Whenever you feel fearful, you have two options. But only one will help you overcome it. In this article Rapid Transformational Hypnotherapy trainer and best-selling author, Marissa Peer shows you how to let go of your fears and start living courageously.

Here's something so interesting. Babies are born with two fears, the fear of being dropped and the fear of loud noises. They don't have any more fears.

They will crawl straight over the balcony and down a flight of stairs. They'll walk straight out of an open window. They'll put their hand in a dog's mouth. They'll stick their fingers in an electric socket because they don't know fear.

And the reason I'm telling you that is because so many fears we have are acquired. So we'll say, “I'm scared of being rejected, I don't like when people look at me.”

Here's the thing, when you were born, what was your first experience being looked at? The nurse, the doctor, mom, dad, grandparents looked at you, counted your toes. No baby goes, “Oh don't look at me, I'm a bit fat.” Or, “I'm having a bad hair day.” Or, “I've got these fat legs.”

Babies love being looked at, even when their diaper's full and their nose is running. They like attention. So the fear of being judged is an acquired fear. It's a learned fear.

We learn to fear being judged because we were judged unkindly or unfavorably. However, you can overcome that by judging yourself really well. Judge yourself positively.

We Have External and Internal Fears

So we have what I call external fears. What if I go out with this person and they dump me? What if I asked that person out and they go, “Oh, I don't want to go out with you.”  What if I go for an interview and they go, “No thanks. We're not looking for you.”

So we have these external fears of disappointment, rejection, hurt and pain. It's okay to go through those experiences. They mold you, they shape you, they grow you.

We also have internal fears, like a fear of falling. We go to the edge and we look down, our stomach plummets.

I go to speak on stage and my fingers feel kind of tingly. This is because when there's excitement, I say to myself, “I'm so nervous.” And so we have that inner nervousness about doing things.

There are also Learned Fears

Then we have fears of dogs and cats and bees and lifts. But these are all learned fears. For every person who fears cats, someone else loves them.

And usually as a child, you either see dogs as animals that bite or and cats as animals that will scratch you, or a bee is something that's going to sting you. Or, you're going to fall out of a tree and kill yourself, or you might drown in the water.

I worked with a little boy recently who was very fearful because his father would say things like, “When I was at school, this kid like you ran in the road and he got run over and was killed because he didn't look where he was going.” And also, “I knew someone who never learned to swim and then on holiday he drowned”.

The father wanted to make his son safe but he actually terrified him because he filled him up with fear of what could go wrong, the worst possible outcome.

Examples of the thinking of the worst possible outcomes are: If you're on a plane, you think it's going to crash. If you're driving in the rain, you think you might skid and die.

There is no point in those fears. When you focus on the worst possible outcome, you actually feel as if you are in that worst possible outcome.

Focus on the Best Possible Outcome

The only way to overcome a fear is instead of focusing on the worst possible outcome, is to have a positive mindset, and focus on the best possible outcome. Do not say to yourself: “I'm driving, it's foggy, it's dark, it's icy. I might skid off the road and kill myself.”

Instead say: “I'm driving very carefully. I'm driving very slowly. I'm driving very cautiously because I'm going to be safe and I'm going to get home.”

You see, that's the difference. You just have to give yourself different beliefs. The thing with fear is that you always is you have two choices:

1. Rationalize why you feel so terrible

2. Or, talk yourself out of feeling fear

I was once on the beach with my daughter and there was a big dog and it was quite a scary dog. She didn't like this dog. I said to her, “You know darling, when you don't like a dog, you get very scared and the dog doesn't like it either and he gets scared. So when you see a scary dog, turn your back to it. Don't look at it, because when you look at it, you're challenging it.”

That's hard to do, to turn your back on a big scary dog. But if you turn your back, it's not a challenge to the dog. My daughter understood this and I was always teaching her that when you have a fear, you have a choice.

There's the choice of feeling:

A.) “Oh my god, that dog's going to bite me, attack me, hurt me.”

B.) Or, “I'm going to talk myself out of this. I'm going to turn away. I'm going to breathe, I'm going to be really calm.”

In the situation in B.), the dog will feel less challenged and scared and will turn and go on its way.

It's the same with everything in life to do with fear. Rationalize why you feel so fearful or talk yourself out of it. Say to yourself: “I'll be fine. This is okay. Everything's going to work out perfectly. I'm okay.”

All of these fears hold you back. And they don't have to, because every fear you go through teaches you something. If you go to a funfair and go on one of those loop-the-loop rides, you can scream in terror or you can scream in excitement. And the fact that people put themselves through those rides means that at some level, we quite like fear.

With so much uncertainty in the world right, it’s crucial to not act out of fear. Fear can challenge us to do more. It can challenge us to grow more. So do not fear, fear. Remember, the only fear to fear, is fear itself.