Relationship Recovery
Module 4: Face Your Fears

What Are You Scared Of?

Fear can immobilise a normally “strong,” “capable” person. If you are someone who is usually very good at coping with the challenges of life, it may come as quite a surprise that the thought of suddenly being “on your own” can fill you with dread.

Fears that result over the break-up of relationships can bring with them a wide range of reactions. It is normal to feel scared.  However, it’s important not to allow these fears to get out of control. Left unguarded, fears can gather like an avalanche and suddenly seem a lot worse than they actually are.

The first step to take is to identify what exactly it is that you are scared of. Is your fear related to something that has happened in the past?  If so, ask yourself what it is that you are scared of.

More than likely, your fears will concern the future. Often these fears come out when we are thinking or talking about the future. They emerge as comments such as:

“I’m scared that I’ll end up on my own”
“I’m scared of living on my own”
“No one will want me”
“I’ll never find anyone who’ll love me as much as…”
“I’m worried I’ll make the same mistake again”

Once you can identify your fears, you then have the opportunity of doing something about them. To uncover these, say to yourself,

When I think of the future:
What am I worried about?
What am I scared of?
What do I fear will happen?

Write down your answers to these and then ask yourself what is the fear that is underlying this? For example if you identified that you are worried about living on your own, the underlying fear might be fear of loneliness.

What If You Don’t Face Your Fear?

Check in with yourself right now and ask yourself for each fear that you identified:

What would be the consequences of me holding on to this fear?

Becoming aware of the consequences of not facing your fears can have a sobering effect on you, so take some time over this. Really think about how your life in the future would be if you did not overcome these fears.

• Would they affect your future happiness?
• Would they hamper your chances of finding a good relationship in the future?
• Would they increase your chances of you spending the rest of your life on your own?

What do you want to do about this fear? At the end of the day, you do have a choice. You can either keep reminding yourself and talking about your fear to others and thereby feeding it, or you can choose to do something about it.  And doing something about your fear is the only way to change it.

Challenge Your Thinking

You cannot change what has happened in your life or in your relationship, but you can change your opinion of what happened and you can change the relationship you have with yourself.

When you have recently come out of a painful relationship break up you may well be feeling sorry for yourself and are unable to look upon this in a positive light.  However, as you start to look at what you gained from being in the relationship, you may start to see things differently. Your opinion of what happened is down to you.

You can either adopt a “poor me” opinion that will serve to feed your fears or one that will help to reduce them for example: “the break up may have been painful but I am determined that I will learn from this experience and that my life will improve.”

To stop your fears taking hold, continue to challenge your thinking. If you have been suffering from the “I’m too old” or “I’m too set in my ways” mode of thinking, then this is for you! Don’t allow your age or anything else for that matter hold you back. The only thing that matters is that you are prepared to change. In fact often age can act as an incentive to deal with fear.

Sometimes following the break up of a relationship, it is fear that often spurs people on to make positive changes in their lives. Fear of what people do not want to happen can motivate them to take steps to make sure that it doesn’t!

What fear do you have that is so great that you can use it to motivate yourself to take steps to ensure that the very thing you fear does not happen?

Become Willing To Change

When you are faced with the break up of relationship you are faced with change whether you like it or not.  Change is inevitable whether it be a change of living arrangements, change in your social life, your finances or change in your status. Change is something we cannot avoid. However fear of change is.

In order for change to take place, no matter how scared you are or how much you want things to change, nothing will happen unless you are willing to change.

Start by telling yourself:

I am willing to change.

I am willing to overcome my fear of …

Write yourself reminders of these two statements and place them where you will see them.

Identify what you can do in the way of making small changes to your everyday routine for example take a different route to work, eating different foods, sleeping on a different side of the bed. Prove to yourself by doing this that you are willing to change.

What changes do you need to make?

Changes come in all shapes and sizes.  But when change is all lumped together, it can seem a daunting mountain to climb.

Start with one fear that you think it might be possible for you to overcome. Note down the steps that would need to be taken in order for this to happen.

One client of mine was worried about living on her own. She had gone from living with her parents, to living with friends and then to living with her husband.  Her fear was of the unknown. She felt that she had no experience to back her up.

We started by breaking her fear down and establishing the steps that she would need to take to overcome her fear. We identified the knowledge she had and the strengths she possessed that she could put to good use. We also looked at what exactly she needed to find out and whom she could ask to help her.

However, it wasn’t just the practical things that were worrying her, it was actually being on her own.  I asked her to identify what scared her about being on her own and we then looked at a variety of things that she could put into place to overcome these concerns.  Six months later, I received a poem that she’d written entitled “An Ode To Living Alone” which told of her transition from being scared to enjoying the challenges and plus points of living on her own!

If we focus on the problem and how difficult everything is then change becomes very difficult, if not impossible. As we get what we focus on, it follows that we need to focus on identifying and taking small steps towards change in order to overcome fear and accomplish change.

Take Control Of Your Fear

Having identified exactly what your fears are, the next stage is to go beyond your fears. Look at the message that this fear is providing you with. Instead of looking at what you don’t want, focus on what you do want.

Take each of your fears and ask yourself the following question then write down the answer:

Ok, so if this is my fear, what ultimately do I want?

For example:

I’m scared that I’ll end up on my own might become:

What I want is to become happy with my own company, become my own person once more and then when I am ready, to share my life with someone.

No one will want me might translate as:

I want to become confident in who I am and know what I want so that I can take the future into my own hands and determine who I want to spend my life with.

Once you have identified what it is you want, add in one line stating your intention. For example:

I intend to overcome my fear that “No one will want me” because I want to become confident in who I am and know what I want so that I can take the future into my own hands and determine who I want to spend my life with.

Visualise Your Future

If you want to overcome your fear, you must be able to see yourself having made the changes that you want otherwise you’ll have little chance of ever achieving it.

Visualise yourself having achieved what it is that you want. This is your fantasy. Doubt or failure does not belong here. Use all of your senses to create an image of you having overcome this fear and enjoy experiencing this image as frequently as you can.

Actions of the Week

Be present in the moment.

Spend time each day practicing being fully present in an activity e.g. walking to work, washing up the dishes, getting dressed. Learn to crowd out fear from your mind.

In addition, take a fear and after examining exactly what it is, identify what small steps are needed to overcome this fear and take the first one!

Sometimes it’s not just our fears that we need to overcome to help move us forward. In the next lesson we’ll be taking a look at what you also need to do along the road to recovery – build yourself back up.