Deborah Ward - Overcoming Fear with Mindfulness

Overcoming Fear

Deborah Ward is a writer and editor whose passion for personal growth and psychology has led to the publication of numerous feature articles for a variety of print and online magazines. With a desire to nurture the personal development, self-esteem and potential of others, she also writes a regular blog for Psychology Today magazine called Sense and Sensitivity, on the subject of coping with high sensitivity. Deborahs creative interests also include writing fiction. She has published numerous short stories and is currently also working on a novel. Through her writing, Deborah strives to provide the clarity and compassion to inspire others to be their true selves and to shed light on issues which are so often hidden in darkness.

Overcoming Common Problems Series

Selected titles

Breast Cancer: Your treatment choices

Dr Terry Priestman

Cider Vinegar

Margaret Hills

Coeliac Disease: What you need to know

Alex Gazzola

Coping Successfully with Chronic Illness: Your healing plan

Neville Shone

Coping Successfully with Shyness

Margaret Oakes, Professor Robert Bor and Dr Carina Eriksen

Coping with Anaemia

Dr Tom Smith

Coping with Difficult Families

Dr Jane McGregor and Tim McGregor

Coping with Drug Problems in the Family

Lucy Jolin

Coping with Eating Disorders and Body Image

Christine Craggs-Hinton

Coping with Epilepsy

Dr Pamela Crawford and Fiona Marshall

Coping with Gout

Christine Craggs-Hinton

Coping with Liver Disease

Mark Greener

Coping with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Professor Kevin Gournay, Rachel Piper and Professor Paul Rogers

Coping with Schizophrenia

Professor Kevin Gournay and Debbie Robson

Depressive Illness: The Curse of the Strong

Dr Tim Cantopher

The Diabetes Healing DIet

Mark Greener and Christine Craggs-Hinton

Dying for a Drink

Dr Tim Cantopher

The Empathy Trap: Understanding Antisocial Personalities

Dr Jane McGregor and Tim McGregor

Epilepsy: Complementary and alternative treatments

Dr Sallie Baxendale

Fibromyalgia: Your Treatment Guide

Christine Craggs-Hinton

Hay Fever: How to beat it

Dr Paul Carson

The Heart Attack Survival Guide

Mark Greener

Helping Elderly Relatives

Jill Eckersley

The Holistic Health Handbook

Mark Greener

How to Come Out of Your Comfort Zone

Dr Windy Dryden

How to Eat Well When You Have Cancer

Jane Freeman

How to Stop Worrying

Dr Frank Tallis

The Irritable Bowel Diet Book

Rosemary Nicol

Living with Complicated Grief

Professor Craig A. White

Living with IBS

Nuno Ferreira and David T. Gillanders

Making Sense of Trauma: How to tell your story

Dr Nigel C. Hunt and Dr Sue McHale

Overcoming Fear: With mindfulness

Deborah Ward

Overcoming Loneliness

Alice Muir

The Panic Workbook

Dr Carina Eriksen, Professor Robert Bor and Margaret Oakes

Physical Intelligence: How to take charge of your weight

Dr Tom Smith

The Self-Esteem Journal

Alison Waines

Transforming Eight Deadly Emotions into Healthy Ones

Dr Windy Dryden

Treating Arthritis: The drug-free way

Margaret Hills and Christine Horner

Treating Arthritis: The supplements guide

Julia Davies

When Someone You Love Has Depression: A handbook for family and friends

Barbara Baker

First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Sheldon Press
An Hachette UK Company

Sheldon Press

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

www.sheldonpress.co.uk

Copyright Deborah Ward 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

The author and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the external website and email addresses included in this book are correct and up to date at the time of going to press. The author and publisher are not responsible for the content, quality or continuing accessibility of the sites.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781847092861

eBook ISBN 9781847092878

Typeset by Caroline Waldron, Wirral, Cheshire

eBook by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong

Contents

Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn.

Marianne Williamson

Action conquers fear.

Peter Nivio Zarlenga

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sylvia had always known what it was like to live with fear. When she was growing up, her parents often argued. Her father would get angry and drink too much while her mother hid in the bedroom, but Sylvia could hear her crying as the doors kept slamming. It wasnt until she had become an adult herself and moved out that they finally got a divorce. By then, Sylvia was in a relationship of her own with a kind and intelligent young man, but she often found herself feeling anxious around him. Whenever he offered to drive her to work or when he bought her a gift, she felt her heart pounding and her hands begin to sweat. She had no idea why she felt this way. But when he asked her to move in together, she felt so afraid that she began to shake all over. All she wanted to do was run away. And so she told him that their relationship had to end.

What was Sylvia afraid of? Was she afraid of commitment? Or was it something she was not even aware of, something that had nothing to do with her boyfriend? Sylvias experiences with relationships as a child had not been very positive and so she learned early on to be afraid of them. To her, they only made people unhappy. And while she was aware of the way she felt, she was completely unaware of the real cause of that fear or what she could do about it. She felt fearful around her boyfriend, so it made sense to blame him for her feelings. She coped with her fear by avoiding it, but it never went away.

The feeling of fear is familiar to everyone, whether its a fear of commitment, a fear of failure, a fear of change or a fear of rejection. While fear is a common and natural response, it can also become debilitating, affecting our ability to sleep and work, to do the things we want to do and to enjoy healthy relationships; ultimately it affects our health, preventing us from living lives of joy and peace and from becoming the people we were meant to be.

of this book will aim to make you more aware of your own subconscious fears and the ways they direct your choices and attitudes to life. Well look at the causes of fear, as well as common situations that make us feel fearful and conditions that can trigger our fears. We will also address the kind of person who is, due to temperament, upbringing or biology, more predisposed to fear.

In , we will discover the ways that mindfulness can help you to overcome fear. By encouraging you to focus on the present moment and develop your awareness, mindfulness can help you to move your thoughts from your unconscious to your conscious mind and to let them go so that you can release the fear those thoughts generate. This section will also explore mindfulness techniques such as mindful eating and mindful walking, meditation, yoga and journalling. Well look at the ways in which mindfulness can help you overcome fear in your relationships and finally we will address work and creativity, and the ways in which mindfulness can help lead you to your dreams.