Facing Fear
- Pamela Ruiter -Feenstra
- Aug 6
- 4 min read
In our most recent series, I wrote about How trauma can make us freeze. I explained the 5 Physical Responses to Trauma and How to release embodied trauma. Those responses also apply to fear. In this blog, I'll give examples of mantras and movements that work to release trauma and help to face fear.
Have you ever felt crippled by fear?
First, fear–like trauma responses–is biologically intended to protect us from harmful behavior, such as not touching a hot stove or running into traffic. If your fear is based on a situation where someone or a group of people have harmed you, are currently harming or threatening to harm you, listen to the fear and seek help immediately to remove the harmful person or group from your life and/or remove yourself from the situation. Fear can make us freeze in place, unable to take action. You deserve to live a fear-free life. You deserve to receive help to make you safe. Reach out to someone who can help.
Second, fear can be conditioned. This is the type of fear I’ll discuss in this blog–the type of fear that holds us back from being our whole selves.
Have you ever experienced a
Fear of failure?
Fear of success?
Fear of the unknown?
Fear of the future?
Self-consciousness that’s so strong it immobilizes you?
These are the types of fears that are conditioned by family, friends, or peers who judge, criticize, or create impossible, perfectionistic, unrealistic expectations. That conditioning can create the fear of
not being good enough.
not being enough.
not being accepted.
not being included.
not being worthy.
In the past, when I've been fearful of people who put me down, I've made myself small. And smaller. And smaller still. Then, I realized that I don't deserve to be put down, and I’m not going to give them control over my life. Here’s what happens: They want to stifle me due to their own jealousy, resentment, or insecurity. They transfer their own unsolved problems or unresolved trauma onto me. The key words here are “their own… issues.” Their issues are not my responsibility. Their need to control me is a sure sign that the relationship is unhealthy. They are deliberately hurting me, blaming or shaming me. That's not what love looks like. I had to make a conscious decision that I'm not going to give them the power to control me or keep me down. So I started working on ways to face fear and found inspiration from the wisdom of others who have studied and faced fear.
In South African Apartheid, Nelson Mandela knew bone-deep, life-threatening fear for much of his life. Yet, he wrote,
"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear,
but the triumph over it."
I've learned that when I've absorbed criticisms from certain people during most of my life, I started believing the falsehoods and blamed myself. Because those words were so programmed inside of me, I had a hard time unhearing them. I decided to take Nelson Mandela's advice and talk back to the fear to let it know I was not going to be conquered by it. Here are a couple of examples.
To talk back to Fear, repeat this mantra while walking:
Out, damned Fear,
You're not welcome here.
Out, damned Fear,
You're not welcome here.
In comes wisdom, abundance, peace,
Loving relationships that will not cease.
©Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra (with two words borrowed from Shakespeare).
Create movements or a dance to the mantra. Brush the fear off of you. Pull the wisdom, abundance, peace, and love inside of you.
Name it to tame it. We can talk back to people without them being present as another way to externalize the fear. To talk back to people (in their absence) who put you down, try this mantra. Punch the air every time you say the word "wrong." And create a hero or goddess pose with "I am strong!" Repeat it as many times as it takes to override the fear.
You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong,
You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong!
I can do this! I am strong!
©Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra
Fear is often at its worst for people when they are isolated. Alone in the night. Or feeling a deep aching loneliness in an unhealthy or dysfunctional relationship. It helps to talk to someone you can trust–a therapist, a true friend–about your fear. Telling someone about it externalizes it, which helps to make the fear less powerful, and helps the person to begin to claim their power back. Other ways to externalize it are to journal about it, or write it on a sheet of paper and rip up or burn the paper to triumph over the fear.
I invite you to join our community as we triumph over fear. Create your own mantra to triumph over fear and send it to us in writing or as a video. Or send us something artistic you created to help you conquer fear.
Tells us your story on instagram and follow us!
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I'll leave you with another inspiring quote: this one is from Marianne Williamson.
A whole new world awaits you as you let go of fear and claim the vast power you have.
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