Podcast Transcript:
These are the seven steps to recognizing fear and what you can do about it. Hey, there, I’m Jillian Kendrick and welcome to the Momentum Marketing Podcast. I’m a mama, a wife, an entrepreneur and a three time best selling co-author. In each episode, you’ll get real world practical advice and strategies and maybe a parenting tip or two along the way. If you’re ready to create a business that supports your family and your lifestyle, then you’re in the right place.
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Today we are talking about working through self sabotage and the seven steps that you can take to recognize fear and what to do about it. So, if you’ve been in business for any length of time whatsoever. Or heck. If you’ve been a human being for any length of time whatsoever, I’m sure you have experienced some form of self sabotage. I have not met a person yet in my life who hasn’t experienced some level of self sabotage. It just happens. It’s our fight or flight response. And instead of fighting or really understanding what to do with a certain situation or overcoming the feelings that we have about something we retreat. And not necessarily retreat like we run away from or we’re scared of it, but we retreat in the form of self sabotage. Another way to look at it is when we get very close to success, we self sabotage.
If you aren’t familiar with this book, go check it out on Amazon or audible wherever you like to get your books. The book is called The Big Leap by Gay Hendrix. You can grab the link in the description below and check it out and it’s all about what he refers to as upper limit problems. An upper limit problem can look like success, can be related to money, it can be related to happiness, it can be related to achieving something, it can be related to a number of different things, even health and some other stuff that he gets into. And he has, this is not mine, right? I don’t own the steps. But he has seven steps for recognizing fear and what to do about it, which relates to the work of self sabotage.
So he says when you start to feel that fear. You feel that anxiety. You feel like running to the pantry and grabbing all the junk food. Or you feel like escaping a conversation that you’re in. Or you’re getting super close to your ultimate success or your ultimate happiness, but inevitably something happens or you do something to ruin it. What does that mean? And how can we recognize it?
So Gay Hendrix in The Big Leap says, step one, notice that you’re worrying about something. We have to be able to recognize that we are worrying or that we’re having these feelings or these fears. We have to recognize that this is even happening within us before we can do anything about it. So I think the recognition for me really is the biggest part. Understand what your cues are. So for some people, it’s: “Hey, I have a really big project to do that I know is going to be very difficult. And it’s going to take a lot of time. And rather than starting that project and just chipping away at it, I’m going to go and do a bunch of busy work that doesn’t matter and doesn’t make me any money so that I feel busy and I feel and I can ignore the thing that I actually need to get done.” That’s one way of recognizing that self sabotage. Another thing for some people, food or alcohol, maybe recreational drugs or something else like that could be a coping mechanism. So, if you find yourself running to that, that would be another great way of recognizing your self sabotage.
If you’re married or in a committed relationship. Have you ever had a moment where you have really, really good days. Maybe you have several days or even a couple of weeks in a row of really good days with your partner or your spouse or your significant other. And then just out of nowhere, you get into a fight. Whether, like, they caused it or you started it. It doesn’t matter if you have a string of really good amazing days and then you get into a fight that is another form of self sabotage. And he actually talks about that a little bit in the book. Where he talks about our inability to be happy and receive joy and receive happiness. That inevitably we self sabotage. And we have to cause some kind of a drama because we don’t believe that we’re worthy enough of being happy, or being happy for that long, or being at that level of happiness and sustaining it. That inevitably something’s going to go wrong. Another great way to recognize self sabotage is that exactly. It’s the feeling of, well, everything’s been really good, what’s gonna go wrong. Everything’s been going my way. Something is bound to be a disaster. That’s another great recognition of self sabotage. Often subconsciously whether we know it or not, we will do something to cause that to happen. And he talks about that in the book.
So step number one is just noticing and being able to recognize that you are having feelings, that you are worried about something, that you’re nervous. Or understanding what those feelings are. And I would even add a secondary step in here. I would say, yes, recognize what your trigger is. But then write it down and put it somewhere that you can see it. So that the next time that trigger happens, you can look at that piece of paper or you can look at your phone and say, oh yeah, on this day, at this time when I was doing this thing, I also felt this feeling. Ok. And you can start to see patterns. So recognizing it is just fine and it’s very important. I agree with him. Secondary to that is being able to see those patterns and being able to anticipate the things that are going to make you worry or the things that trigger those feelings within you. Because it’s not just about solving the self sabotage or recognizing the fear in that one instance. But it’s doing it for that one instance and all the other instances that follow so that you can get better at it and you can see patterns and you can anticipate those things.
My husband, who I love very dearly, was not always the greatest traveler. He was a very nervous traveler. It drove me nuts. Inevitably, every single time we would go on a trip, he would pick a fight with me. Whether it was me going on a trip, him going on a trip or us going together. He would always pick a fight at least a day or two, if not the night before we would go somewhere. And that was always super frustrating. And then he would have some kind of, let’s call it digestive distress, either before we left or at the airport or after the fact. He was just such a nervous worry traveler. It actually took us several years to realize that there was a pattern. And it took me a while to understand how I can deal with that and support him through it. And it took him some time to recognize that he does that as well. But now that we’ve recognized that pattern, now we prepare for it. Now we talk through it. And not to say that it’s perfect because it’s not. But when we know those cues and we understand the triggers that we have for our fears and our worries and our self sabotage, then we can talk through them better and we can recognize them and we can see those patterns.
The second step that Gay Hendrix talks about in recognizing fear is to let go of worry. Worry is just the body’s reaction to fear and worrying. Does it actually do you any good? How many of us have spent hours upon hours worrying, contemplating, thinking through all the scenarios for it to not actually be beneficial in any way. Worry and fear are our body’s reactions to potential threats. It’s a protective mechanism that the body developed over time and through evolution. So when we worry about something. When we’re fearful of something, that’s our body saying, hey, there’s a threat, there’s something that I don’t like. There’s something that can hurt us. We need to be aware of this and we need to stay away from it because we want to stay alive. But there’s a very big difference between, let’s say an animal who’s trying to attack you and that’s in your mind and that’s theoretical and an actual animal in front of you that’s trying to attack you and eat you. They can feel exactly the same, our bodies and our fears perceive them exactly the same, but they’re completely different. So his step two of letting go of worry is just saying, recognize that your body has this fear response and it’s trying to protect you and sustain your life. But actually reality when it comes to, let’s say a conversation with a client, or a hard talk that you have to have with a spouse, or an in-law that you might not get along with, or a friend that you see doing the wrong thing, or a project that, you know, is going to take a really long time and be very difficult and you haven’t started it, or overcoming an addiction or insert thing.We all have them. But when you can recognize that you have that worry and realize, ok, a conversation with my spouse is probably not going to result in my death. Disagreeing with a friend, probably not going to result in my death. Having a hard conversation with a client. I might lose that client, but I’m not going to die. And even though that sounds very polarizing and very traumatic, this really is the way that our bodies perceive those things. So letting go of worry, letting go of that stress and anxiety and it’s not easy. There is a lot of inner work that has to be done in order to do that successfully. But step number two is letting go of that worry.
Step number three for Gay Hendrix from The Big Leap is, approach the situation with a sense of wonder. Think of it this way. What new positive thing is trying to come into my life rather than perceiving our self sabotage or our fear and worry as something bad is coming. Flip the switch, think of it in the positive rather than in the negative. And instead of saying, oh gosh, what horrible thing is coming to kill me, think of it as what new, positive, amazing thing is coming into my life that’s trying to break through that wall. And when you can come at it from the positive and look at it that way, then you open yourself up to receiving rather than closing yourself off because you don’t want to be losing something.
Step number four, what do you feel? I think this goes back to that secondary first step of recognizing that fear, recognizing what you feel in the moment, write it down. Is it a visceral reaction? Is it, my stomach hurts? Is it a headache? Is it body aches? Is there a physicality to it? Do you walk away? Do you run to get something? Is it food? Is it cigarettes? Recognizing what you feel in that moment and what your reaction is to that thing and write it down.
Step number five, open your focus to feel that feeling completely. So I think a lot of people grew up and experienced the parenting style of shutting down feelings. I could talk about this for hours and hours and hours. There’s a lot to that. But I’m sure a lot of us growing up, when we cried, our parents were like, hey, you need to stop crying or I will give you something to cry about.Or when we were feeling hurt or we felt rejected or upset or name another feeling we weren’t often taught. At least I wasn’t. How to recognize those feelings, how to name those feelings and what to do about those feelings. Because our parents weren’t taught to recognize, feel and deal with their own feelings. The way that they parented us was to shut them down. And what Gay Hendrix is saying is instead of telling yourself, oh, I’m feeling this thing and it’s on Monday at 2 p.m. and I felt afraid of having to call a client and give them bad news and that’s really important. We need to recognize it. We need to write it down, we need to name that feeling for sure. But he says, instead of shutting yourself down and saying, don’t worry about it, don’t be fearful, don’t feel it. He’s saying open yourself up and feel that feeling. Let it be what it is because it’s just a feeling. It’s not an animal in front of you attacking you. It’s just a feeling. He says, focus and feel that feeling completely.
Step six is to feel it deeply as long as you can or as long as you need to and then let it go. So rather than recognizing the feeling and trying to stop feeling it, he says, recognize the feeling, give it a name, appreciate it for what it is. It’s our body’s physical response to fear or anxiety. Focus on it, feel it deeply and see if you can tie that feeling back to some form of gratitude.
That’s step seven. See if you can tie it back to a positive thing that is supposed to be coming into your life. So for the couples who have had strings of really good days and then out of the blue, they fight. See if you can recognize that as, oh, we’ve never gone a week without fighting or 10 days without fighting. And the thing that’s trying to come into my life is an opportunity to be this happy for a longer period of time and my body is resisting it. And I need to be open to the idea of receiving that. And this comes in all forms, right? This isn’t just happiness or relationships. This can be money, this can be success, this can be health, this can be lots of other things. Whatever it is that you are dealing with in the moment because when we don’t recognize that fear, when we don’t understand the worry or where it’s coming from, that’s what leads to that self sabotage. That’s what leads to. Well, I’m not deserving of being this, or I’m unworthy of feeling that and then I’m going to go do something that proves that I’m right. So notice that you’re worrying about something, try to let go of the worry and just accept it for what it is. Label it, number it, add a date to it. Recognize those patterns, have a sense of wonder of what sort of positive thing is trying to break down that wall to come into your life. Recognizing what you feel, opening yourself to feeling that thing and feeling it as long as you can and then letting it go and turning that feeling around from worry into a form of gratitude.
Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the Momentum Marketing Podcast. If listening to this has brought you value, improved your life, or given you insight on how to build your own momentum, then please share it with a friend. And I’ll see you on the next episode.
The Momentum Marketing Podcast
By Jillian Kendrick
Episode: # 29
Topic: Recognizing and over coming fear
Contact: hello@jilliankendrick.com
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The Big Leap by Gay Hendrix
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