Conversation Fear And The Three Ways To Kill It By Peter Murphy All rights reserved. You cannot give this ebook away free or sell it. You do not have resale rights to this ebook. This eBook may not be reproduced in any format without the expressed written permission of Peter Murphy. All violators will be prosecuted. While attempts have been made to verify information contained in this publication, neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for errors, omissions, interpretation or usage of the subject matter herein. This publication contains the opinions and ideas of its author and is intended for informational purposes only. The author and publisher shall in no event be held liable for any loss or other damages incurred from the usage of this publication. Use this information at your own risk. (C) Copyright 2003 by Peter Murphy Peter@workwealth.com Table of Contents 02 Introduction 03 End Conversation Fear Technique #1-Feel The Fear And Take Action 05 End Conversation Fear Technique #2 -Change How You Think 08 End Conversation Fear Technique #3 -Let Go Of Fear 12 Conclusion Introduction Fear serves an important purpose for all of us – to protect us from threats real or imagined in our environment. However very often we fear situations that do not threaten our survival. This special report is about dealing with those fears that limit our lives even though we are not actually in danger of any kind. You will learn how to significantly diminish the impact of those fears that involve your dealings with other people and in many cases you will be even be able to eliminate the fear completely. (If you are concerned about situations and people where you may be in real danger of some kind please go and get help immediately) Have you ever wished you had more confidence with people? Have you ever agonized over what to say when meeting new people in social situations? You are not alone. Even highly successful people have times when they feel intimidated by other people. Why? Because no matter how well you are doing there is always someone higher up the ladder! A number of years ago I worked for a very senior I.T. industry executive. He exuded confidence and success but when his boss was looking for him his whole manner changed. He grew tense and cautious, and he became like a different person. Why? Fear! Fear of getting fired, looking stupid or saying the wrong thing. Fear is that uncomfortable feeling that stops you from being all you can be even when you know better. It is an immobilizing force that stops you from being all that you can be. It limits your enjoyment of life and it kills even the best intentions you have for living your life to the full. Think about it... if you had no fear what would stop you from making your life the way you want it to be? More specifically our fears about dealing with people limit our happiness, our career prospects and our sense of belonging in the world. What I like to call conversation fear is what we will deal with in this report. Conversation fear is that feeling of dreaded anticipation you feel before meeting someone, the sense of being stuck when talking to people and the uncomfortable tension you feel when you just don’t know what to say. Thankfully there are three effective ways to deal with conversation fear and take back control of your life: 1 Feel the fear and take action 2 Change how you think 3 Let go of the fear End Conversation Fear Technique #1-Feel The Fear And Take Action You may have heard of the book “Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway” by Susan Jeffers. Although this is not my favorite way of dealing with fear it does work and it is a useful approach at times The idea is to gradually and constantly stretch the limits of your limiting behavior. And little by little you get used to taking action despite your anxiety while also expanding your horizons and facing your demons. In my opinion this is the most stressful and difficult way to deal with your fears. However we can adapt this approach to make it work better. For example let us say you are afraid of approaching people at networking events. Your goal would be to gradually aim higher despite your fears. Here are the stages you might work through over time: 1 Turn up and get in the way so other people can approach you 2 Attend a meeting with the goal of talking to just one new person. Leave as soon as your goal is achieved as a reward. 3 Go to a meeting and this time initiate a conversation with three new people without putting yourself under pressure to strike up a great conversation. 4 Attend a meeting with the goal of creating a rapport based conversation with three people you have never talked to before. You will see from the outline above that no attention is placed on how you feel instead the goal is to take action and keep going despite the stress involved. This can be nerve wracking and very uncomfortable. How can we make this process better and easier? 1 Set up an anchor This will ensure you can feel confident and talkative whenever you need to. Refer back to the section on anchoring in the main book for specific instructions on how to do this. Go to the chapter titled “Day 5 – Instant Confidence”. Go back to times in your life when you felt talkative and at ease. Then anchor the feelings. Anchoring is an amazing skill to have. I have successfully used it for over ten years to help me perform at my best in some very challenging situations both in business and in my social life. If you have read about anchoring or only played about with the concept you are missing out. Devote 20 minutes a day to anchoring times when you felt powerful, confident, happy, courageous, peaceful and loved. After all feeling great is what everyone wants -all you need to do is relive these feelings and anchor them so you can feel fantastic whenever you want to. When you feel phenomenal it gets easier and easier to stretch your comfort zones. You can walk into any challenging meeting or social gathering and fire your confidence anchor to ensure you perform well without feeling stressed out by the occasion. 2 Set highly specific goals when you attend social events If you just turn up with no sense of purpose you will do what you always do. Instead give your mind something to aim for and you will have less time to worry and be self-conscious. Your goal could be as simple as asking someone the time or asking for a copy of the meeting schedule. Over time you simply set a bigger goal and this way you feel a sense of progress one step at a time. One day you will wake up and find yourself aiming to talk to ten new people without even worrying about it. All because you had a series of progressively larger goals. 3 List your fears What exactly are you afraid of? Be specific and then come up with at least three ways to handle any possible disasters. Often we get carried away with our fears. Once the cold light of logic peers into these dark corners it really is not as bad as we feared. You can eliminate many of your lesser fears through reasoning while the remaining big ones will lose a little of their impact after you analyze them. The key is to be highly specific. Saying you fear meeting new people is too general to work on. Compare that general statement to -I fear saying the wrong thing in important business meetings when I meet new clients. When you identify a highly specific problem you are in a position to figure out solutions. You will also be clear enough to ask other people for advice. End Conversation Fear Technique #2 -Change How You Think The process I am going to describe to you has worked very well for me. When you read the steps below you will probably find the process unusual. Read through it a few times before you start using it and give yourself time to master this powerful approach to eliminating your fears. Let me give you an example of how I have used this process. When I was a student I felt very uncomfortable walking past the crowds of students that congregated outside the library. I felt as if everyone was staring at me. I’m sure I am not that interesting but thinking logically about fears does not always help the situation, as I am sure you have already discovered! Anyway, I used the elements in the process I am going to outline here to completely take care of this issue. I spent at most twenty-five minutes changing the way I thought about this problem and it never again bothered me from that day forward. All of a sudden I felt at ease walking past all of the gathering students and, if I wanted, I could even look individuals in the eye instead of keeping my eyes firmly on the ground in front of me. Think about how amazing this is! Making changes in how you think and feel is supposed to be difficult and most people think it takes a lot of time and so much effort that it is hardly worthwhile. I spent only twenty-five minutes doing something that anyone can learn and easily took care of a nagging fear. You can do the same! How can this be so easy? It is all about having an effective strategy. The strategy I reveal here is designed with laser like precision to help you focus only on what you need to do to change how you think and feel. In contrast a less effective strategy demands a lot of time, effort and pain to get the same result. For me it is like the difference between dialing the correct phone number and guessing what the number is. Which approach is easier and which will work faster? The Fear Eliminator Strategy: This strategy is useful for changing fearful thoughts into more resourceful ones. We often get stuck in a loop without even noticing it and unless we change the limiting thought patterns running on autopilot in our head the fear will continue and even get worse. There are eight essential steps to taking charge of your fears: 1 Pick a particular situation to work with Once you define a specific situation we can get to work to eliminate the fear. If you decide to work at a general level on all dealings with people that leave you feeling anxious you will not succeed. Here are some possible scenarios to work with: -Introducing yourself to strangers at parties -Asking questions in meetings -Making a speech before a crowd -Attending job interviews -Dealing with the bank manager -Starting conversations with people on public transport 2 Set up a very powerful anchor Refer back to the section on anchoring in the main book for specific instructions on how to do this. Go to the chapter titled “Day 5 – Instant Confidence”. This step must be done correctly before you proceed. I want you to establish a very, very powerful anchor. Think back to times in your life when you felt absolutely invincible, when you felt on top of the world and when you felt like you could achieve anything you set your mind to. The nature of the situations themselves do not matter what matters is the emotional intensity. Then link each one of these peak emotional states to the same anchor. I want you to really go over the top on this one and only be satisfied when you feel totally unstoppable and powerful. You can also exaggerate these feelings of power in your body to create even stronger feelings. Do this by deliberately increasing the intensity of how you are breathing, speaking and moving – then anchor these even more intense emotional states. 3 Fire your anchor Make sure when you fire your anchor that you feel very resourceful i.e. powerful and confident that you can handle any challenge. The next stage is to fire the anchor and follow the instructions in step 4 below. Do not go any further until your anchor is set up properly. 4 Go back in time to the first time the fear inducing event occurred Imagine you are standing in the doorway of the room in your home where you keep your TV. Now imagine you are watching, through the eyes of your imaginary self at the doorway, a clone of yourself as he sits in front of the TV enjoying the scenes and sounds coming from the TV. If you find it difficult to visualize get a sense of the scene by building the scenario in your mind with sounds and feelings. Now imagine as you stand by the door that your clone is pressing play on his DVD remote control and as you watch from the perspective of your other self in the doorway you see him watching a previous situation on the TV when you experienced fear dealing with people. Now from the safety of the doorway (and with your anchor fired) watch your clone press the button on the DVD remote control that takes the images on the TV back to the first time you ever felt fear in this type of situation. Watch that earliest memory unfold on the TV screen from the perspective of your imagined self in the doorway. (If you feel uncomfortable at any point – stop! Go back to the beginning of this process and set up your anchor properly) 5 Scramble the images that produce the fear As you watch, from the perspective of your other self in the doorway, and see your clone viewing the younger you on the TV screen you should not feel bothered by the situation because you are firing your anchor to keep yourself in a resourceful state. Now it is time to have some fun. As you watch the DVD of that early memory pretend you can distort the sound and images in anyway you choose. Make the picture tiny, black and white and two-dimensional. Make the sound faint, distorted and distant. Keep playing with the sound and images until the scene seems ridiculous. Change the scene in anyway you like to make it appear insignificant. Here are some suggestions for distorting the scene: -Turn it upside down -Flip it sideways -Coat the scene in your favorite color -Slow down the scene until it seems silly -Speed up the scene until it looks like a cartoon -Make the sounds squeaky like a kids toy -Slow down the sound so it crawls as if the batteries have died -Speed up the sound so it whirs like a motor One of my favorite ways to scramble the image is to pretend it is stamped onto a sheet of glass. Then I imagine I have a huge hammer which I smash it into the glass and watch the image shatter into a million little pieces with a loud crash. The lesson for you in this is to be creative in how you distort the sounds and images. Just keep distorting the scene running it backwards and forwards until it loses any unpleasant emotional charge it once had over you. Eventually you will get to a stage of feeling like the event was not so significant after all. 6 Test that the fear has been eliminated or at least significantly reduced Watch the scene on the TV one more time but without firing your resourceful anchor. If you cannot do this comfortably just cycle though the above steps again until you completely distort that early memory. Once you can view the images comfortably without an anchor you are ready for the next stage. 7 Integration of the changes Now it is time to integrate the changes we have made in how you think about those situations that used to make you feel fearful. This step sounds a little unusual – just allow your imagination to take over for this step. Have the younger version of you on the TV screen step into the clone of you sitting in front of the TV and then have the clone float across the room and into the image of you standing at the door. Now see the image of you in the doorway step out of the picture in your mind and into your actual body. 8 Test what you have done Try to re-access those feelings of fear. If you can feel the fear them simply run through the steps above until those feelings are taken care of. This process is unusual and takes a little practice to get it right. Don’t expect to master it the first time you use it. The time you put into learning it is very worthwhile however since you can use this process on every conversation fear you have. Make a list and deal with each particular situation that cause you trouble. End Conversation Fear Technique #3 -Let Go Of Fear In strategy #1 we looked at how to face the fear head on, in strategy #2 we learned how to change the thoughts that cause us to be afraid and in this strategy we focus on how to let go of the fear itself. This is the simplest and most elegant way I know of to get rid of fears that are limiting your life. If you are afraid of speaking up, worried about what people think of you or are frightened of speaking before a crowd then the technique I will now reveal could be the breakthrough you have been waiting for. Before I go on I must warn you not to be fooled by the simplicity of what I am going to explain. It is easy to fall into the trap that something must be complicated to have value. Think of it like this… a Cadillac is a highly advanced and complex piece of engineering that has evolved only after many years of research and development but starting the engine is simple -you just turn the key! Letting go or releasing your fears is easy too when you know how. Just bear in mind that under the surface of the following technique lays some considerable understanding of how we all manage our feelings. How To Let Go Of Your Fears: 1 Choose one people situation where you are typically gripped by fear Do you feel intimidated when dealing with sales people? Perhaps you find it hard to assert yourself with your significant other or perhaps you are afraid to say what you think when talking to your boss. Select a specific situation to work on without actually stepping into those uncomfortable feelings. 2 Ask the releasing questions Think of a recent example and without actually feeling the fear ask yourself the following releasing questions Could you let go of wanting this to happen? Notice the feeling response that comes up for you rather than the thoughts that pop into your head. What do I mean? I mean feel the answer by noticing the feelings you get in your body when you ask the question. Very often your breathing will change and you will feel a little more relaxed after you ask the question a few times. It helps to place one hand on your heart and to look down as you ask the question of yourself. Doing this makes it easier to get in touch with your feelings. I usually get either a Yes or a No answer and I tend to feel the answer first before the thought pops into my head as an afterthought. You will get a mental response to the question. That is to be expected just keep your attention on the feelings in your body especially in your gut when these answers pop into your mind and notice how these feelings lead your response. Once you have asked the first question a few times with your attention on the feeling response move onto question two. Would you let go of wanting this to happen? Again pay attention to your feeling response and not to your logical answers. If you are not feeling anything at first don’t worry. With practice this process won’t seem so unusual. I usually get a Yes or a No response to this question as well but the actual answer is not as important as feeling the actual feelings. Why? Our goal is to release feelings not thoughts. When? This is the final question. Again just feel the answer and notice what pops into your head. You might get Now as an answer or you might a time in the future like in one week, in two months or a conditional answer such as when “X” happens. Again pay more attention to your feelings than to your thoughts. 3 Cycle through the questions Ask yourself each question once and then move onto the next one in the sequence: · Could you let go of wanting this to happen? · Would you let go of wanting this to happen? · When? Then start again at the first question and repeat the process until you feel more at peace about the situation that used to make you feel fearful. In this way you can easily let go or release the fears that are holding you back. How do you know when you have let go or released a fear? You will feel different when you think about what used to make you fearful. Whereas before even thinking about that particular situation would leave you tense, anxious and afraid now you will feel more relaxed, at peace and more care free. You will also be able to think logically about the situation without the confusion that comes when you try to think straight in the face of fear. For probably the first time you will be able to make sense of the situation. You will have freedom in how you respond instead of the tense tunnel vision response you were stuck with before. If you do not feel at least more courageous then you need to cycle through the releasing questions a few more times. As I stressed before, make sure you are paying attention to your feelings and not to your thoughts. Some issues release more easily than others it just depends on the degree of emotional charge and on how long you have had that particular issue. Sometimes just a few minutes of releasing will allow me to let go of a minor fear whereas with a major issue I may need to spend 40 minutes releasing on the fear to feel lighter and more at peace. Then over the course of a few weeks I will release even more on that issue to make even more progress. This time spent releasing is not hard work – it is a relaxing process, which you can enjoy doing to make your life better. 4 Make a list of your conversation fears Here are a few to get you started: -Looking stupid -Saying the wrong thing -Speaking too much -Getting left out -Not saying enough -Not being able to relax -Feeling under pressure to participate -Not being liked -Getting pushed about because you are quiet Now take your list and follow the outlined steps to release or let go of each specific conversation fear you have. How and why does releasing on fears work? It looks too simple to work doesn’t it? Remember my earlier example of the Cadillac? All that technology and power under the hood only became possible after tremendous breakthroughs in technology over many years. And today starting the engine is easy for anyone because the incredible complexity has been reduced to a beautiful simplicity for the end user. In a similar way letting go of a limiting emotion like fear is easy only when you know how! Lester Levenson the man who introduced this breakthrough to the world noticed how we handle fear in out hearts and in our minds. We tend to hold onto our fears so as to protect ourselves from potential threats. However by holding onto these fears we get stuck and immobilized by worrying about things that may never happen. And ironically when we are driven by fear we are less able to deal with danger. Only when you feel strong and capable are you best positioned to deal with the challenges of life. We also hold onto limiting beliefs and perceptions about the world that are untrue. You may be so afraid of getting rejected by people that you dread meeting new people when in fact the world is dying to meet you and your fear of rejection has no basis in reality. Once you let go of this irrational fear you will allow yourself to shine and people will treat you in a whole new way because that look of worry has left your face and you look more relaxed and at ease. Lester Levenson discovered that our fears are kept alive because we hold them in mind. In a bizarre way part of us is programmed to create the result we fear. It’s almost as if we have a computer program running to achieve a result we no longer even want but someone forgot to delete the program. Part of us is thinking – don’t get rejected by people, don’t look stupid when meeting new people, don’t get stuck not knowing what to say in company! Meanwhile we have a program running in the background that is causing us problems because it is working to create these very fears. Part of us wants to feel good about meeting new people but the fear programs with the strong emotional charge are winning. Once you let go of these limiting programs the positive programs are free to function unhindered. No wonder we have mixed feelings about dealing with people, no wonder we get tongue tied and it’s not surprising meeting new people can be both fun and a real effort! All of these competing programs can really drain your energy. Once you let go of more and more of your conversation fears you will feel a lot more relaxed talking to people and you won’t find it as draining. Conclusion There are three different ways to deal with your conversation fear: 1 Feel the fear and take action 2 Change how you think 3 Let go of the fear Each technique works if you work it! You need to play with the techniques to get skilled at using them. In my opinion this is a small price to pay to finally achieve a breakthrough in your ability to get along with other people. Which technique should you use for different situations? Start with the first technique and progress onto the second technique if you need more firepower. However do use a technique properly before assuming you need something more powerful. The second approach is the most complicated one and will take you the longest to master. Nevertheless it is a proven technique that is used around the world to cure extreme fears such as phobias – it’s that effective! If you are stuck for time and you need a more powerful solution then go straight to the third approach. This is a simple to apply, elegant and very powerful way of dealing with fear. If you want to learn more about letting go of limiting emotions you can visit my releasing site here: http://groups.msn.com/TheSedonaMethodreleasingClub/