Taming Gorillas: A Practical Guide For Mastering Fear
Image and words by Rodrigo Cunha.
I usually see fear as a big, noisy, wild gorilla.
In fact, there’s not only one, but many of them in our lives. They can appear in a work presentation, on the first day at school, on a date, when moving to another country or anytime we face a big challenge. When they are around, our heart starts racing, the air becomes too heavy to breathe and every cell of our body screams for us to back down.
But here’s the thing about gorillas: when you tame them, you steal their power. And because they are all inside you, you can only do this by mastering your very own monkey mind.
It’s easier said than done, but here are three tools you can start using right now to make those beasts sit, stay and let you thrive.
1 - Breathe and stay cool
Ancient civilisations around the world discovered that breathing is the master key to access the mind. Because emotions and breathing are directly interconnected, you can calm your mind down simply by controlling your breathing.
A basic technique to start with is what is called box breathing:
Through your nose, inhale into your belly to a count of four, hold your breath to a count of four, exhale to a count of four, hold your lungs empty also to a count of four and inhale again, repeating the pattern.
Do that whenever you feel the adrenaline rushing and believe me, you will calm down.
Gorillas don’t look that badass when you’re calm.
2 - Meditate and show your emotions who’s boss
When you meditate regularly, two things happen in your brain:
1- You become increasingly aware of your thoughts, as well as the sensations and emotions they produce.
2- You become more and more concentrated, which amongst many benefits, allows you to detect what you are feeling, find out which thought is attached to that emotion and consciously decide whether to entertain that thought or not. With practice, when an emotion comes up, you can literally choose to be affected by it or not.
As an easy start, sit in a comfortable position with your spine straight, on the floor or on a chair. Set a five minutes alarm, so you don't have to worry about the time. In the first few attempts, simply try to stay absolutely still. Let your mind do whatever it wants, but don’t move your body - even if something itches or hurts.
When you get used to being physically still, it’s time to still your mind: focus on your breathing coming in and out through your nostrils. Don’t try to control your breathing this time, just observe it. Every time your mind starts wandering (it inevitably will), gently bring your attention back to your breath. As you practice, you can gradually increase your meditation time to 10, 20, 60 minutes or however long you wish.
In just a few weeks, you can notice you are developing the power to turn any gorilla into a stuffed toy, just by shutting down harmful thoughts.
3 - Visualise the target before you hit it
Your subconscious mind deals with 95% of your brain activity, and it's the main responsible for creating your reality. Everything that gets in there is materialised in the world outside, being you aware of it or not.
The good news is that you can consciously program this powerful secret machine to help you achieve your goals. Without getting into too many details, a good way to do that is through visualisation.
Whenever you are scared or anxious about a future event, you can use a powerful tool from Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) called time technique.
First, close your eyes and get in touch with your breathing to calm your mind. Next, imagine yourself getting out of your body and levitating upwards. Look down at yourself sitting in the room. Notice you are looking at the timeline of your life - all your past events to one side, and all the future ones to the other. Travel towards your future until you just pass the situation you feel anxious about. Look at yourself down there. You are very happy, relieved and proud for having succeeded on that specific event. Now get into that scenario: see every object around you, feel the smell of the environment, listen to the sounds of it, realise how good it feels to be a legend. Spend some time there, and after you have vividly experienced the positive outcome of your future challenge, come back to your present moment. The anxiety is gone, and your subconscious mind will automatically start looking for everything you need to make that visualisation a reality.
There are many other tools you can add to your mind’s utility belt, but for now, practice these three techniques and you will see that on the other side of fear is freedom, and all you have to do is cross the line. The more you do it, the stronger you get, until the point when you’ll become the biggest gorilla of all, and nothing can stop you.
