Learning How to Not Give Away Power to Fear
Jennifer McKenna discusses what leads to us relinquishing power to our fears, how to identify it in ourselves and gain mastery over it
Giving one’s power away to fear isn’t a realization that may often be on a person’s mind, even if it’s regularly or periodically taking place and causing disappointment or distress. It’s important to become conscious about its impact and how to defeat it.
One professional says that, left unaddressed, someone willingly giving into fear in most situations can experience and endure, “one of our biggest saboteurs.”
That’s a powerful point.
It’s important to think about why this develops in a person’s mind and habits.
“We do it because our (body) systems are designed to instinctively react to fear,” says Jennifer McKenna, a strategic advisor to c-suite leaders, president at JMac Consulting and author of “True Power for the C-Suite.”
“Fear is a catalyst and causes our system to seek protection in a myriad of ways.”
She points to a quick, relatable analogy to illustrate.
“Think about the brain as hardware, a computer. Our neural circuitry is the software that runs through it. Our central nervous system is the operating system,” McKenna begins.
“Consider that throughout our lives, we’ve downloaded ‘apps’ unconsciously with the beliefs we acquired. When our parents, teachers, peers, siblings, friends and mentors conveyed beliefs that we adopted, we ‘downloaded apps onto our system.’
“Our parents or caretakers during our formative years conditioned us toward specific beliefs, either through their words or behaviors that we may not even consciously recognize.”
The byproduct, therefore, should not be surprising.
“Collectively, these ‘apps’ comprise the software affecting our operating system, influencing how we operate — our thoughts, decisions, feelings, words and actions,” she says.
The problem, generally identified, requires depth to understood how fear operates.
“If if we feel fear acutely enough,” McKenna says, “it can cause the rational parts of our brain to shut down momentarily, which jeopardizes our ability to see and understand the situation objectively.”
She circles back to her primary point.
“This is why it’s so easy for all of us to give our power away to the fear we feel in that moment,” McKenna explains. “Fear activates an instinctive fight-or-flight response because our ego perceives the situation as a threat and its job is to keep us safe.
“If we don’t have this conscious awareness, we can exacerbate a situation by acting on our instinctive, reactive emotions,” she adds.
A person may come to regret it, if not in the subsequent moment, then eventually.
“We can miss opportunities to take our experiences and relationships to a positive, next level when we fail to move through or beyond the fear,” McKenna says.
She goes back to talking about when this state of mind prevents better outcomes.
“Another way to recognize fear as a saboteur is when we find ourselves in a vicious cycle, meaning we keep having the same frustrating or agonizing experiences over and over,” McKenna says.
“In those instances, we can often point to underlying fear as the culprit,” she says.
A person has to be careful to not fall into a trap of negatively conditioning themselves.
“Every time we cycle through the same fear-inducing situation, our emotions level up,” McKenna says, and, “Over time, we feel the fear more acutely and find ways to cope or manage the fear, instead of successfully overcoming it.”
That’s just part of the problem that is taking place. Our life experience can get worse.
“If we aren’t paying attention,” McKenna points out and stresses, “we won’t ever learn how to consciously move through our fear.”
That’s not a small mistake or known error either. It’s significant, because, what happens, she says, is we end up “allowing it to control our behavior.”
We then move away from the decisions and actions that we prefer and likely will result in what we need.
“We will be prone to reacting, which is not a powerful position for us to take,” McKenna says.
That can become too common of a habit.
“It’s easier to react than it is to proactively transform our experiences by being more courageous,” McKenna asserts.
There are ways to best combat the habit of being submissive to fear.
“If our emotions cause us to act in ways that we aren’t proud of or if they cause us to hide from our own relationships and experiences, then that’s when we know we’re sabotaging our health, happiness and success,” McKenna argues.
“We are giving our power away.”
There are unwanted, problematic costs that come with that submission.
“When this occurs, we can allow our fight-or-flight response to evolve into habits that we justify, such as procrastination, avoidance, rebellion and gossip,” McKenna says.
“Sometimes, when we allow fear to settle in over time, we can feel lethargic, depressed, raging mad or vindictive,” she adds.
What someone might not regularly realize is hurting the quality of their responses.
“Patterns harbor fear and fear keeps the patterns alive,” McKenna says. “The vicious cycle remains in tact.”
She talks about a way to skillfully respond and develop greater strength.
“When we can identify the pattern and name it, then we are in a position to heal and transform it,” McKenna says.
“Our next step is to consciously adopt new beliefs that are in line with what we want to experience, instead of defaulting to the beliefs that perpetuate what we don’t want to experience,” she adds.
It may not prove to be easy and quick, although that may happen at times, yet the effort and work may make the payoff encouraging, helpful and fulfilling.
“It’s a transformational process that takes self-awareness, time, focused intent, discipline, practice and patience,” McKenna admits.
“Think of it as upgrading our operating system.”
If the goal is progress and achievement of professional and personal goals, then accurately examining the cognitive drivers of our decisions and behavior is necessary.
This can aid in moving past obstacles that don’t need to block “better” in our lives.
“To prosper is to thrive and we certainly can’t do that if fear has all our power,” McKenna warns.
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