Yesterday, I skipped posting on my blog but still completed my One Thing for Me a Day. I started the day with meditation, rode the stationary bike for 30 minutes, and cleaned the house. At night, I binge ate a Margarita pizza, strawberries, and apples. The binge eating helped me feel happier and motivated today. Don’t feel guilty when you slip up. As long as you don’t let the slip-up stop you from forming new habits, you are still on track.

The single emotion that catches me the most has been fear. In her book the Art of Fear, Kristen Ulmer, known as the most fearless woman extreme skier, suggests that we are so addicted to who we believe we are that we are afraid of deviating from that fixed identity. Initially, our habits form our identities. If we act certain ways enough times, those behavioral patterns feel natural to us. Then, we form our own sense of ourselves – who we are and who we are not.

From early childhood, I loved to read and write, so I saw myself as a reader and writer, but not as a speaker. As a matter of fact, I was mute during most of my adolescence. Many of my classmates believed that I was physically incapable of speaking. My teachers would ask me why I wouldn’t speak. I didn’t know the answer and thought I might have trauma that I don’t remember. Now, I have a good guess. There were probably moments when I didn’t know what to say and remained quiet. It repeated enough times that I began to feel that it would be strange if I spoke.

What eventually pushed me out of my shell was a strong desire to share my ideas. I was driven to talk about my ideas. Desire stumped fear. I raised my hand whenever professors asked for presenters. Later, I would regret it, “What did I get myself into?” However, I repeated the same thing over and over again. I put myself into uncomfortable situations where I could not back out. For the last 10 years, I have participated in TV talk shows and numerous interviews, lectured to large audiences, and discovered my talent in building a quick rapport with strangers.

Although I changed a lot, fear is still part of my life. Fear is a natural emotion that all animals have to survive. Our emotional responses are triggered by the amygdala, which Seth Godin calls “the Lizard Brain.” The amygdala or Lizard Brain is a 500-million-year-old structure that all animals share. It creates emotional responses to call on the body to take appropriate action. Fear is the most fundamental emotion for survival. To protect our lives, fear drives us to take action – fight, flight, or freeze.

What makes humans distinctive is the youngest part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. We humans have the proportionally largest prefrontal cortex of all mammals. After receiving emotional responses from the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex interprets the information and makes judgments and decisions. What it means is that we cannot control our first emotional reaction but we have the power to change our feelings.

The lizard brain is a wimp and slacker. It loves the status-quo and certainty. It refuses to budge until an imminent danger triggers off an emergency alarm. To the lizard brain, uncertainty is scary and certainty is comfy and irresistible. So, in fear, we procrastinate and look for all kinds of excuses to not change. Kristen Ulmer emphasizes the key to overriding fear is to embrace it. Accept that you are scared and switch your focus from resisting fear to thinking about what scares you – the situation at hand. Then, you can think about your next move.

Once we take the first action, fear quickly subsides. Our large prefrontal cortex sometimes makes us overthink. Follow what cats (or dogs) do! When my kitties hear an unusual sound, they get up to see if there is a real danger. In our lives, change involves accepting things that are unfamiliar, unknown, and thus scary. As Kristen Ulmer says, fear is a sign that we are on the right track for growth. Use fear as fuel. Fear is fuel. Forget who you think you are. Make a new self! Habits will make us become who we want to be. Soothe your fear by simply doing One Thing for You a Day!

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