In my last column, I wrote about fear and how much it affects our lives. We can “catch” it before we even realize what’s happening. I shared the first of three steps developed by neuroscientist Kevin Ochsner at Columbia University. His system is called “Cognitive Reappraisal” and its focus is on helping you develop habits of thinking that are steady and calm, even in the face of ongoing stress or difficulty.

The first step that I asked you to practice was to notice what triggers your fear, what your fear feels like to you, and then find ways to change the situation where your fear occurs. If you find yourself anxious and frightened when you finish having coffee with a co-worker, perhaps that person fixates on negative health issues, or is just generally pessimistic, and you find yourself “catching” their mindset. Emotions travel quickly and can easily be caught by others.

Maybe you have watched medical television shows, but now they fire up your worry about yourself or a loved one.

One person I know felt upset every time she finished shopping in a particular mall. When we reviewed her day, she suddenly realized that to get to a favorite store she passed a medical supply store with a wheelchair prominently displayed. That set off an internal cascade of fearful thoughts that she didn’t even realize she was having.  It was only the result that got her attention – a gloomy and snappish mood. When she began to reflect and review what had occurred, she began to recognize the internal anxious dialogue that was occurring.

The next step builds on the awareness that you have been developing.

This is sometimes known as mindfulness or creating a small space where you can look at your emotion, rather than just being absorbed by it. You are not your feeling. You can distance yourself from your anger or your envy or your fear by watching it as you would see a movie. Let it be outside you.

One way to practice this is to watch your breathing. Slow and steady breaths in and out calm the nervous system and give your brain some space. Neuroscientists talk about “sculpting” new neural pathways. It’s a great phrase. It helps us see that what we do repeatedly over time makes physical paths. Our thoughts do this – they make real pathways that can become superhighways. Observation helps us choose what path we want to get on and develop – we don’t have to be reactive and zoom along. When we have practiced calm even breathing it helps us create that observer space where we can choose and respond rather than absorb and react. We begin to sculpt pathways of rational thought and find ways of accessing them in times of stress.

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When asked that question, the majority of us have a conventional answer: snakes, heights, needles, things that go bump in the night.

But if we really pay attention to ourselves, we find that we are fearful many times a day, and the triggers for fear are not those we name.

Most of us feel fear when we have a scary thought: there’s not enough money, no one is ever going to really love me, my illness is only going to get worse.

Those thoughts, and their close relatives sneak in under the radar, set off by a news show, a random comment, a glance at our calendar. All of a sudden we feel our hearts pounding, or a stomach clench. Our bodies know we are afraid before our rational brain has even registered the thought.

This happens because of our amygdala, a tiny pea sized part of the brain that is highly developed over the millennia to scan for danger. Our brains were wired to be on the lookout for predators or other harm, and our brain continues to do that for us. Only now what registers most often is not an actual snake but an imagined fear: a wheelchair, an empty bank account, a lonely dinner for one.

Our brain doesn’t know the

The good news is that this is something we can change! We can re-pattern our brains to stay calm – even in a situation that usually creates a negative response.

Dr. Keith Ochsner, a neuroscientist who directs the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Columbia University developed a system called Cognitive Reappraisal.

This process trains the brain to re-assess and re-frame situations that would ordinarily lead to that panicky feeling. He states, “Emotions are malleable, but people often don’t realize how much of what we feel is under our own control.”

His process has three parts. This week I am going to describe one of them, and next issue I will talk about the other two.

Change your situation.

This means, avoid the people or places that start the fear reaction. If someone you spend time with is always emphasizing the fearful part of life, stay away from that person, or minimize time spent.

Emotional energy is contagious – you can “catch” someone else’s anxiety or fearfulness, so evaluate where and with whom you are spending time.

One client of mine found that doctor’s visits set off a fear reaction that could linger for days. When we carefully went through what happened at the visit, we discovered that it wasn’t the time with the doctor, it was the time in the waiting room, sitting among people who were clearly sicker, and that led to anxious imaginings of what might happen next for her.  She decided to set her appointments for early in the day, so that she would not have to spend so much time with other patients, and that has helped her manage her fearful worries.

The first step is to recognizing where and when your fears start. This is the practice of being mindful and observing yourself and your thinking.  Sometimes you have to follow the chain back to when the thought first occurred, and see what led to it. A thoughtless comment from a co-worker or neighbor? A picture? A television show? Your practice is to recognize what is most problematic for you, and then make the change where you can.

Next week I’ll describe steps two and three, but in the meantime, start observing.

It takes practice, but is well worth it so you can begin to teach your brain to be calm and steady.

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You can fill in the blanks with your own “state of rest.”

But what about when we really do need to be in motion? Our body is demanding exercise, we know we need to get those calls made, we can’t ask our family (or ourselves!) to eat take out another night, but it is so hard to get going.

It is the first step. That’s all it takes.

This is not a scientific fact, but it is the experience I have had, and so have many of my clients.

Taking one small step changes that inertia to momentum – and we don’t need much momentum to get going. Where the effort lies is in persuading ourselves to make that initial move.

One of the things that stops us is our negative imagination. We “see” the difficulty that lies head, we feel the tired ache or the lack of results – even when it hasn’t occurred! The sheer amount that has to be accomplished defeats us. We look at the whole mountain, and decide to stay right where we are.

If you can bring your eyes down to the ground in front of you, remind yourself – it’s just one step. Or, I only have to do one thing. Give yourself permission to stop after you tackle one bite -sized piece of the project.

What happens? You get momentum.

This is all we’re looking for – momentum. Momentum has its own psychological and physical force that will carry you forward. When you get momentum, then you can begin to accomplish those tasks – one by one.

What one thing would you like to accomplish this month? Getting started will help your physical and your psychological health.

Let me know how it goes!

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