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How to Face Fear When There’s Nowhere to Go
“Sometimes the fear won’t go away, so you’ll have to do it afraid.” — Tracy A Malone
My girlfriend said these words to me before I went to the dentist. I felt like a little boy. I was scared and she knew it. So she tried to comfort me in the only way she knew how.
Her words seemed trivial at the time — like when I hear someone say, “If you don’t want to have negative thoughts think positively.”
Upon reflection, however, there was a lot of wisdom to draw from, especially now being on the other side of the experience.
Facing fear is no mean feat and there is no manual for how to move through it.
Some fight, some flee, some freeze. Most of us do all three simultaneously, at least internally, anyway.
In the dentist’s chair, my heart was racing, my brain was razor sharp, and my nervous system was on high alert. It got even more intense when the work officially got underway.
It’s a confronting place. There’s nowhere to go and nothing to do yet every cell in my body was tense. I wanted to run away but I couldn’t. So, the only place I could turn to was inside.
“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” — Marcus Aurelius
