I don’t know about you but I’ve spent a lot of time judging myself for feeling scared. Between my passions of horses and personal development there is never a shortage of feeling like I’m less than because I can’t seem to embody this fearlessness that so many people rave about. In addition, over the years I’ve had people in the horse industry comment on my fearlessness which led to an even greater shame as that certainly didn’t reflect what was going on for me internally.
Someone would tell me I was brave and I would think, you have no idea. My stomach was in knots the whole time.
Luckily, because of my passion for horses, and desire to be the best rider and horsewoman I could be, I became incredibly curious about fear. Furthermore, I was interested in how people could perceive me as fearless and brave when on the inside my nerves were dancing between tension and relaxation. So I researched, studied, asked experts and even began to teach a Calm and Confident Class to help people deal with their fear. The following is what I have learned, experienced and work to put into practice on a daily basis.
Fear is not the opposite of courage. Courage is a quality that we can choose to nurture and grow. Depending on our personality, upbringing and life experiences our ability to master this trait will vary. On the other hand, fear is a primal survival mechanism governed by our autonomic nervous system. It is a function of our reptilian brain, designed to keep us safe and secure. While it’s true that an overly active, storytelling brain can trigger a fear response in a seemingly safe situation, the fear response itself is hardwired into our nervous system. What this means is that we can experience the instinct of fear and the quality of courage simultaneously—, if we choose to foster this partnership and understand our fear for what it is.
Which means an entire industry has been selling you a state your nervous system is not built to produce.
You cannot become fearless. You can become someone who is not run by it. Those are not the same promise, and only one of them is true.
In simple terms fear is present to keep us safe. If our nervous system senses danger then fear, along with the hormones and physical sensations associated with it, is triggered. Following this train of thought I became curious about what my body perceived as danger. Based on research and personal experience it seemed to me that fear fell into two categories: obvious and immediate danger or perceived danger.
When it came to obvious and immediate danger the benefits of fear was obvious. It worked to protect us from the threat of immediate physical harm. During my years as an equine behavior specialist I learned firsthand that not only was fear a normal response when working with an aggressive or traumatized horse, it was a valuable one. In fact, I credit my ability to successfully work with animals that were considered dangerous, without suffering serious injury, to my ability to feel fear.
Perceived danger presented itself as more of a grey area to me, at least in the beginning. It made sense to me that when I was consciously thinking about how something bad could happen fear could arise. But I didn’t necessarily understand the concept of perceived danger when I was really excited to do something. That is until I began to look at and research it through the lens of a horse.
A horse does not distinguish between a bear and a plastic bag. The nervous system runs the same programme for both, because the cost of being wrong about the bear is everything and the cost of being wrong about the bag is a few wasted strides.
Ours does the same. Your body cannot tell the difference between physical danger and social danger. Being wrong in front of people you respect. Raising your rate. Saying the true thing on the call. Putting the work out under your own name instead of someone else’s. Your nervous system runs the bear programme, because for most of human history being cast out of the group was fatal. The oldest fear is social. So is the way back. Our free live sessions for values-led women are where a herd of us practises the read together, in real time.
So when you feel it before something you actually want, you are not weak and you are not unready. You are having a completely accurate physical response to being exposed.
Here is what changes when you know that.
You stop trying to get rid of it. You start asking it what it came to say. Is this real danger, or is this exposure. If it is real danger, move. If it is exposure, then the fear is telling you that you are standing somewhere that matters.
The women I work with are not looking to feel nothing. They are looking to stop treating the feeling as a verdict on whether they should proceed.
Fearlessness is not the goal. It was never available. What is available is a read you can trust while your hands are shaking.