Signs Fear Is Secretly Controlling You (And What to Do About It)

Fear shows up in more ways than we realize — not just as butterflies or a pounding heart, but as procrastination, perfectionism, and people pleasing. In this episode, we’re pulling back the curtain on F.E.A.R. (False Evidence Appearing Real), talking about how to recognize when fear is quietly running your life, where it comes from, and how to move through it using breathwork, body awareness, and a few simple mindset shifts.
In this episode:
•Why fear is an outdated but well-meaning nervous system response
•The sneaky ways fear shows up: procrastination, people pleasing, perfectionism
•How to identify where fear lives in your body
•The box breathing technique for fear release in real time
•Journal prompts to get clear on what’s holding you back
•Why facing fear (even imperfectly) is the only way through it
🌬️ Join me for live weekly breathwork inside the Glimpse Collective on Skool → [link]
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, it's Megan. Welcome to the podcast. Today we're going to talk about fear. And um, I just did a fun session yesterday in my glimpse collective. The replay is up. Um, if you want to check that experience out, it's about an hour. And it is a breathwork session with music and cues and um a little movement, and it was a lot of fun. So go check that out on school, the glimpse collective. And um, I'd love to hear what you think about it. So, fear, let's think of it as an acronym. False evidence appearing real. And um, you know, fear really um did us a lot of favors in the past. So we all know about the flight or fight fight response and um fear, you know, when you're living out in the land in the caveman days, um you had to be uh your fear kept you alive, basically. Um giving you that adrenaline pump when a saber-toothed tiger was chasing you. But it's a little bit outdated, and um though it is good in certain ways, in some ways I believe it is totally inhibiting our human experience. And um I just wanted to talk about the ways that you can tell if you have fear in your life that's inhibiting you um what to do about it and um how to move forward without fear in the future. Now, fear will always show up, but uh the key is just to acknowledge and call it out for what it is and then move on from there. So, um ways that you can tell if you are fearful. I mean, the obvious way is if you're if you've got like butterflies in your stomach, if there's like a knot, if you're tensing up. Um, and usually that might be like physical fear or maybe like a confrontation with somebody, you're fearful about what will happen. Um, other subtle ways that it can come up are um procrastination, putting something off, saying, Oh, um, I'll do that, or or beyond procrastination, like once I, you know, lose 15 pounds, then I will I don't know, start running, or then I will, you know, buy this outfit or or something. Maybe that's a bad example of it. Just off the cuff here. So basically putting something off until something else happens, that can be um a way fear shows up in your life. Another way that is sneaky is people pleasing. So the fear of their reaction, um if you're to, you know, say something or do something that isn't aligned with what how they think or feel. So um, people pleasing is a big one. And um other ways you can feel it. Um well, if you're a perfectionist, um, always wanting to get everything just right, that can be a form of fear too. And all of those things, the procrastination, the waiting until you get one thing to do another thing, um, the people pleasing, that is all inhibiting our lives, our souls, full expression of ourself. And I think it would be helpful, it would behoove you and me to uh you know acknowledge those things and move past them. So um, and just another way that you can kind of call out fear is um going back to that acronym, false evidence appearing real, is really there's no other time than just right now. You can't um so like let's say you're gonna try something new or you're putting something out there um in the ether or on social or something, and or you're you know, just anything that you haven't done in a while or that makes you nervous, and your nervous system is gonna tell you, no way, it's not safe, don't do it. Um, so that's gonna put fear on you. But the truth of the matter is is even history, you know, they say history repeats itself, but it is not a 100% determinant of what is going to happen in the future. So if you are going to try something, you might say, Oh, well, I had a friend who tried this and that didn't work, so you know, I'm not I'm surely not gonna try it. But if you're feeling like you really want to do something and you're letting that fear, that false evidence appearing real hold you back, that is definitely inhibiting your life. So try not to do that, and here's how. So um the first step is just acknowledging the fear, um, the apprehension that you're feeling, and you know, thanking thanking the fear, like, you know, I hear you, and I see what you're you know, see what you're saying, but it's not necessarily 100% true, and I'm going to do it anyway. So, um, and a lot of times you hear face your fears, and that is very true. The more you do something um successfully, or it doesn't even have to be successful, like you could say what's the worst thing that could happen, and even if that thing happens, okay, it happens, and then you you get to respond from there. So um just um you know, knowing that all different things can happen, and it's not a reason to stop you from what you're about to do. Um another way to you can kind of catch yourself if you're just like constantly overthinking something, um, you know, why not just push through and try it and then learn? Because honestly, the only way we ever learn is through trial and error, really, and through failing. Like my biggest, and I don't even like the word failure, but like when you make mistakes, like you make them, you really can learn from them the best that you know than seeing somebody else do the same thing. It's I mean you can learn from that too, but it is one of the best um ways to learn and to improve and to keep growing. Um, you know, you look at a baby and it's like they don't when they're learning to walk, they don't just like fall down and then never try again, they just keep going and keep falling, you know, and sometimes it can be months where they're falling down. Um so pushing through is um really important, and you can use breath for this. Um, you know, I always just kind of go back to the box breathing when you're just like outliving your life. Um you can do the box breathing, which is just like four, a count of four inhaling through your nose, holding for four, exhaling for four, and then holding for four, and and then you just repeat that cycle. Helpful when doing the box breath, when you are identifying like a fear, if you can identify a place in your body where you're feeling it, whether it be your gut, your chest, I don't know, your neck, your head, anywhere, you can um kind of focus that breathing inhaling into that spot, and then as you exhale, imagine it just kind of dissipating and um and you're blowing you're basically blowing it out on your exhale. So, another thing you can do so you kind of sense where you're feeling it in your body, and then you can ask, like, what am I afraid of? What is the worst thing that could happen? Because once you identify that, it almost just takes away the power of the fear. So, am I afraid of looking stupid? Am I afraid of what people will say, what people will think? Am I afraid of physical harm? That might be something you might want to hold off on if that's the case. Um, and so uh I think you know, some of this can happen during the situation, but some of it you you might want to reflect on. So uh a journal prompt could be um, you know, what would I do if I was not afraid or if I was not apprehensive, or you know, if I wasn't procrastinating, or if I wasn't trying to people please, like whatever the situation, you can journal prompt and just kind of like brain dump um into that question, which is cool. I don't know if you guys can hear, but there's a storm happening right now, and I'm I had no idea. I have the day off, and I had to run to Somerset, Wisconsin with this foster pup, and um she's got a little broken leg, but it's healing. Anyway, I was so tired, and I came back and I just like don't feel like doing anything except for doing this podcast, and then it started storming, and I'm just like, oh my gosh, it feels I just I love a storm, especially when I'm like sleepy and tired, and it's just great. So hopefully, maybe you'll hear some thunder. I don't know. Uh, I know you heard my dog barking earlier, so let's see where else we can go with this. Um, so we talked about ways that fear shows up. We talked about um acknowledging that fear and really thinking that fear and then questioning um and just bringing to the surface um, you know, like the worst case scenario. And once you do that, you know, once that happens, and I'm sure we've all had worst-case scenario things happen in our life, and we're still around, it didn't make us go live in a cave somewhere. Um, so it's just all of this is just like giving you the power so you can decide how you want to respond to that. Um, but it is very important to just like acknowledge it, thank it, and then see where you're at with it, see what it is that's freaking you out. Where do you feel it in your body? Um, what what can you do? You know, take away the power of the fear by coming up with the things that happen that could happen. Um, but you don't want to give it too much um time or you know, too much effort, unless it's you know, something that's like deep and emotionally tied to something, you know, then you might want to see a therapist about it. But um, so uh I just want to invite you again to my school community. That's S-K-O-O-L, and um, I do live breath work in there. I'm gonna probably start maybe doing meditations too. I don't know if you guys caught the last episode. Um, I just put it out yesterday actually. Um, but it was a summer solstice meditation, and so I'm gonna be working on some meditations for the Glimpse Collective group in school too. Um, and just whatever sounds fun. I'm just gonna try it. I'm gonna push past the fear, and um yeah, you can watch me dancing around like like a fool if you go and um do the fear session because we kind of started with um a little bit of a uh dance sesh. So that was fun. Anyway, thanks for listening and um let's face our fears. If you would be so kind and scroll down all the way to the bottom and give me some stars, it'd be great if you gave me five stars and maybe just like a little note if you listen to this and um if it was helpful, forward it to somebody else. And um, we will catch you next week. Thank you.