You may not hear this approach for conquering fear in many sports psychologist offices or read it in a psychology book, because I learned this simple but powerful technique from doing yoga.
I am Wendy Lynne, the Director of Mental Toughness Academy. I have been practicing this new approach for conquering fear and anxiety for myself and have found it to be amazingly effective and powerful. So I wanted to share it with you!
It could be just another tool or approach you use to deal with any performance anxiety or fear.
Yoga is more than just another way to move your body or to get you to sweat like crazy if you practice hot yoga. The yoga positions are actually designed to help you learn to connect to your mind and thoughts and find some inner peace.
The way to do that is through directing your thoughts, not running away from them.
Here is one of my favorite quotes on conquering fear:
So many sports psychology books give you methods to distract yourself, so you think you are not feeling scared. If you are like me though, you have learned that just does not work! You can’t get rid of fear; you have to find ways to work with it.
So never fear, this technique I am going to share with you helps you feel the feeling of fear, but allows you to quickly let it go. The more you practice, the more confident and powerful you will feel – it has been working like magic for me!
The first step is to feel the fear. Identify where the feeling is exactly in your body. For me, it is in the middle of my stomach area. Say to yourself, “I feel fear”.
Now the not so fun part…allow yourself to really feel the fear in that place in your body. It does not have to be for long.
Here comes the fun part! Now feel the feeling of courage, boldness, “I can do this” or whatever feeling that works for you that helps you overcome the feelings of fear and anxiety. For me it is, “I can do this” and I feel it in my chest. Where do you feel that feeling in your body? Take a minute and enjoy that feeling.
See if you can switch back and forth between feeling your fear in that part of your body for a short period and then feeling your confident feelings. Do this several times. How does that feel?
Notice how you can have both feelings and be OK.
This is the important step…instead of saying “I feel fear”, just call it fear and feel it again. It is NOT YOU, it is just the feeling of fear.
Now this may be the tricky part. See if you can step outside yourself and observe yourself feeling the fear. Now go back inside your body and be the fear.
What you will realize from doing this exercise is that YOU are not the fear. It is just one of the feelings you have in your body.
By letting go of saying “I” am feeling fear and seeing it as simply a feeling in your body, you no longer have to let it define you.
So what I learned from this technique is that you can feel the feeling of fear and at the same time you feel the feeling of courage. You have the capacity to feel both feelings at the same time. You can feel fear AND still act courageous! You can feel worried AND still be brave.
Isn’t that exciting! This allows you to KNOW nothing can hold you back. This is how professional athletes must handle their fear, because everyone experiences fear. They just don’t allow it to hold them back from going out and performing.
This method for getting rid of fear can be applied to conquering fear of failure or any difficult emotion you are trying to deal with.
I suggest you practice this way before your next game or big event. Get very comfortable with this technique, before you experience the extreme feelings of fear and anxiety that usually happens right before a big match!
I’d love to hear if you try it and how it works for you. Please share with all of us in the comments below.