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Ep32 Transcending Fear

Hello and Welcome to the Way of the Emotional Warrior Podcast. My name is Kai Ehnes and today we will be answering the question of: How do we transcend fear?

Welcome to the New Year of 2021. Most of us love to create a new vision of what we want to become at the beginning of a new year. Resolutions, vision boards, new affirmations or mantras, getting into better shape, trying something new…all in all making some changes.

Let’s take a breath for a second. What an amazing amount of pressure we put on ourselves each New Year’s day. We just made it through the holidays and family interactions, some good, some crazy. Now we want to totally reinvent ourselves?

How successful have you been at this in the past? Sure, you probably declared new intentions and even started them but take a look how long or short these declarations last. Gym memberships skyrocket the first week of January and then decline sharply. Diets get started but if you are lucky you make it right to Valentine’s Day when all the sugar treats get thrown in front of you.

This goes on and on, year after year. It is the fodder for any late night comedian. So, why do your intentions simply not last?

This is the work of an emotional warrior. You have to have some sort of leverage to be able to sustain the shift. So how do you get that leverage? What does this even mean?

Leverage means that you have something in your life that you value more than whatever the activity holds that you wish to change. Let’s say you want to work out because you think it will help you feel better. All fine and good until not working out simply feels better than working out. Duh…of course you are going to go work out…NOT.

So, how do you find or get the proper leverage? For some people it will be a life threatening event. Maybe through a heart attack you find healthier food and being alive carries more value for you than eating charred meat. There are numerous examples but what I want to focus on here is the emotional component of leveraging yourself.

What is it that makes us feel so good doing things that are not good for us? Its simple. We firmly believe that feeling good means that we are safe. We seek comfort because that is how we knew that we get to live. Think of the baby that is comforted in its mother’s arms being held close and told that everything will be ok.

Now that you are an adult consider the flaw in this though. Instead of eating healthier foods after the heart attack you get the sack of greasy food which is what you put you into danger in the first place.

In his 2011 work, Stephen Porges, posits that in order to meet our need for socialization, a third subsystem in our brain developed called our “higher social brain” aka the “ventral vagal complex. Evolution transformed our brain to a more complex brainstem which activates when we see a smiling face, a relaxed face, hear a soothing voice, notice that others are calmly gesturing. He called these our social safety cues. This allows us to feel safe in the closeness of others.

That is the neuroscience of our safety and comfort net. It obviously works and has served us. But there is more. We can transcend this. Why should we? Because we all have the right and ability to grow and become more. That is the point of our life. Authentic emotional warriors seek expansion in their lives.

So can you and how do you conquer fear? According to Tim Ferris, conquering fear starts with defining fear. What about those people who are always optimistic? He says that often they are disguising their fear in their excessive optimism. In the world of Emotional Warriors we always seek balance, harmony and homeostasis.

The best place to begin defining fear is take the worst case scenario version of what you are stuck in. Ex: Let’s say you want to eat healthier. You stumble upon vegetables. OH my, I couldn’t possibly stop eating meat. I need the iron and protein plus I am supposed to eat meat,...