepted the only right decision. I told myself: “Okay, I'm tired of it! I don't care! One more failed attempt won't change anything.". I became absolutely unclear whether I would succeed in my
trying to start leading healthy image life or not.

Surprisingly, as I stopped thinking about the future and building some ideals for myself, fear disappeared. Fear that I will not be able to bring this ideal to life. And everything worked out - I stopped drinking, smoking, and then everything continued on its own. I did not build idealistic images of my bright future, I did not expect the consequences of my decision at all, but it played important role in my life.

This lifestyle also helped me start going to the gym regularly. I used to go to the gym very sporadically, I constantly had excuses like I didn't feel well, or I didn't have time, or the program I was doing wasn't effective.

Lenka
Dmitry
Larry
Anna
Alien
Oleg
Dmitry
Genius Master
Nikolay
Andrey
Dana
Dmitry Patrakov
Dmitry Patrakov
Julia
Mikhail Suboch
Juls

Even the bravest people often experience fear. It doesn’t matter what exactly scares them: spiders or injections, dating people and fights, heights or darkness. The most important thing is that these fears can and should be fought. We can't let them hold our lives back. Remember, there are no people who are not afraid of anything, there are only fools.

To learn how to overcome fear, you must first acknowledge it. Many people deny obvious things and suffer greatly as a result. For example, a person may be afraid to drive a car, but will stubbornly deny it, often creating obstacles on the road for other vehicles.

You will take the first step on the path as soon as you acknowledge the existence of fears. To do this, you can use two simple techniques:

Write down your fear. This will be enough to understand how to overcome the fear of death. The point is that the recording officially acknowledges that you are afraid of something. You will also be able to more specifically express the problem you want to solve. You can use this method to solve any problem. Be sure to write that you will be able to get rid of it soon.
Name it. It happens that it is quite difficult to determine what exactly we are afraid of. It's just some strange feeling eating us from the inside. Spend a few hours in quiet meditation to determine what exactly is causing the imbalance.

Describe your fear as fully as possible

You need to explain the reason for your fears in as much detail as possible. Every thing in this world has a beginning and an end. In psychology, everything happens exactly the same. Fears rarely appear on their own, so it would be nice to remember where it all started. If you can understand in detail how it affects you and what methods of dealing with it have been most effective, then you will move very far forward.

Give yourself half an hour or an hour of time. Of course, the more the better, but it’s also not worth wasting time. Take a white sheet of paper and a pencil. Find a secluded place where nothing can distract you. You can also turn on your favorite music that gets you in the mood for work. Answer the following questions:

Is the source of fear really dangerous for you? This is very important, especially if you want to understand how to overcome childhood fears. Of course, fear is absolutely healthy emotion, which is designed to protect us from various troubles, but in modern world this feeling can appear without the threat of danger. Try to find out if it is really dangerous. Lay out these thoughts on paper in as much detail as possible.
How does fear affect you? Maybe he makes you mumble when you're trying to meet a cute girl. Or maybe you decide to stay in bed two hours longer so as not to go to see your unloved teacher ()?
What exactly causes the feeling of fear? Maybe it's just a representation of how you stand on top. Or the approach of a person towards whom you have a strong dislike. This will determine how strong he is and how you can fight him.
Where did this fear come from? Does this have anything to do with your childhood or past? How long have you been under its influence and how often does it appear?

Set yourself a bold goal

Nothing motivates action like a truly bold goal. This will even allow you to understand how to overcome the fear of fighting. You need to specifically and measurably define what you want to change and what to achieve. Certainly, main goal is to conquer fear, but it is far from specific. It is best to perform decomposition, that is, break the goal into several small ones. They should help achieve the main goal.

I'll tell you how to do this using my example. I was very afraid of heights. Not far from my house there was an abandoned construction site, where other boys were constantly climbing, but because of my fear of heights, I could not fully play with them. Then I decided to just walk nearby on the first day. Then I went over the thickest areas on the not so high altitude. Each time I climbed higher and tried to climb higher dangerous areas. In the end I could calmly run on maximum speed along a beam two feet wide at a height of several meters.

But you may have other situations:

Fear of spiders can be easily treated with the help of Internet videos. You can also try picking up a regular house spider (if you find one), they are really harmless. Of course, it is better not to use this method with large poisonous individuals.
To understand how to overcome anxiety and fear of relationships, then try to first meet people via the Internet, then use Skype, and then move on to real life.
If you are afraid of the dark, then start by using night lights and reducing the amount of light.

Start a confrontation

As is known, best way to overcome fear is to look it straight in the eyes. Of course, for this you need to be a very brave person, but it is precisely such people who, as a rule, achieve greatest success. This is especially true if there are specific events or circumstances that cause you to feel fearful.

My friend Kostya was very afraid to start relationships with girls. In the company of friends, he was the life of the party, but as soon as a representative of the fair sex appeared nearby, he became a completely different person: timid, quiet and completely inconspicuous. Of course, he didn’t like this very much, and he enrolled in pickup school. They didn’t help him much there, and at the next meeting together, I suggested that he just “come up like a man and start a conversation.” The next time he did everything according to plan and his dating practice had its first success. Of course, this was far from ideal (I won’t go into details), but it was clear that he began to overcome his fears.

I can also advise you to use two simple practices:

Immediately imagine the worst of possible options and evaluate it adequately. Well, let’s take the example of Kostya. If he approaches a girl, the most she can do is turn him away. Of course, this is unpleasant, but people do not die from this, they only gain experience. This will allow you to understand that even under the worst circumstances, it is unlikely that anything really bad will happen.
Repeat over and over again. Let's say you seriously intend to approach a girl today and get to know her. You may not succeed - after all, fear was developed long time, but this is not a reason to give up or stop. Try again and you will definitely succeed. I believe it.

Create the ideal conditions to combat fear. There will always be circumstances that will tell you: “Stop, don’t do this, it’s better to do everything next time.” But you yourself understand perfectly well that this is wrong. Let's say you dream of starting a restaurant business, but you put it off every time. However, if you don't try, you will never be able to understand.

And you should not associate your failures with fate or with any other higher powers. This is very good excuse, because it makes you believe that not everything is in your hands. In reality, you control the future, and it is your choices that determine what results you can achieve.

If possible, surround yourself with people who also want to learn how to overcome fear and depression. Imagine being surrounded by those who simply do not want to develop. In such conditions it will also be difficult for you to reach new level.

Try to change your views on the subject of fear

Remember that fear is not only negative, but also often positive emotions. Think about people who engage in extreme sports. They are literally bursting with adrenaline, but they still continue to do it and get unprecedented pleasure. Also, people often prefer to watch horror films, because they really allow you to get new emotions (especially compared to modern Russian comedies).

So the next time you want to really conquer your fear, try looking at it from a different angle. There is even a book called “Change Your Approach” that helps you look at certain phenomena differently. For example, if you are afraid of heights, then you should watch enough videos about parkour to at least ease your fear a little. This may even be your biggest advantage because you will experience real emotions.

This is also one of the recommendations. Fear is a great tool for effective solution many problems. It serves as a kind of signpost to which you react in any situation. After the first wave of discomfort has passed, try the following:

To find out how to overcome fear, try to get to know her better. This is especially true when you have this feeling due to the unknown.
If this is due to any obligations (fear of delivering projects), then try to use fear as the main incentive for good preparation and thorough rehearsal.
You can also think about the opportunities that will open up for you if you can overcome your fear. Well, let's say you are afraid of water. If you manage to overcome fear, then you will be able to swim a lot, go boating with friends and significantly enrich your life with useful emotions.

How to overcome fear if nothing helps

It also happens that fear cannot be overcome even after several visits to a psychologist. This is nothing to be ashamed of (even if you are a healthy man and afraid of little mice). This is the same emotion as sadness or joy, that is, it is impossible to completely get rid of the feeling of fear, it just takes on more vivid forms in some people.

Understand that fear is an absolutely natural situation for our body. All living beings are afraid, so don't be too hard on yourself. Of course, when you came to the page about how to overcome fear, you expected that you would be able to get rid of it completely, but this really is impossible, so don’t reproach yourself.

There are also situations when you are VERY AFRAID of something. And all attempts are in vain, and can even cause harm. You shouldn’t rush into another attempt with all your might, especially if the consequences could be dire. Don't get stressed out by unsuccessful attempts, you will only harm your health.

But if you have at least small victories, then start enjoying them. They really cost you a lot and took you to the next level. Let's say you decided, but were afraid to film yourself. After you've made your first video, just give yourself a pat on the back (at literally) and tell me how great you are.

Of course, the most important thing, if your fears are really serious, is to seek help from specialists. They are truly experienced people who will help you deal with this difficult situation. And while fighting your fears, don’t forget about safety. You should not pet venomous snakes without special protection.

This concludes the article about how to overcome the feeling of fear. If you have any questions, welcome to the comments. And don't forget to subscribe for new ones interesting articles. Bye!