So many people in our world are feeling paralyzed by fear right now.
Fear is normal, fear is human, fear is created by our thinking.
Where do you feel it? When I feel fear, I feel it in my chest. It feels squeezing and tight. I feel tension in my abs and also my shoulders and neck, and my breath feels a little shallow instead of full and relaxed.
Our bodies respond to fear in a very visceral way. The vibration that you feel from thinking fearful thoughts, can cause our bodies to produce stress, and stress lowers our antibodies… which then lowers our immunity.
As humans, we are crazy fearful of the unknown and our media does nothing to calm the hysteria.
Remember how I’ve shared with you that our human brains have over 60,000 thoughts per day… and most of them are negative?
Our primitive brains are wired to keep us safe, so they are on the constant lookout of danger.
Dr Daniel Amen describes this negative thinking as an ANT infestation. ANT, standing for Automatic Negative Thoughts.
I love this acronym because it gives you the perfect visual for how our brains operate. You can just see tons of those scattered, black, moving and piling up thoughts, running amok in your brain.
So what do you say we get out the RAID and take care of those pesky ANTS.
Here is my formula for RAID that you can make right inside the comfort of your own brain. 🙂
Recognize
Assess
Identify
Decide
- Recognize that your brain is swimming and spinning with worried, negative thoughts. This is the first step when you start to feel fear. You must be on to your brain and understand where that feeling is coming from. Fear comes from SENTENCES. Sentences you are thinking. That is all.
- Assess your thoughts. I have my clients do this by writing them all down on paper. Get that swirling mess out of your brain by writing it all down. Once it’s on paper and you can look at it with your eyes, you can see how much of it is drama, and what are the actual facts.
- Identify the facts. What is actually true, and what is story or hysteria? Once I have the facts, I can choose how I want to think about them. If I don’t want to feel fearful, I can choose to see those facts as being neutral. What is true, right here and right now? In times of trouble, it’s important to stay in the PRESENT. My friend and fellow life coach, Jody Moore, calls this “shortening the lens.” Instead of worrying and speculating about the future, you stay in the here and now. If you are reading this, it means that no matter what else is going on in the world, you are okay. In this moment, you are breathing, you are likely not starving, you have a phone or computer and shelter,-you are fine. When we shorten the lens and live in THIS moment, we can see that there is no need to feel anxious.
- Decide to choose thoughts that create the future you want. Where attention goes, energy flows. Decide to give your attention to what you want and thoughts that make you feel GOOD, and give NONE of your attention to the things and thoughts that make you feel terrible.
It’s important for you to understand this, I’m not suggesting that you be delusional, but rather that we all try to be more accurate.
It’s no more delusional to believe that this will all blow over quickly…. that there will be a buying frenzy in the markets… that we will have learned some incredible new things in our society….that we will show up with great love and care as a people and that things will all work out, -than it is to believe that we will never get through this and our future is destroyed.
So get out your RAID my friends, and make it a fantastic day!
