The Fear Factor

By Paula Wild

I am attached to a very thin rope hundreds of feet above the ground. My heart is racing, my breath is shallow and rapid, sweat is coming out of my every pore. It is about 30 degrees F and my hands feel like useless blocks as they grip the cold metal ice axe that seems like the only thing keeping me from falling to my untimely death.

During: Feeling the fear factor

I am experiencing a full-blown fight or flight stress response, also known as an activation of my sympathetic nervous system. I am actually completely safe and on belay but every cell of my body feels under threat and is wondering why we are doing this. I am having an irrational response to fear because I am attempting something new and outside of my comfort zone. I feel like I might vomit. I am alive.

Growth Model. Taken from: "Procrastination, Theft of Time"

This image provides a helpful tool for understanding our fear and our personal evolution. On my winter climbing adventure I was playing with the edge between my stretch zone and my panic zone. As I felt myself grow increasingly frightened and almost incapacitated by the fear I would pause and draw in slow deep breaths. These helped bring me back into the stretch zone where I could move up a few feet. I repeated this process many times to get to the top of the climb and was impressed at how controlling my breath helped to control my mind and perception of safety by mediating my stress response. The most exciting thing is that this can be practiced and improved over time!Taking forays out of our comfort zone is beneficial because it causes us to expand our boundaries incrementally to be able to make good decisions about risk and to explore new frontiers of possibility leading to increased satisfaction from life. The human potential is incredible! How often have you thought; “Wow, what he/she is doing is AMAZING! I could never do that.” Well actually you could. Any of us could run a marathon, write a novel, or discover the theory of relativity. However, our fear keeps us from taking the plunge lest we should fail. Failure is unpleasant because it is an injury or little death to our ego; the sense of “I-ness” that drives many of our actions. Yoga teaches us to embrace our highest potential through Self-awareness and to shed the self-consciousness that keeps us from growing.One way to do this is to become more familiar with our fears rather than trying to conquer them. We can practice comprehending our fears better and even embrace them into shifting, fading and ultimately dissipating. By regularly exploring the spaces outside our comfort zone we actually shift our own boundaries of what is possible. What once caused us to panic is still a bit frightening but we now enjoy playing with it. What was once slightly frightening doesn’t faze us at all anymore.

After: Exhilarated!

Beyond experiencing increased success in achieving our goals, this has serious implications for our health. Humans, like animals are designed to cope with stress. In fact we need infrequent, significant stressors to activate our sympathetic nervous system as this attenuates our innate immune response. Unfortunately many of us live with a constant low-level of anxiety created by thousands of tiny daily stressors that we have not built the resilience to deal with or eradicate from our lives. Our sympathetic nervous system is constantly stimulated at a low level, rather than being recruited infrequently at a higher level. Studies are showing that this is an important risk factor for autoimmune disease, cardiovascular disease and more. Additionally it creates a psychological state of depression and/or anxiety where we don’t feel meaningfully challenged and successful in overcoming those challenges. In fact we are so overwhelmed by the small stressors that we might feel exhausted without reason. Knowing the difference between healthy stress that enlivens and background stress that erodes may be the best preventative medicine that exists.

I challenge you to scare yourself.

Do something that forces you to engage with the area between your growth and panic zone. Do this in a supported environment where you are objectively safe and subjectively scared shitless. Afterwards sit down and write it out:

• How did you feel?
• Before, during, after the event?
• Did you learn anything about yourself?
• Could you do it again?
• What does thinking about doing it again feel like?

We are not scared, we feel scared.We are not living in fear, we are acquainting ourselves with our fears.Safely, slowly, steadily.

“To be fearless isn’t really to overcome fear, it’s to come to know its nature. Just open more and more and at some point you’ll feel capable of inviting [all things] in as your guests.”

Pema Chodron. Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living.

Written by Paula Wild

Paula Wild, E-RYT 500, is honored to serve as Director of Operations, Instructor and Guide for Balanced Rock. She is a masterful yoga instructor and therapist who most deeply enjoys practicing and teaching in nature’s outdoor studio. She believes that the tools yoga and time in nature offer are the most effective ways to connect with our own inner wisdom and expand our potential in the world. Access Paula’s latest musings and offerings on her blog and website: wildawakewellness.com