What Fear Is (And Is Not)

Fear is one of the strongest core emotions we have. We’re hard-wired for it as a means for survival. Big predator comes along, fear kicks in, and action follows – all in the name of self-preservation. As we’ve evolved, our instincts really haven’t. Survival. Plain and simple.

While our instincts haven’t really changed, our outer environment has significantly. No longer are big predators hunting us. Sure there are hazards, such as bad drivers on the road and economic downturns, but most of us in the western, developed world live free from major daily threats to our lives.

What has changed significantly is our inner environment. What do I mean by inner environment? It’s our thoughts and how we think about things. Our thoughts and the way we think drive how we feel and act. When we perceive a threat, our instincts kick in to protect us. It doesn’t matter if that threat is about a giant mammal chasing us or a loved one saying something to us in anger that hurts. The result is our core human instincts doing what they can to save us from the real (or imagined) threat to our lives.

Let’s say you lose your job. While this can certainly be a threat to your long-term survival, chances are it’s the way you think about it that spirals you into fear and keeps you there. We might say to ourselves that we’re nothing without the job, our identity is wrapped up in what we do and how we earn money. We may wonder how we’re going to pay our bills and keep the lifestyle we’ve grown accustomed to. But our immediate survival is intact. Losing our job didn’t strike us down dead. Did it change things? Sure. But it didn’t end our life. It’s about perspective. Our thoughts about losing our job are what perpetuate the fear, and kick in those instincts for survival.

In most cases, fear is just a signal that something is a bit off. It may be a sign that we need to change something, or that something doesn’t quite feel right. Our task, then, is to read the sign and act accordingly. Some of us choose to be fearful and move forward anyway. In the case of the lost job, fear is a normal reaction, and may help us think of ways to ensure our survival (network with colleagues about other possible jobs, consider getting additional training or education to become more marketable in the workplace, use savings to pay our expenses, etc.).

But for others, fear can keep us stuck. Losing that job means I’m worthless and no one wants me, which leads to lower motivation and energy about looking for solutions, which leads to inaction, more negative thoughts, and the cycle of continues. Sound familiar?

My guess is we’ve all been in both places. In some situations, we’re able to move past the fear. And in other situations, we get stuck. The trick is to find ways to get unstuck as soon as possible.

As you are faced with the ups and downs of life and fear inevitably creeps in, keep in mind what fear really is (and is not)…

Fear is:

• Unavoidable
• Natural and normal
• A basic, core emotion
• A signal that something is changing or needs to change

Fear is NOT:

• The end of the world
• A sign to give up entirely
• Evil

So as you move through life, remember the times you are able to move forward despite your fear. Take note of how you do that, and what thoughts and actions are most helpful, as well as which ones keep you stuck. The best way to get unstuck is to do things you know have helped you in the past.

Remember, fear is inevitable. You can either embrace it or resist it. Which will you choose?

To get more practical, tried and tested techniques that have helped over 12 million people worldwide face and move through their fears, consider joining me for my live one-day workshop “Feel the Fear And Do It Anyway”® based on the best-selling book of the same title by Susan Jeffers, Ph.D. For details, go to http://www.krylyn.com/feelthefear.

Photo: By: Lehigh Valley, PA

Riding the Storm: What Crisis Has to Teach Us About Accepting and Offering Help

What is going on around here? The last week has been wreaked with havoc – at least for people around me. I’m so grateful to be the calm in the storm for so many of my friends and family right now.

From wee hour phone calls from jail, to hours on the phone listening to heartache and sorrow, to the passing of parents, people’s worlds are being rocked and shifted. My time and attention has been scattered as I not only help others with their plights, but also process what it all means for me. I’ve gained some powerful insights through it all.

Surely there are times in our lives when we’re on both ends of this scenario. At times, we might be caught in the storm as life throws its curveballs and unforeseen circumstances. We get bad news, we get caught doing something we know we shouldn’t be doing, or the intensity of many layers of undealt-with issues bubble up to incapacitate us. Whatever it is that catches up to us serves to teach us, but often we are steeped in the intense emotions we are experiencing – such as fear, anger, and pain – and unable to see the lessons right away.

While emotions are there to give us information, they also tend to slow us down or stop us…give us pause. And that’s not a bad thing at all. In that stillness, we have an opportunity to experience and allow what is happening to happen. But intensity can be difficult to sit with. We get uncomfortable. We wonder if it will last forever. We hope there is a way out and that others (and ourselves) will be there for us through the process.

But one thing that happens, I’ve noticed, is that our tunnel vision kicks in. Our rational thoughts leave the building and our survival mode kicks in. We feel threatened, therefore we act accordingly. And that often looks a bit strange from the other side. As someone who feels threatened, we might act in a number of different ways: from reaching out to people feverishly in an attempt to save ourselves, to isolating ourselves in an attempt to protect ourselves, to forgetting who is really there to support us, to doing and saying things we don’t really mean because we’re just so mired in the intensity.

If you are in the position to help someone who is in the eye of the storm, remember:

• Listen. Just being a sounding board might be the best course of action. People who are going through crisis need to vent.
• Resist the urge to fix the problem right away. It is so tempting to want to offer solutions and fix what’s wrong because being on the calm side of the coin, we can clearly see what would be helpful. But the crisis isn’t about you. The crisis is about someone else and what may work for you may not work for them. When we offer advice, others may hear the message that they are broken, in need of fixing, and this can do more harm than good. Instead, listen, and ask questions to lead them to their own conclusion: What would be helpful for you right now? How can I support you? What do you need or want me to do?
• Offer suggestions only if the give you permission to do so. People in crisis sometimes come to you because you are good at coming up with solutions. So it can be appropriate to offer suggestions. Just be sure to ask them first if that’s what they want. Then, be prepared to listen. Often people in crisis, with their tunnel vision, will shoot down many ideas because they just don’t know how to implement them. They are frozen, stuck in intense feelings, and unable to think clearly or act in ways they normally would.
• Take action when appropriate and with permission. Sometimes there are things you can do to support someone else in crisis – things that, to you, seem small and easy, but to them may seem monumental and overwhelming. Again, always ask if this is the kind of support they need.
• Think of how you would want someone to treat you if you were in a similar situation. The Golden Rule always applies here. If the shoe were on the other foot and it was you going through the crisis, think of what you would want others to do for you and say to you. This can help you figure out what may or may not be appropriate.
• Trust your gut. In the end, it’s necessary to trust your instincts. Every crisis and every person in crisis is different. Take their cues, verbal and nonverbal, as well as what you already know about them, and make decisions on how to help based on that.

There is a delicate balance in this world. Sometimes we are in the storm and sometimes we’re outside of it. Each place provides opportunities to either offer or accept help. Which side of the storm are you on today? And what are you going to do about it?

How to Enjoy and Honor Your Resistance

Do you ever have one of those days where you just cannot keep your head on straight? Everything is distracting you from what you need to do? Negative thoughts cloud your judgment? Insecurity and fear creep in and set up an unwelcome stake on all your best intentions?

I don’t know about you, but I sometimes just try to push through these times…barreling through with my to-do list, checking things off. But the problem is I’m not really productive. Anything on my to-do list that requires thinking or problem-solving just doesn’t get done very effectively. I feel the heaviness of struggle nearly choking me and my ability to make an effective decision diminished greatly.

Life is a series of moments. Some moments are easy and fluid. Others are more challenging and laced with resistance. It’s easy to forget that timing is everything. And that both types of moments are equally beneficial and needed to sustain balance. When life is “easy,” we don’t pay much attention. We think that’s how things are always supposed to be. It’s generally when challenge surfaces that we take note.

What I do to honor my resistance:

• Step away. I naturally find myself taking more breaks when I’m resisting what I need to do. Distractions are harder to ignore. The beautiful breeze skates across my skin and I look up and gaze dreamily out the window. The music in the background beckons me to shake my booty and I get my boogie on for a few minutes. The lunch break where I vow to just read one chapter in a good book turns into a reading marathon and before I know it a couple hours have passed. When you find yourself pulled to do something, just do it. Allow the distraction to be your guide and teacher. Maybe it’s just the universe’s way of telling you that you need a break. That your spirit needs some attention because your mind has been getting it all lately.
• Write it out. Another thing I find myself doing when the voices in my mind quarrel over what needs to be done vs. what I want to do is to just write about it. Journaling is a great way to just let those voices be heard. I typically ask myself a question, such as “what’s going on for me right now,” which leads to a bunch of writing, which leads to another questions, which leads to more writing, and so on. I always find some good insights in doing this free-flow journaling. It’s my minds way of working something out without just sitting and trying to think it through on its own.
• Talk it out. Sometimes talking to a supportive friend or colleague can help put things in perspective. When we ruminate in our thoughts, its hard to get out of that by thinking more about it. Talking to someone else allows us to get our thoughts out in another form (words) and lets someone else to put their two cents in. typically others can see a different point of view and even the smallest observation or comment on their part can help shift us into knowing what to do next.
• Do something. When we are resistant, we’re focused on our thoughts. What should I do? What shouldn’t I do? This is too hard, or boring, or stupid, or…” You get the picture. What we tend to do when we are stuck in thoughts is forget that we have a body and it may need some attention. Get up and move around. Go outside. Clean the dishes. Do something physical. Allow your body to take over. Do a task that doesn’t require much thinking other than – DO THIS, then DO THIS NEXT.

The biggest thing to remember during times of resistance is that it is normal. When we try to fight our resistance, it rarely ends up the way we like. So, give yourself a break. Honor the resistance. And then see what happens…

From Someday to Now: Tips on Achieving Your Dreams

For years I’ve been to content dream, make plans, and live in the “someday” category. You know, that place of always putting off till tomorrow and then the next day and the next. I’ve found excuses to stay in my comfort zone. Lots of excuses. But in the last year, my excuses have been stripped away from me, quite painfully I might add. I guess if we don’t willingly let go of excuses that get in the way of our growth, then the universe finds a way to do it for us.

I am now living alone for the first time in my life. Seeing as I’m such an independent woman and have been self-sufficient since I was 17 years old, you would think it wouldn’t be a big deal. But I went from my family to college with roommates, to marriage, to single parenthood. There’s always been someone around. That is, until my son moved away to college. I am now an empty-nester, fixing meals for one, getting to watch the TV shows I want to watch, and not having anyone to be accountable to. I can come and go as I please without giving an itinerary to anyone. It’s very freeing, but also a bit strange.

The goals I put off until “after my son goes to college” are staring at me, pleading with me. And it’s suddenly clear that I’ve been hiding behind excuses. It’s easy to make plans for someday. But quite another to make them for a specific day.

Someday has allure. It tells the world you have aspirations. But it fails to put an actual expectation around them. Making plans is easy. Following through until you reach them…well, that’s where the real work lies.

It seems appropriate that I’m thinking about this as we are in full swing of the New Year, and more than a few people I know are caught in the resolution craze. Someday is now for many people. And it starts with a plan, followed by consistent action, and commitment even when things get rough.

My someday list includes:

• Moving to another state
• Creating more freedom in my schedule
• Adding new skills to my toolbox to help my clients
• Singing more often…personally and professionally
• Spending more time with good friends
• Finding romance

As I look through my someday list, I see that I really have been working toward all of these items for some time. But the loss of my excuses has helped propel me to the next level, and begun the process of manifesting what I want. Within the next couple months, I will have made significant progress toward and/or complete at least four of these items. And it all started with my intention to create it and my faith that it was possible.

What’s on your someday list? Does it involve relationships, career, finances, health, hobbies, a vacation, romance, business, etc.? Here’s some tips to help you go from someday to now.

• Make a list of your someday items. Brainstorm as many things as possible. You might find some of them to be small and seemingly easy and quick to achieve. Others may take a while or seem next to impossible. Just write it all down.
• After you make your list, put it away for a day or two. Let all your ideas percolate. Let the excitement grow about actually doing something to achieve one or more items on your list.
• Go back to your list. Read through it and make note of which items hold the most excitement (or fear). Those are the items you want to pay close attention to. Anything worthwhile is something you are going to have some strong emotion around.
• Pick one item that is emotionally-charged and flesh out the idea. Think and write about what achieving that goal would look like, feel like…how it would change your life. Have fun with it. Keep that emotion going.
• Now make a plan for how to achieve it. Don’t get too caught up in the mechanics of how to make it happen. Just start brainstorming the steps involved.
• Take action. The only way to get to your someday is through action. Action when you don’t feel like it. Action when things are tough. Just don’t stop taking action.

You’ll find that when you have emotion around something, set an intention, and begin to take steps toward it, things start to happen. Forward movement. Coincidences. Momentum. So go out there and get to your someday.

Connecting to What Really Matters

What really matters? If you’re Billy Crystal in “City Slickers” it’s that ONE THING. Some say LOVE or FAMILY, others say PURPOSE. It seems what really matters is in many ways the same for most people, and in many ways different.

I believe WHAT matters is generally the same for most of us. It can be hard to articulate, but I think we all crave some sort of connection – with other people, with nature, with a higher power. Connection with someone or something outside ourselves lets us know we’re not alone. That we matter. That our life has meaning. In another movie, “Shall We Dance,“ Susan Sarandon talks about the importance of having a witness to our lives – someone who can testify that who we are has made some sort of impact in the world. And of course in the movie “Avatar “, the famous quote “I see you” speaks to our need for our souls, our essence, to be seen and our voices to be heard.

So if connection is what matters, then our task is to find HOW to focus on it and bring more of it into our lives. And that is where the differences come in. I think we get in trouble when our sense of connection is lost or threatened. We act in certain irrational ways, punishing ourselves and/or others. We fight for attention, clamoring against the thought of feeling invisible, like we don’t matter. We get competitive. We think small. We hold on tightly to expectations that are unrealistic. We cling to the past, longing for simpler, less confusing times. We live in the future, hoping for things to change. We are fearful. We forget what really matters. And we become disconnected, which might look like:

• Withdrawing from friends
• Escaping into mind-numbing activities (like TV, internet, texting, addictions)
• Distracting ourselves with too much work (or too much play)
• Avoiding making decisions
• Becoming overly controlling in a particular area of life (clutter/hoarding, eating, exercising, etc.)
• Not paying attention to our bodies signals (hunger, thirst, fatigue, pain, etc.)

Think about these questions for a moment:

• When do you feel connected?
• What are you doing?
• What are you thinking?
• What are you feeling?
• Who are you with when you feel connected?
• Where are you?
• What is your environment like (sights, sounds, smells)?

And try these tips on how to get more connected:

• After answering the above questions, make a list of what and who makes you feel connected. Remember to touch on the areas of people, places, and things.
• Think of ways to add connecting activities to your daily life. Make a list of these activities, everything from things you can do with little effort to things that might take some building up to. Brainstorm and get creative.
• Add one connecting activity to your day, every day. Mark it in your calendar if you need to. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time.

Lately, for me connection looks like:

• Spending time with friends – on the phone, online, and in person
• Traveling to new (and old) places
• Breathing in fresh air
• Petting my 10-year old cat for longer periods of time
• Getting out of my comfort zone and meeting new people
• Writing songs
• Talking to my son on the phone regularly now that he is away at college
• Asking people for help

I’d love to hear what helps you feel connected. Please leave a comment below.

Coming Full Circle: One Songwriter’s Journey to CircleSongs á la Bobby McFerrin

I wrote my first song at age 8 and by age 14 was composing fully arranged songs. Songwriting became my “drug of choice” as a teenager. I used songwriting to cope with growing up in a chaotic environment where neglect and abuse ran rampant. Songwriting was not only my form of escape from all the drama going on around me, but also a way for me to express some pretty deep thoughts and feelings.

Even though I came from a musically-inclined family, I didn’t feel much support from any of them as I came into my own as a young musician. But I did find support and inspiration from people who shared their talent and vulnerability in their own music.

In the 1980’s, I stumbled upon the most unique vocalist I’d ever heard – Bobby McFerrin – who used his voice (and body) as an instrument. His vocal ability left me in awe. Mind you, the 1980’s were a magical time for music discovery. MTV and VH1 were just starting out. I don’t remember exactly where I first heard Mr. McFerrin, but I do remember the first song I heard. Take a listen below.

After watching his performance, I was hooked. I began a journey of more creativity and improvisation in my own songwriting. I began singing non-sense type lyrics and just vocal sounds over musical phrases I’d created with my synthesizers and drum machine beats. Friends and family I shared these little experiments with either LOVED them or didn’t. There wasn’t much in between. But for me, the experience of improvisation was profound. There was a freedom in the creative process I hadn’t felt before, the idea that I could do anything with the sounds and that was okay. It didn’t have to be perfect.

This kind of experimentation opened up doors for me as I continued my songwriting journey. I began using non-traditional instruments in my arrangements (such as wooden spoons pounded on phone books) and continued to explore using my voice as an instrument. I also created a capella arrangements, using my voice for all parts of a song (bass, percussion, chords, etc.). I always seem to come back to the voice.

When I found Mr. McFerrin trained others in some of his improvisational singing techniques, I was on board. The only problem is that when I found out, it was just after he had led a workshop in New York at the Omega Institute in 2005. Year after year, I checked back with the institute, but no more classes were scheduled. Then one fateful day in January 2011, an email came into my inbox announcing the return of McFerrin’s CircleSong workshop. I signed up immediately and had an amazing experience studying with him and his team of faculty in late August-early September 2011. (That’s a picture of me and Bobby to the left, September 2, 2011, in New York).

It is with deep joy and awe (and Bobby’s blessing) that I bring the CircleSong experience to my local community in Phoenix, Arizona. For further information about CircleSongs and to listen to samples of CircleSongs I led while studying in New York, please visit http://www.krylyn.com/circlesongs. To register for an upcoming CircleSong group go to http://circlesongs.eventbrite.com.

Watch and listen to the first song I ever heard by Bobby McFerrin…