Published 17/09/2024 by Joanne Jones

How to Face Your Fears?

Fear is one of the most primal and universal emotions, known to be triggered by evolutionary mechanisms like the fear response, fight or flight mode, designed to send a spike of fear signals to ensure our survival and protect us from real danger.

Yet, it can also be the biggest obstacle holding us back from achieving our true potential or feeling fulfilled in our lives.

In the last decade, there has been considerable new research in the study of fears by research groups at the Institute for Neuroscience and Fear and the National Institute of Mental Health on the causes of fears and phobias and how to effectively manage these conditions.

Scientists have broken down human fears into 4 main types:

1. Panic Disorder: Uncontrolled and often repeated panic attacks
2. Social Anxiety Disorders: Fear of being in social environments.
3. Agoraphobia: Fears of being in crowded places and unable to escape.
4. Specific Phobias: Fears from objects or situations (e.g. flying, darkness, spiders, or snakes)

Learning to face your fears is not about being bolshy, bold, and brave; it is about taking complete control of your life and understanding your emotions so you do not let fear dictate your daily life.

Our team of experts have the most successful tried-and-tested tips and strategies to help you transform fear from a frightful problem into a powerful motivator that will help you soar to success and give you the courage to take on more significant obstacles, too. Here's a complete expert guide on how to face your fears with success.

How to Face Fear?

Before you can learn how to face your fear, you need to recognise that you are afraid; whether you think it is an irrational fear or not, the fearful emotional response is still there, and any fear is frightful and unwanted.

We all have fears of some sort, from public speaking to spiders, roller coasters, fear of dogs, fear of flying, and being in social situations. Fear is a normal and inevitable part of life; even the bravest people have things that scare them and cause a degree of anxiety.

Common fears include the fear of rejection, fear of loneliness and the fear of the unknown. Anxiety specialists would wholeheartedly agree that the first step in learning how to face your fear is to recognise that you are feeling afraid.

Acknowledge that you are scared, but try not to judge yourself negatively for it. Remember that your fear does not have to control you. Take control of your fear by being proactive and making an action plan to combat it.

Take Time

Hurrying through fear only adds urgency, which can increase feelings of anxiety and make the fearful situation feel much more frightening than it is. Giving yourself time to breathe and process your feelings allows you to rationalise your fear, which is a massive part of learning how to face your fears and helps you understand the root cause of the fear emotion.

Taking the time to pause and process allows your brain to slow down the heart racing and alleviates feelings of panic and possible full-on panic attacks. This can even help you stay calm when under pressure and make better decisions when facing your fears.

You can cope with the difficult situation through controlled breath work, meditation, or simply stopping to pause and giving yourself space to think; granting yourself time helps you grow stronger and increases your ability to cope.

Challenge Unhelpful Thoughts

Unhelpful negative thoughts about the situation often accompany fear, pessimistic, disordered emotions and thinking amplify the danger signals and make things seem far worse.

For instance, thinking that 'I'm not good enough' or 'I can't handle this' can bring about stronger feelings of powerlessness. Unpack your fears and act by questioning the accuracy of such thinking. Choose to limit these lines of thinking and replace them with more positive thoughts.

We can all benefit from cognitive-behavioural techniques that help us to reframe our thinking and look at challenges in a more realistic way. You only have so much mental energy available, and finding ways to diminish the force of fearful thinking helps reduce the stress that fear generates. This process makes breaking out of the unhealthy feedback loop caused by fear much easier.

Breakdown Your Fear

Large, looming fears can feel unbearable and often overwhelming. They become less intimidating by breaking them down and making them more manageable.

Ask yourself the question: What's at the core of the fear? What is it that scares you most, and why? What was the original cause of this fear? It might not be easy to understand immediately, so be willing to do some detective work and dig around in your mind. Keep asking yourself why you're so afraid until you identify the answers.

Take the time to break that fear into smaller pieces and start to focus on one piece at a time. This means identifying the specific aspects of your fear and addressing them individually, which can make the fear seem less overwhelming and more manageable.

Visualise Your Happy Place

Visualisation can be another useful way how to face your fears.

Visualise a place that you feel safe, calm, and comfortable in. This might be your favourite spot in your home, a sunny, warm beach with sparkling clear blue water, or a relaxed place in nature, a place where you can transport yourself in your mind. By visualising this place whenever you confront your fears, you can visualise yourself away from the dangerous situation causing fear.

With practice, you can develop an inner haven of calm that you can retreat to during fear to help you deal with and overcome challenges.

Change the Way You See Fear

Most of us have been conditioned to see fear as something to avoid, as visceral evidence that we're doing something wrong.

A better approach is reframing fear as a sign of growth and not something to be avoided. See fear as a guide, showing where you need to improve and grow, rather than as a force to prevent you from learning or doing things in your everyday life. With this kind of brain training, fear becomes much less of an obstacle to overcome and more of a stepping stone along your path.

If you can think about fear in this way, you can learn how to face your fears head-on with confidence and curiosity rather than dread.

Talk to Someone

Fear shouldn't be faced alone. If you have a friend, family member, or a health professional with whom you can talk in confidence about your fears, then this would be the best way forward.

Discussing your fears with someone else will make you feel less alone and isolated. Verbalising your fears can make them feel less magnified and overwhelming.

In addition, receiving encouragement and advice from someone else can give you the strength and motivation to conquer your fears. Talking with another person makes you feel less scared and more equipped to handle whatever you fear.

Psychic Readings

Unlock the power to conquer your deepest fears with the expert guidance of Trusted Psychics UK. Our skilled psychic reading experts are the key to unlocking the complex maze in your mind to find your deepest fears.

The natural ability of the top psychics at Trusted Psychics provides unique spiritual insights that help you understand why you are scared and confront what keeps you from overcoming this frightful feeling.

By communicating with spiritual helpers like our spirit guides and angels and using their intuitive abilities, our live psychic readers can help you tackle the challenge head-on.

Our psychics will reveal thoughts, actions and emotions leading to the cause of your fear and then offer spiritual advice and expert tips on how to face your fears and transform them into stepping stones for personal growth.

Whatever is causing you to fear, whether it's fear of the unknown, change, past trauma, or you want to find how to face your fear of heights, a psychic reading with Trusted Psychics UK can give you the knowledge and insights that empower you to overcome obstacles with a clear mind and newfound courage.

FAQs: On How to Face Your Fears

What Is the Best Way to Overcome Fear?

The best way to face your fears is by taking them to the battlefield and encountering the fear head-on.

Mental health professionals call this exposure therapy. In this case, you're 'exposing' yourself to the things you fear in bite-size pieces until facing those fears has become easier over time.

The first step is to identify what it is that you fear. Then, break the challenge into 'bite-size' smaller challenges that you can tackle one at a time. As fear diminishes, you will gain confidence and 'muscle memory' by facing the situations you once felt paralysed by.

By doing the thing you fear repeatedly, you gradually diminish its power over you. Your brain is literally 'rewired' to see these situations in terms of your success with them rather than your anxiety at what may happen or how you will cope.

If you combine this with relaxation techniques, you will have more chance of success.

How to Stop Being Scared?

Shifting your mindset is the keyway to stop feeling this fearful human emotion.

Start by visualising the positive outcomes from the situation that is scaring you. See it successfully unfolding and feel stronger for overcoming your fears.

Recognise the fear, but don't let it dictate your actions. Perform grounding techniques to alleviate the physical symptoms of your fear, such as deep breathing or physical exercise.

Speak to a mental health professional or a trusted friend who can offer you some strategies to free yourself from the grip of fear, helping you to move forward with self-assurance.

Why Am I So Afraid of Everything?

If you have become afraid of everything, the underlying reason could be a variety of issues, including previous trauma experiences, anxiety disorders or other mental health conditions that make you think everything that happens to you is a threatening, imminent danger.

Fear can be an overreaction to issues related to your general state of mental health, or it might be a result of constant negative thinking patterns. Unresolved emotional issues can also be the cause of this heightened physiological response.

Stress, the loss of control in your life or your environment, or even genetic predispositions to react strongly to stress triggers can make you fearful in general. Exploring the underlying causes can tell you a lot.

Seeing a therapist can help reveal what is troubling you and will help you overcome these frequent feelings of being afraid of everything.

Why Is It So Hard to Face Your Fears?

Knowing how to face your fears is difficult because you will need to leave your comfort zone and venture into uncertain territory, which will trigger anxiety attacks and resistance.

Fear is a survival mechanism hardwired in our brains. The primitive part of the brain runs the show, and it's not keen on any situation that may hurt or threaten our survival.

However, our ancient ancestors didn't have to deal with modern-day stressors, which means our innate fear of uncertainty is too strong at times and triggers avoidance of situations that aren't dangerous but that still seem threatening.

Every time you think about doing something that involves anxiety, many psychological barriers pop up: negative self-talk, past failures, the expectation of discomfort, and so on. You must be courageous, patient, wise enough, and humble enough to ask for support from a therapist who can help you cross the bridge and learn how to face your fears.

Contact the top experts at Trusted Psychics to discover more ways on How To Face Your Fears.

How To Contact A Trusted Psychic

Phone a live Psychic 24 hours a day

View all our live phone psychic and tarot readers online.

View All Live readers

Message a live Psychic 24 hours a day:

View all our live messenger psychic and tarot readers online.

launch messenger

Text a live Psychic 24 hours a day:

View all our live text psychic and tarot readers online.