Your brain can’t tell the difference between a career opportunity and a lion attack.
That’s why you freeze when your boss asks if you want to lead the project. That’s why your heart races at the thought of posting that video. And that’s exactly why its so hard to bet on yourself and live out your purpose, your biology is working against you.
I’m Dr. Rees, and I’ve spent my career teaching humans how to rewire this fear response. So if fear keeps you from living out your purpose with confidence, you have come to the right spot.
I’m on a mission to help you get free WITH fear. You heard that, right? Not free FROM fear. Free WITH fear.
Because to have fear is to be human. Fear saves us from danger, but it can also keep us from living out our purpose. And we cannot have that anymore.
In this series, I’m teaching you the mindsets, habits, and skills you need to lean into fear, not avoid it, not get away from it, but embrace it. Because confidence isn’t being fearless. It’s about living with fear and pursuing your purpose anyway.
Let’s get after it.
The Problem: Your Brain Thinks Everything Is Life-Threatening
Whether you like it or not, fear is a necessary emotion. It signals danger. It keeps us safe.
Here’s a small example: Today I was walking my dog, and her leash got loose. Instant fear. My heart raced. My mind went searching for her. This is a dog that’ll just run away, so my body kicked into protection mode.
Here’s what happened in my brain: There’s a part called the amygdala, our fear sensor. When it detects a threat, it sends a signal to our prefrontal cortex (in the You-Ish world, we call this your CEO or Executive). From there, whatever thought you apply can either calm the fear or intensify it. That determines whether you take action or freeze. Fear, panic, react to save her life, notice she’s safe, deep breath, insert calm sensation, all in a matter of .5 seconds. That is how fast our brain works.
The fear is necessary. It literally protects us.
But here’s the problem: If you’re not trained to recognize the difference between a life-threatening situation and something that’s just challenging, your brain can’t tell them apart.
Think about that. Your brain is structured to keep you alive. So you have to gain the mindsets, habits, and skills to recognize fear and say, “I understand what this is. My life is not in danger. This is just something that may be scary to me, but it could be good for me.”
Without that training, you’ll never develop a confident and constructive fear response.
The Two Responses to Fear (And Why You’re Probably Choosing the Wrong One)
We have two different responses to fear: an insecure, destructive response or a confident, constructive response.
Because we grow up experiencing fear, it becomes natural to respond to anything that seems or appears life-threatening. The way your prefrontal cortex perceives the feeling your amygdala sends will dictate how you respond.
Let me give you an example.
You get a big opportunity to do something you care about, at your job, in your business, something connected to your purpose. You start to experience fear. Your prefrontal cortex says, “This is dangerous. We don’t want to do this because we could be embarrassed.” Then you start collecting data from past events that didn’t go your way.
You’re presented with an opportunity that requires risk, but your body sees it as a warning signal.
Now, if you’ve never done the work to identify that yes, it may be scary, but it’s not life-threatening, that right there is the difference. That’s when you develop confident self-talk to have that conversation with yourself.
If you don’t have that skill, you’ll never take the risk required to bet on yourself. Every opportunity that comes your way will eventually stop coming because you’re not taking them.
Here’s how this impacts your purpose: You literally don’t do the things you’re called to do because your brain is telling you they are life-threatening.
We start applying life-threatening intensity to non-life-threatening opportunities.
That’s what we have to stop.
Your prefrontal cortex assigns intensity to opportunities based on perception. And perception is reality. You’ve made this a real life-threatening thing when it’s really just a great opportunity that allows you to live out your purpose and activate your gifts.
Understanding Insecure & Destructive vs. Confident & Constructive
When a situation triggers fear, you have two responses available. Same fear. Different outcomes.
The insecure, destructive response triggers cortisol and other stress hormones, which influence you to perceive it as life-threatening.
The confident, constructive response triggers dopamine and motivation, influencing you to perceive it as a challenge.
I use these specific words for a reason.
When you think about the foundation of anything, if it’s not secure, it’s fragile. It’s faulty. It can’t carry weight. That’s why it’s the opposite of confident, because confidence is secure.
And destructive? Anything destructive breaks down. If you have an insecure response to something that could be good for you, not taking chances, not betting on yourself, not picking up opportunities, you’re literally destroying your purpose.
If your response to fear destroys your purpose, it’s an insecure, destructive response.
On the other side: confident, constructive. Construction builds things up. The more you train yourself to develop a confident, constructive response to fear, the more you develop your self-efficacy. You live out your purpose. You put your gifts out. You add value to other people.
Confidence adds. Insecurity subtracts.
What I Want to Help You Do
Being confident isn’t about being fearless. It’s about diminishing the power and control that fear has over your life. That’s why this series is called Free WITH Fear instead of Free FROM Fear.
Here are three things I want to help you do:
1. Increase your self-regulation. Not every situation deserves the same amount of energy. You need the skill to ask: “Is this actually a threat to my life? Or is this just a challenge that matters to me?” This is a bio-psycho-social skill; your biology, psychology, and behaviors all play a role. You have to rep this over and over to rewire your brain.
As a Black, masc-presenting woman in America. I understand what it looks like and feels like to be perceived as a threat and live in and with fear. I would not be the person I am today without developing a confident, constructive response to fear.
Fear impacts everything. There are too many people living their lives but not living out their purpose with confidence. There’s a difference between being alive and living out your purpose. Fear is the number one reason people don’t take the first action toward activating their gifts, becoming who they were created to be, and building what’s in their heart.
2. Increase your emotional confidence. When you know you have the ability to respond the way you desire to, not just based on how your emotions want you to respond, you increase your overall confidence, satisfaction, and ability to reach your potential.
3. Live your confident life on your terms. Being confident is not being fearless. It’s being able to pursue the life you desire to live and the life you deserve to livenot fearless, but diminishing the power and control fear has over you.
When you say, “I’m going to learn how to live WITH fear, fight WITH fear, persevere WITH fear, do that thing I was born to do WITH fear”, you are developing courage. You are leveraging the resilience inside of you to become the person you were created to be.
It’s not the absence of fear. It’s WITH fear.
Your Challenge: The Wants and Fears Exercise
Here’s what I want you to do.
First: Write a wants list.
Journal or phone, doesn’t matter. Just write down what you want. Don’t think small. Think big. Think so big that it puts an organic smile on your face. Think so big that it might bring you to tears. What do you want from your life?
You’ll feel tension rising. You’ll feel fear creeping in. That’s normal. Don’t stop.
Don’t think, “What if this doesn’t happen for me?” Just think: What do I want?
Write at least 20 things. Big or small.
Second: Write a fear list.
What are the fears that came up while you were writing your wants? Be specific.
- I want to grow on social media, but I fear making videos
- I want to ask for a raise, but I fear my boss’s response
- I want to start my business, but I fear failure
- I want to get my driver’s license, but I fear driving
Whatever it is, write it down.
Third: Put them side by side.
Match each want with its corresponding fear. We have to call out the fears. That’s the first step in gaining control over them and diminishing the power they have over our lives.
Now here’s what I need you to do:
Write a comment and tell me: What is one fear you’re willing to face so you can live your confident life?
I believe in you. I love you. And I want you to remember that you are worthy of living your confident life.