How To Stop Living In Fear

Us humans can be very good at living in fear.

We can spend lots of time fearing things we really don’t want to happen

We often use the words ‘what if….’ to begin our sentences, those sentences we create in our heads when drifting off to sleep, or waking up, or just being brilliant at overthinking any time of the day or night.

What we are doing is getting really good at sending our time and energy towards things we really don’t want to happen:

‘what if I get sick?’, ‘what if my Dad gets sick?’, ‘what if they sack me?’, ‘what if I’m rubbish at this new job?’, ‘what if I fall off my bike, or trip while I’m running?’

For many people this can be an endless commentary, kind of on a loop as they go through their day.

I’ve recently started doing Tai Chi – delightful, by the way – and they have a saying that struck me:

“Wherever the chi (energy) goes the energy flows”

In other words, where you send your energy will affect what happens. If you spend lots of time thinking about your sore knee, that’s where your brain will focus.

Humans have a tendency towards a negative bias. It used to help us keep ourselves safe when life was really very dangerous for us amongst the wolves and bears.

Now that most of us are lucky enough to live in warmth and comfort and peace, it’s good for us to spend more time thinking about WHAT WE WANT.

How do I want my knee to feel? How do I want to be today? How do I want to feel at the end of the day?

What do I want in my life?

Who do I want in my life?

This helps us focus on the good stuff, and teaches our brain how to begin to have that as our go to state instead.

Where your brain pathways go the good stuff may flow, we could say.

Good old brain plasticity…….we can always change our state