I’m a General Practitioner – Five Ways to Recognize and Overcome Your Fears

It is not often that a day in our annual calendar is dedicated to a specific emotion, but still Halloween is exactly that. It is a day when the story focuses on the emotion of fear. Movies and TV shows compete to see how scary they can be and how far the plots, characters, and creatures can make us jump and hide our faces behind our hands.

Some of us enjoy being scared, while others find it crazy to be a part of it. Of course being afraid of a screen sample is different with the fears we face in real life, and yet our attitude towards both shows parallels.

Even if you don’t want to get involved in Halloween activities, it can be a useful time to think about how you deal with the emotion of fear.

Fear is a normal part of life. Most of the time we can handle these things, but if fear becomes a persistent emotion in the long term and we feel like we can’t deal with it, then we should seek professional help.

Being aware of how we deal with feelings of anxiety, for example when watch a classic Halloween moviecan give us insight and ideas on how to manage anxiety in real life, developing some useful strategies to overcome it.

Name it

Before we can deal with our feelings, we need to be able to notice them. A Halloween movie is labeled or titled as such, there are scary images in it in marketing and we can read the plot before buying a ticket. We need to do the same for how we feel.

We must allow ourselves to be afraid and not push that fear away or pretend that we are not afraid. Fear is a normal and appropriate emotion in certain circumstances, and it is universal. You shouldn’t do that feeling shame or stigma about being afraid in life.

Anxiety applies not only to children, but also to adults. When was the last time you heard an adult say he or she was afraid? It’s more than okay to do that, and if we’re honest and can name it and say it out loud, we can work through it and manage it.

Find the cause

Once we have identified the feeling, it is useful to try to find the cause. In a typical Halloween movie, common themes evoke fear: the unknown, uncertainty, a lack of emotional safety, security or supporta big change, or a character entering a situation unprepared. The same themes apply in life. Think about what you fear and identify the theme behind it. You can control that theme and do something about it, or you can’t. Recognizing this can help you reduce your anxiety.

At this moment

Fear and anxiety can be overwhelming emotions to deal with. But if we break them down into moments, they are become easier to process. Just like watching a scary movie may require you to take a deep breath, hold someone’s hand, pause the movie, or turn on the light, there are daily strategies you can use to overcome fear. Try breathing exercises, grounding, getting support from others, stepping away to find perspective and see how things really are, and slow down.

See the reality

If you can see the “monster” in a movie, it’s not as scary as you imagined. Many of our fears in life come from anticipation, from using our imagination to scare us and expecting the worst-case scenario. A lot of ‘what if’ questions can scare us, but if you change it to ‘what is’ then we can tackle problems, solve problems and act.

See the goal

Fear is an emotion that evolved with a purpose behind it: to help us survive and avoid danger in its most basic form. Being afraid in life is not fun, but if we use it properly, and it is a short-term emotion, it can be a motivator to push us to change things, solve problems and make things better.