We cannot overcome fear without moving THROUGH it. Not around it, not under it… through it! We have to face our fears if we want to let go of them and live in freedom from the fear.
Fear shows up in all sorts of ways and for various reasons. While this episode can be applied generally, I will be discussing fear specifically in the context of eating disorder recovery.
Fear isn't real...
I’m sorry, WHAT?!
Would you believe me if I told you that fear isn’t real?
The definition of fear: actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed.
Now, yes you can be 100% sure (fact) that you feel fear but it IS imaginary. Let me explain further… If the fear of let’s say eating sugar was real, then everyone in the world would be afraid of it too.
If the fear of gaining weight was real, then everyone else in the world would be afraid of it too.
And they’re not.
Granted, in this society, I’d say sadly that the majority of people (women especially) are afraid of gaining weight but not all of them. I am not afraid of gaining weight yet weight gain was my ultimate fear from the age of 9 until the age of around 32. I have overcome my biggest fear even AS society was mirroring back to me that I should be afraid of it.
So… your fears around taking recovery actions are imaginary.
Now, I’m not here to piss you off by telling you what you feel (very strongly) is not valid because it absolutely IS valid. AND I understand how you feel. BUT I am here to help you to see that because fear is imagined, you have the power to un-imagine it and become free.
Beyond fear lies freedom.
Fear can't hurt you...
But the eating disorder can.
And here’s the thing about fear; the more you run away from it and try to avoid it, the bigger and stronger it gets. So by trying to avoid facing your fears, you’re actually “feeding” them and making them stronger.
Harry Potter fans where you are? What’s that spell that creates a “fake” vision in front of you of what you’re most afraid of? So if you’re afraid of spiders, it will create a huge scary looking spider out to get you. If you’re afraid of your mother in law it will create her coming to get you etc.
In order to make the spell go away, you have to face your fear with courage, not run from it. When you do that, the “scary vision” turns comical. The spider has roller skates on for example and falls over its own legs. The mother in law turns naked and is sat on the toilet. You get the gist…
When you see the fear for what it really is- an imaginary made up concept that you created via your behaviours over time due to watching others be afraid of the same thing or by creating rules to follow in an attempt to help yourself feel safe- it’s easier to move through the fear.
When we don’t have awareness of what the fear actually is and where it came from, it can consume us.
When we do have the awareness and we know where and why it was created, it’s beneficial to us because it can give us the clarity and courage to move through it. Let me give you an example;
My biggest fear was gaining weight and so for 20 years I’d behave and think in a way that created and then reinforced that fear. I’d skip meals, count calories, over exercise etc etc (you know the score) in an attempt to lose weight or not gain weight. If anyone were to watch me, they’d be able to see that I was afraid of weight gain via my behaviours. They wouldn’t even need to get into my head to see that I was afraid of weight gain.
You train yourself via your behaviours
You know who else was watching my behaviours? My BRAIN . I had trained my brain to be afraid of weight gain. When your brain is conditioned to be afraid of something it takes it very seriously. It will do everything in its power (and let’s face it, your brain has a lot of power and influence on you) to stop you from doing anything that goes against that fear.
So if you are afraid of weight gain and you go to eat PB out of the jar, it will SCREAM at you not to do it. It will send emotions of fear, guilt, panic, shame etc to support its case. You have showed your brain that weight gain is DANGEROUS via your behaviours over time. Your bran believes you (that food and weight gain is dangerous) because otherwise why would you be acting afraid of it?
And then when you do the deeper work to uncover the fear beneath the fear is when you know why you are afraid of weight gain…
The fear beneath the fear
The ultimate fear beneath any fear is the fear of not being able to handle it. So let’s stick with the fear of weight gain.
For me, weight gain meant looking unattractive.
To me, looking unattractive meant the end of the world.
Why? Because then I wouldn’t be admired and praised and lusted after and validated.
If I didn’t have those things what would that mean?
It would mean that I had no power, I wouldn’t be taken seriously, I wouldn’t be wanted, I wouldn’t be loved, I wouldn’t be SAFE. I would die if I wasn’t safe!!!
So my fear of weight gain was actually a fear of not being safe, wanted and loved. When this fear was created I was a child. Not being safe, wanted or loved as a child is matter of life or death. That’s why I acted like it was. It felt like it was. And the more I acted like I was afraid of weight gain in all the ways, the more my brain was wried TO BE afraid of weight gain.
As a child I felt powerless and so thinness and beauty was the “antidote” to that powerlessness. Having power feels safe.
As a child I genuinely couldn’t handle feeling powerless, hence why the coping behaviours were created by little me.
As an adult I CAN handle feeling powerless because now I know the truth…
I AM enough as I am. I am loved. I am safe. It’s ok to not be perfect. It’s ok to not be lusted after by most people. It’s ok because all I was seeking was love. I can see that now. And love is all around me if I allow myself to see it and to receive it. I don’t need to be perfect in order to be loved.
I found out this truth by re-parenting myself. Giving and receiving compassion from and to myself. It took work. It took tears, heartbreak, grief, anger, and all the things. But I kept showing up for myself. I kept pushing through. I kept facing my food fears and by weight gain fears.
Why? Because I wanted freedom so badly and I was willing to do whatever it fucking took to get there. I was afraid every day anyway so why not be afraid and become less afraid over time by facing my fears?
And you CAN handle any emotion that wants to be felt. How do I know that? Because you’re here and something led you here to read this. You are no longer a child. You have the ability now to re-parent yourself. You are looking for a way out of your current situation and here it is. You are seeking another way and let me tell you…
What you seek is also seeking you.
You have absolutely everything you need within you to overcome all of your fears. I know this as a fact. The courage and compassion you need? It’s already within you. Allow it to come out. Be a parent to little you. Show her the truth via your actions.
Remember, you train yourself via your behaviours and so you can retrain your brain NOT to be afraid of weight gain by acting like someone who isn’t afraid of it with consistency and repetition and a shit load of courage and compassion.
Danger is not the same as fear
I want to touch on actual danger for a moment as it’s helpful to see why fear is even a human thing.
If you are being chased by a bear then you are in danger. You would go into a fear response and feel fear which would motivate you to ran the hell away or hide or whatever it was in an attempt to protect yourself from potential death.
If you didn’t feel fear, you wouldn’t react and you’d most likely die.
The thing is, because of how you react to, let’s say weight gain over time with consistency, your brain and nervous system THINKS you are in danger. And so it will act accordingly.
The truth is, you are not in danger if you gain weight or eat sugar… unless you’re literally severely allergic to sugar, then you might be in danger. Adipose tissue (fat on the body) or sugar hasn’t killed anybody (as far as I know). And before you come at me with a bunch of statistics about obesity being the death of this generation, it’s not the actual fat tissue, it’s the health problems that have been created due a number of different reasons, not the actual fat. Read health at every size to get you started with what I’m saying here if this is new to you.
You are not your brain
You’ve heard me say this a lot. You are not your brain. It’s because you are NOT your brain. You have a brain. You have a nervous system which is intertwined with the brain and how you experience life but both of these things have been conditioned and wired by YOU. Primarily from when you were first conceived up until the age of around 7. When you were in your mother’s womb you were influenced by how she felt and what she experienced. You were preparing for life in the world your mother lived in which would also be the same world you would be born into. And so if you’re mother was regularly anxious and in fear, you would develop a heightened nervous system in preparation for this unsafe world…
From when you were born up until the age of 7, you were conditioned in every way by your parents, your caregivers and society.
You are a product of your upbringing and environment.
You cannot avoid that. Nobody can.
You can however, change whatever you don’t like. If you don’t like feeling afraid of weight gain, you can change that. If you don’t like always feeling the need to be doing something and not being able to relax, you can change that too. If you don’t like being a control freak, you can change that too! It just takes effort, consistency, commitment, compassion and healing. That’s what my coaching is all about.
You don’t have to be repeating the same patterns that your parents had. You don’t have to keep living this way if it is not serving you. what do you want? And are you WILLING to get what you want?
Want vs willing
There is a difference between want and willing. Let me give you a real life example…
I want to be able to speak Dutch so I can actually understand what the hell people are saying. However, I am not willing to put in all the effort it would take to learn it. I’ve put some effort in. It’s hard work and I am not doing it consistently enough to see any benefits.
So even though I want to speak Dutch, I’m not doing what it takes in order for me to actually learn it so that I can speak it. And so I don’t want it badly enough.
And that’s ok! I take full responsibility for that. Instead of me bullshitting myself and others and saying “I don’t have time.” or “It’s really hard I’m just not getting it.” I now say “I’m not willing to do the work necessary to learn it.”
I did however want full freedom and self love more than anything in the world. And that’s why I’ve got it. My mantra was “whatever it fucking takes” and I did whatever it took. Was I scared? YES, petrified! Was it easy? NO! Did I know how? NOPE. I got support and learnt how one day at a time. I faced my FEARS head on and did the deeper work underneath the fears so that I was no longer afraid.
I found freedom on the other side of each fear I faced. It became a no-brainer to face whatever fear I had because that’s how I overcame the fear. That was the equation to freedom.
Freedom doesn’t come for free though…
I had to give up control, my sense of safety, the sense of ‘doing it right’, the need to be attractive and validated externally. I had to let all of that go and mourn the loss of that And that was fucking painful let me tell you. But in exchange I got freedom! And it’s worth it a million times over.
How to actually overcome fear
I could have answered this question right at the beginning as it’s a simple (but not easy to do) answer. You’ve most likely gathered the answer during this episode but I’ll give it to you in black and white;
You overcome fear by facing and then walking into it over and over again as you’re doing the inner work to heal the wounding that created the fear in the first place.
This looks like;
If you’re afraid of Nutella, eat jars of it.
If you’re afraid of weight gain, act like you’re not. Wear nice clothes that fit the body you have now. Eat what you want. Stop putting things off until you’ve “lost the weight”. Go after the life you want in the body you have now. Create it for yourself now and show yourself via your behaviours that there is nothing to be feared.
And remember the 3 C’s…
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- Consistency
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- Commitment
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- Compassion
You have absolutely got this Queen and remember, fear cannot hurt you, the eating disorder can.
Fear and faith are both invisible not real and so you may as well choose faith, right?
If you’d like support on your journey to full freedom and self love then reach out to me. I’m here for you and we’ll face your fears together.
