7 Ways to Shift from Fear to Freedom

You don't need expensive methods or tools to feel more confident and less constrained.

Photo by Fuu J on Unsplash

As someone who rarely acknowledged her fear for most of my life, I would use work and overwork as a way to push past it.

The result? A ton of illnesses and hospital stays.

But my body was so strong, I was able to remain stubbornly ignorant for decades. I was also blessed with a relentless drive to achieve and delighted in overcoming new work challenges. Perhaps it was a bug, but I treated it as a feature.

Fast forward to about 10 years ago when my son started having sleep challenges. For the first time in my career, I struggled deeply.

The combination of a demanding start-up C-level role, navigating my family’s needs, and lack of sleep took its toll.

I couldn’t work my way out of this one. In fact, I struggled to work at all. My executive functions were all haywire. I had issues prioritizing, being decisive, and a growing sense of dread every time I thought about work. It felt like I was making mistakes left and right.

Throughout my career, I was known for my mix of confidence and openness. Now I lacked both. I sought approval from everyone all the time and got defensive whenever someone shared their input. Some days, I felt like I was running through a gauntlet where I could be taken down at every turn. Other days, I felt like an injured animal crouching in a dark cave, scared to venture out, and not quite making sense of the world around me.

Years of work in mindfulness, therapy, and coaching helped me to break free.

I was fortunate to have a supportive boss and colleagues who empathized with my struggle and stepped in to help me in a variety of ways. But in the end, the only way to navigate this difficult period successfully was to arm myself with new tools and practices.

What had worked for me in the past was not going to work going forward. I needed to find new ways to cope and thrive.

It took me over 6 years to make significant progress. It helped that my son’s sleep challenges eventually improved.

I created this mini guide as a digest of the learnings I found most useful. Perhaps it will be a reference you can use today or sometime in the future when you are struggling with fear and feeling constrained. It might also be something you can share with others in your life — at work or at home — who might also be navigating a difficult period.

Use this guide to help you (a) identify when you are starting to feel fear that is not helpful, and (b) the simple ways you can shift yourself away from fear to a more relaxed, confident, and open state.

A little more about fear before we get started.

When we are in fear, and we often are, we access our primal and evolutionary capability of fight or flight. Our nervous system releases cortisol and adrenaline, our breathing becomes shallow, parts of our body tense up, our digestion slows, and we become hyper-focused. This response was designed long ago to keep us safe.

Fortunately, most of the dangers of times past (lions, tigers, bears), don’t pose a danger to most people today. Yet our mind and our bodies continue to use this deep wiring when we perceive we are at risk in some way. This can lead us to patterns of thinking and behaviors that bring us away from what we want.

The good news is that there are ways to break away from these patterns. There are several ways to rewire our responses to fear that is not caused by a life-threatening situation, so that you can be more relaxed, open, and creative, states that will help you engage more effectively at work and in life.

Core Principles Behind the Shifts

When we are in fight or flight mode, we become laser-focused on our perceived fear and often lose sight of the broader context. In short, we become less present.

These shifts help us return to a state of presence by using our various senses to help us take in the broader context. This will relax our fear response and give our brain a chance to refocus on what is truly important vs. what our fear is telling us is important.

Identifying When You are Feeling Fear

Before you can begin to shift when you are in fear, you first need to identify the signs of fear that is not helpful. Imagine a situation at work or at home where you are triggered and feel fear.

• What starts you feeling the fear?

  • Is it a thought you have?

  • Is it something someone says or does?

  • Is there a context change around you?

• Where do you feel it in your body?

  • What happens to how you position your body?

  • How are you sitting or standing when you feel it?

• What do you see, hear, taste or touch?

Imagine a few scenarios and reflect upon what you experience. This will help you identify when you feel fear. Take a minute to jot down each scenario and what you experience.

Now go through each of the scenarios you envisioned and mark down which ones are ones where your fear is not helping you. These are the ones we will work on rewiring our response to. Going forward, we’ll look for these experience signals as indications you will want to make a shift.

7 Ways to Shift from Fear to Freedom Guide

When you identify a situation where you are feeling fear that is not helpful, you have several options to help you shift from a fearful, constrained state. Below are some of the ones I have found the most effective and easy to draw upon in a personal or professional setting.

Choose any of the options below and do them for as little as 10 seconds or as long as you have time for (2-5 minutes can be a good starting point) to start to shift.

Don’t be surprised if the fear is still there or comes back. Your wiring is deep. Use these shifts again and again – and give yourself time. Sometimes, your fear will last for days or even weeks. That is OK. It will eventually pass.

Also, don’t be worried if it takes you time to identify your fears or find shifts that work best for you. It took me years to find the ones that work best for me under different circumstances, and I still practice these models regularly. I also find myself struggling at times when I’m faced with new contexts and challenges — that’s normal. Even the Dalai Lama talks about his struggles and he is a master practioner.

You’ll know it’s starting to work for you when you feel more relaxed after you identify the fear, knowing that you aren’t trapped, but have many options to shift and that even if it takes time, you have tools at your disposal.

1. Breathe

More oxygen into our brains activates our “thinking brain” (the parasympathetic nervous system) and helps calm us.

1. Slow intentional, inhales & exhales: You can do this 3 times for 1 minute or set a timer for 5 min

2. Box Method: 4 seconds in, 4 seconds hold, 4 seconds out, 4 seconds hold

3. Modified Lion’s Breath: In through your nose, open your jaw wide and say “Ha” as you exhale. You can do this as many times as you like. I prefer 3-4 times.

2. Touch

When you shift your focus, you give your brain a chance to recalibrate away from your fear.

1. Your fingertips and hands: Rub two fingertips together slowly enough where you can feel the ridges in your skin. Then gently and slowly glide your fingertips of one hand up and down the palm of the other hand and then do the same with the other hand.

2. Your seat, feet: Feel the support of the chair, cushion, floor beneath you. The temperature, material, hardness or softness.

3. An object near you: Feel the texture, the temperature, the shape.

3. Move

When we move our bodies, we can increase our endorphins, the “feel good” neurotransmitters.

1. Smaller Space

   1. Stretch: Your arms, neck, wrists, and core twist, which you can do on your chair.

   2. Jump: Jumping jacks (or step jacks) or on one foot for 10 seconds

   3. Dance: Pick a tune or just dance in silence.

   4. Pushups: Do them on your knees or feet. Focus on form and breathing. 3-5 or more if you feel up for it.

   5. Plank: Try to hold for 20 sec, on your forearms or hands.

   6. Downward Dog or Child’s Pose: Hold for 10-20 sec.

2. Larger space

   1. Walk: Take a 5-10 minute walk inside or outside.

   2. Run: Take a quick 2-5 jog.

4. Listen

When you listen, you are more present to what is happening around you. This shifts your brain’s focus away from fear.

1. What is the closest sound you can hear? Listen for 10 seconds.

2. What is the furthest sound you can hear? Listen for 10 seconds.

3. Music: Choose something that uplifts you or relaxes you.

5. Look and observe

1. Look at an object near you.

2. Observe its shape, colors, shadows, highlights. See how the color and shading change throughout the object.

6. Taste

We often eat and drink without observing how the food or drink tastes and feels. Pausing to do so calms our nervous system and enjoy the experience more.

1. Get yourself a cold or hot cup of water. It can be tea or something fizzy.

2. Taste the flavor, how it moves in your mouth, how it feels when you swallow, and how it feels in your belly.

7. Play

Our brains relax when we perceive that the stakes are low and the goal is simply to have fun.

1. Choose something you find easy and fun: a puzzle, solitaire, doodling, playing an instrument.

You cannot control when fear grips you, but you can control for how long.

I shared the 7 strategies above because I have found that at different moments, I gravitate to different approaches.

Fear doesn’t take one shape or form and it isn’t triggered by one particular person or condition. It can morph over time, so you will want to morph your approach as well.

I still get triggered by certain types of behaviors or conditions — someone getting loud and angry, or when I’m tired and hungry, I can be more susceptible to negative thoughts. If I am confronted with an aggressive driver or an inconsiderate comment, I can start to feel the bindings of fear start to entwine around me.

What’s different today is that I can identify these feelings sooner, and choose to pause and use one of the strategies above. The result? Sometimes I catch fear so early I don’t even feel it’s effects and other times, I simply don’t have to dwell in them. I am able to access my full executive function because I haven’t let my fear block me.

I see this with my clients as well. One will now stop herself from spiraling into negative thoughts if her boss asks what she used to perceive as a challenging question. Instead, she gets curious and asks for clarification or simply schedules a meeting where they can have a helpful discussion.

Another client has stopped undervaluing herself when she feels that something didn’t go as well as she planned. She can now shift her thinking and choose a more strategic response, and as a result, her team feels more inspired and motivated.

I’ve now seen this positive impact on so many people. I hope you can try some of these out and let me know if it works for you.

I’d love to hear from you.

What is a strategy that has helped you when you are feeling constrained? How has it helped you access your executive function or simply relate more positively to people around you? Share in the comments below.

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