EP 7 - Face Fear & Be Confident

Episode 7 talks all about facing your fears so you can build your confidence.

Talking points and takeaways:

• Why we have fears, and how they develop in our subconscious.
• How excitement and fear affect your body the same.
• Facing your fears so you can build your confidence.
• The difference between your comfort zone, growth zone, and danger zone and why  you want to stay within your growth zone.
• 5,4,3,2,1 rule from Mel Robbins.

Soul Rhythm Activation (Homework/Practice):

• Choose something that really scares you and that you've been avoiding doing, then Five, four, three, two, one, get it done.

Full Episode : Face Fear & Be Confident

This week on The Soul Rhythm Podcast we talk about Facing our fears to gain confidence! When we are afraid to do things we start burrowing ourselves in this self-conscious incapable mentality. When in reality action yields that confidence, as much as it can be hard to do, it is doing that will build that confidence. Now, during last week's episode, I said, I was going to do an episode on self coaching, which is coming your way still, but I'm still gathering some info. I really want to provide a full on tool to be able to self coach. And so, this topic about leaning into fear is also part of that. Quite honestly, most of the things I talk about are all about self coaching.

So taking action, being bold, leaning into fear. What does this look like? You know, we all have fears and fear is there to protect us. Literally,  in the old days, we might have a tiger on the other side of the forest that was going to attack us. So we really had to protect ourselves by knowing about danger. There's still danger out there, of course, and we still have to be careful with what we're doing and when we're putting ourselves out there, but we often don't take action because we are just so afraid. I think I mentioned this in the first couple of episodes that it can be as simple as, Let's say going live on Instagram and you've never gone live, or you've never done a story before. Really all you have to do is press play and talk and show your face in the camera. Like how dangerous is that? Not dangerous at all, Right? So owning the fact that you want to do this thing and realizing that it's not dangerous at all. And then just literally pulling the trigger, AKA pressing play, showing up and just doing the thing. And yes, your heart might be racing and you might feel all the things like sweaty palms and sweaty pits and all the nasty things that being scared and nervous brings into your body, But doing it is what's going to allow you to surpass these experiences. 

I used to be really shy and predominantly I used to be deathly afraid of reading in public, to be honest, it sometimes still creeps back up only because I had previous experiences to tell me that reading in public wasn't  safe. When I was in second grade, I was a late bloomer, I did not learn how to read as fast as my classmates and they made us read out loud in school. I remember we used to read from period to period and I used to count how many people were in front of me and then practice my sentence because I was so nervous and then I would always bomb it because I was just overthinking it and I was still learning to read. And so then I would feel like a loser. Maybe my friends would make fun of me. Maybe it was all in my head, but long story short, I felt like I wasn’t safe to read out loud. Now, is there anything dangerous about reading out loud? Absolutely not. But in my subconscious mind, those experiences and those stories were stored. And so when we store these experiences in these stories, whether it's a story that we tell ourselves or stories that our parents or teachers or whoever is around us in our upbringing told us, whether they mean it or not, it's not their fault. If they said something that affected us,  and so we begin to pile up these stories and that's how our subconscious works. And I'm not going to get too deep into that. But just to give you a little bit behind the scenes, your subconscious starts collecting these experiences to basically keep you even safer. So I had these negative experiences of not feeling safe while I was reading out loud. Therefore my subconscious mind says, [inaudible], we're not going to read out loud. We're going to absolutely freak out because we're not safe when we read out loud. So then I was a middle-schooler completely capable of being able to read, but because I would get nervous and my whole body would overcome me with this fear, I would  stutter. I would not be focusing on the words that I was reading. I was focusing more on staying safe and the fact that I was nervous and worried. So I want this example just to serve as an avenue to see how this has played out in your life as well, because we all have these experiences, whether it was through reading or doing something that you've never done before, or perhaps you're afraid of Heights or public speaking, talking to people that you don't know.

Like so many of us are taught not to approach people that we don't know because that's another great example. Since we were little, we were told don't talk to strangers. So your subconscious mind thinks of stranger danger. Let's not approach strange people. So then you go to a networking event and all of a sudden you are very clumsy with your words and you can't be outgoing and natural like you are with the people that, you know, because your subconscious mind is getting in the way. So how do we overcome these past experiences that are quite literally blocking you from completely blooming? Own the fact that you want to do this thing that you're trying to do, but you're so afraid to do and that is basically tricking your mind. Now, the trick here is fear and excitement are experienced in your body identically. So when you're excited, your heart rate goes up, maybe the pitch of your tone of voice goes up, or your palms can get sweaty. Like obviously we're all different. We're all going to experience things differently, but all in all physiologically, fear and excitement have the same effects in the body. So when you choose to do something that you've never done before, whether it is going to that networking event and talking to people, whether it is reading in front of a group of people speaking in front of a group of people or skydiving, whatever it is, then you want to ask yourself, why is doing this so important for me? And really getting curious on how this is going to make me a better version of myself because it's through that, that you can  then say, well, screw this fear.

I'm going to lean into the excitement of doing this new thing or doing this thing that has scared me all of my life. And I'm going to channel the excitement rather than channeling the fear. So when I finally decided to own the fact that I was just completely afraid of reading in front of people, I decided to put myself out there and I remember English class in eighth grade, I had written a poem and the teacher asked,  who wants to share? So I raised my hand, I went all out. She picked me and I read through it. I kid you not I read it super fast. I probably stuttered. I was basically pooping my pants because I was so nervous, but I did it. And after I did it, my subconscious mind began rewriting it. So I was rewriting these stories of, okay, reading is actually not that scary. And I was starting to build confidence in that, you know what? I can do this because what is so scary about reading? It's actually not scary at all. And it took that one step and then continued to do it over and over again, like anything. 

I became a yoga teacher 10 years ago and I love teaching yoga. And the part that would make me the most nervous was the end of the class. When I liked reading a really beautiful poem or an excerpt from a book, something that was really inspiring and grounding. I always got excited about choosing it. But when it came down to reading it, I got so nervous again. And this is when I was like 25 years old. Okay. It's not like I was a teenager. Like I'm a grown woman and I'm still afraid of reading. So this is how profound these experiences can affect us. But it is up to us to break through those experiences and say, you know what? I have the control. There's no tiger on the other side of the street, I'm going to do this. And I'm going to break through this belief, rewrite it and own my own worth so that I can actually do this and feel really confident in doing it.

 I hope that translated to something that you can really think within your life and experience again, or something that has really blocked you from fully embracing a part of you. Because the truth is, is that as humans, because we live in this really complex society and because every human being is so complex individually, then we all affect each other in one way or another, obviously unintentionally most of the time. But then we harbor these experiences that then block us from fully embracing who we are. So now I want to kind of rewind to the whole growth,  danger zone. This is something that I learned in summer camp when I was a facilitator there. I mentioned it briefly, but I realized the other day that not a lot of people understand this concept. So if you think of yourself, when you're comfortable, you're in your comfort zone. So whether it’s on your couch, in your house, and it doesn't necessarily need to be like physically comfortable, I'm saying like emotionally comfortable when you're doing things that you're used to, your comfort zone. Now in order to grow and expand, you want to get into your growth zone. And they say that you want to consistently be uncomfortable, right? But you want to be comfortably uncomfortable. You don't want to be so uncomfortable that you're in danger. So think about it as three circles, one inside the other. So the smallest circle in the middle is your comfort zone. Then the circle that's outside of your comfort zone is your growth zone. So you want to consistently stay in your growth zone when you are in your growth zone, when you're pushing yourself a little bit outside your comfort zone so much so that you're beginning to grow that confidence. And you're beginning to grow all in all as an individual, but if you push yourself too far out to the outside circle, where it's your danger zone, it's like, Oh my gosh, you completely freak out. Like your system's overloaded too much. Let's back off. And then sometimes that can be detrimental. And that sounds pretty dramatic, but it really can damage your ability to continue to stay in that growth zone in regards to whatever it is. That one thing you're doing, for example, if I am afraid of Heights and I am climbing a rock wall, I am told, okay, well, let's just try one at a time. And I decided, you know what, I'm going to go up to like five feet. So then I go up to five feet. I looked down, okay, this feels slightly far away, i'm a little bit too high. I got this and then I can decide to come down because that was a growth zone enough. It was like slightly nerve wracking, but not too much. Or I can decide to push a little bit further. So you obviously have to trust yourself and continue to ask yourself is this enough? Is it too much? Is it too little? Then I can keep going up as opposed to, if I say, okay, I've never climbed a rock wall and I'm deathly afraid of Heights, and they bring me all the way up to the top. And I'm like at the top, looking down, freaking out, nobody can get me down. That is a danger zone. So I hope that makes sense to you. 

I would love to hear how all of this is translating to you. If you have any big takeaways or questions as we're going through these really fun episodes, let me know on Instagram or even in the reviews. I do want to loop it a little bit back around to the confidence piece, just to bring it all back together. So when we are leaning into that fear and when we are staying in our growth zone, we are consistently proving to ourselves that we got this. We are consistently proving to ourselves that we can do it. We are experienced, and that's how we are growing, as opposed to when we stay in our comfort zone. And most likely if we talk about it like a box where we think, Oh, no, I'm not good at that. And I'm not a good speaker. And nobody likes me. And you know, like all these self-conscious beliefs that, you know, express it or not, most of us have experienced at one point in our life or another, then all we're going to do is stay in that. And we're not going to break through those BS beliefs and fully grow and harness that confidence. So that's why it's so important to do the things that scare you. And to be honest, a hundred percent of the time, you're always going to feel so good after you do it, whether it is that you're still slightly nervous when you're finished or not, you're going to feel so proud of yourself. You're going to feel so fulfilled because you did the thing. Don't hesitate. Just do it now. 

A few other little tidbits. And I mentioned this previously as well if you are continuing to get in your own way with leaning into fear, apply the five second rule from Mel Robbins that I always talk about. So basically your brain has five seconds to get in your way. Okay? So don't let your brain get in your own way. Five, four, three, two, one, and do the thing. All right. So for today's episode, today's homework is choose something that you've been avoiding, choose something that's been really, really scaring you, Five, four, three, two, one, get it done. And once you do it, I want to hear from you. Leave me a comment on my Instagram, shoot me a DM. I want to celebrate you for leaning into that fear and growing and becoming a better version of you. All right. My loves. That is all for today. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please make sure to leave us a review. And if you have any topics that you'd like me to highlight again, please reach out to me. Shoot me a DM. I hope you have an amazing day and I'll see you next week.