Fear and Tremble Days

Fear and Tremble Days 

An excerpt of my book 'Delve: My Heartfelt Notes on Delving Deep and Climbing High'

Photo by Dom Aguiar on UnsplashFear and Tremble Days

Spring 1995, physical education, athletics. I loved 100 metres ; however, I was absolutely terrified of the high jump. I would often recite quotes from Norman Vincent Peale's book to psych myself up for the dreaded full hour of the high jump. I would often forget my sports kit to get out of it, but my teacher would always give me a spare outfit to wear. High jump taught me something about fear.

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next big thing that comes along." -Eleanor Roosevelt-

If you push through, ignore your trembling knees and confront the things that terrify you, you will build your confidence, gain strength and become a better version of yourself. After gritting my teeth through hours and hours of high jump, I felt different.

Fear cripples you, stifles you and prevents you from becoming the best version of yourself. I have suffered from severe debilitating anxiety all my life, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of judgment, fear of trying and not following through. 

I have lived my life in total and utter fear, I am still writing through the fear. My fingers are trembling as I type this but I have no choice. I run a successful copywriting business, I have several other projects on the go, my son is homeschooled, I took the plunge and moved to Ghana despite being terrified to change the status quo, I did it anyway. 

I challenged myself to live beyond my wildest dreams. However, I am still scared. In this book, I am going to outline the exact methods I have used to fight through fear and take action.

I have affectionately named my most anxious days, tremble days. I wake to the sound of a pounding heart, sweaty palms and trembling hands. I feel agitated, exhausted, anxious and apprehensive about the day ahead. I power through the day by staying in bed for an extra 30 minutes, I gather my thoughts and think about five things that I am grateful for. 

I simply whisper to myself "It is well." I begin the day with light stretching and some brisk walking if I have the energy to do so then I drink some power greens. Usually spirulina or wheatgrass in some water or freshly squeezed juice. 

There is no magic pill out there that will eliminate anxiety overnight however, making small changes daily will provide some short-term relief, and over time anxiety can be completely cured in my opinion.

According to Forbes, "Anxiety is an absolutely necessary emotion. If you don't think you experience it, you simply don't understand it." Apparently, our brains are hard-wired to feel anxiety, and in some cases, performance is enhanced by a slightly anxious feeling. 

The adrenaline pumping through your veins, the pounding of the heart, the sweaty palms. I believe that this feeling of anxiety can enhance performance when necessary however, on days when I am lying in bed, that feeling can send me into a panicky frenzy. When I am feeling especially anxious these days, I do this:

The 90 Second Trick

I learned about the 90 second trick after listening to a Tony Robbins interview. I decided to give it a try when I experienced a severe panic attack at a media awards event. Let me give a rundown of how to implement it, but first what is the 90-second trick?

Robbins says that you should tackle the monster while it's a baby, so instead of waiting until you are having a full-on anxiety attack, work on eliminating it before it even gets that far. Feel it for 90 seconds and let it go.

Our Brains Help Us To Survive:

Robbins describes a survival mechanism in our brains that's always looking for what's wrong. Your mind will never let you enjoy the taste of an apple because it will go, 'Is it organic? Where did it come from?' versus your heart, which can bring the juice of anything back to you. He argues that to rid your mind of anxiety, you need to get in touch with your heart.

Think of the situation, thing or person that is making you feel anxious. Think about why it is stressing you out and think about it on a scale of 0 to 10. 0 being least stressed and 10 being extremely stressed.

Place both hands on your chest and breathe in deeply, feel the power and beauty of your breath. As long as your heart is beating there is life, as long as there is life, there is hope.

Still taking deep breaths, think of three events or things in your life that you are grateful for. Step into the feeling of total and utter gratitude.

The whole point of the 90-second trick is to stop overthinking the problem and start being grateful for life. Sometimes problems are not problems, sometimes they are situations that we have created in our minds. I am guilty of overthinking every aspect of my life to a point where I shut myself away from the outside world because I was scared of living. However, by practicing gratitude daily, I managed to drastically reduce my anxiety. You can do it too!

My book is available here>>> Delve: My Heartfelt Notes on Delving Deep and Climbing High