Fear is instilled in us.

It has been that way for many, many years and by that I don’t just mean since the day we were born, I mean for millions of years, from the day we flopped out of the sea and started walking we have used fear to survive. Our sense of fear stops us getting ourselves into dangerous situations, but as we have evolved over those millions of years so has our sense of fear, we fear touching the oven while it’s hot because we know it will hurt, we fear crossing the road without looking because we might get squished.

At which point in our evolution did the brain decide that only some of us would be scared of crowds, different demographics of people and that, that fear would (at times) make us forget how to breathe properly.

We have evolved over those millions of years, to think, to create, to build. Unfortunately, the rest of our senses haven’t had the chance to catch up just yet, our stomachs still aren’t used to todays food and our minds aren’t able to contain the ever-flowing thoughts and emotions that can very quickly take control of our day.

If we can overcome our fear of spiders and we can learn to not be scared of the road, as long as we take the necessary steps to keep ourselves safe, why do we have such a huge problem with a group of people?

Is it part of a larger fear of inferiority?

We were taught all those years ago to bow down to those above us, perhaps that is what we still do now but in a different manner. Instead of bowing, we retreat.

Mindfulness as a practise teaches us how to allow our emotions not to get the better of us and we do this by meditating, during this meditation we focus our minds to not allow the outside noise to interfere with our sense of calm and our focus. We train the mind just as we would train any other part of our body and it requires training to become the master of it.

An effective meditation method for when you are feeling overwhelmed is the 7/11 technique.

-          Breathe in for 7

-          Breathe out for 11

And focus solely on your breathe during this time, do it for as long as you need to until you start to regain control of your breathing and discover your sense of calm again.

This practise is really effective if you feel yourself getting panicky.

Go out today and just enjoy your time, try not to let your fear overtake your daily life and continue to push yourself to do and be better.

(photo from @Tallulah_Belle via weheartit.com)