PTSD and Anxiety
Fear, in essence, is very close to excitement. Excitement is the sensation of the new, combined with the expectation of something positive occurring.
Fear is complex. It can be related to unexpressed anger, a rupture of boundaries due to abuse or neglect, or be related to any memory of a traumatic experience or period.
Fear also tends to become habitual without being able to consciously relate to its cause and this can be confusing, placing additional disorientation on one's sense of self.
Fear as a Habitual Response and How to Dismantle it
To deal with fear related to your trauma, it is essential for you to remove some of the load. A good therapist will help you to process and contextualize it, although there is a way to deal with the habitual fear response if you have already worked through some of your Post-Traumatic Stress issues.
Whenever you have a quiet moment, or when you feel that you have been activated into a fear response, take a moment to notice that sensation in your body. We tend to keep fear more in our lower body, in the solar plexus and belly area. Now, just feel that without going too much into it or allowing thoughts to interfere.
What you may be forced to notice is that your mind will react to thoughts. Your mind wants to change it, solve it, or make it go away. Now notice yourself reacting to it; become aware of it. It may be overt or more unconscious, but become more intimate with it. Track your mind's response; its reaction, without going into thoughts of why, how or when, which will only confuse you. Stay out of that altogether, navigate away from it. You can do this.
If you do this correctly, you will see that your reaction to fear is the identification with it. The moment you say or have an intimation of "I don't want this" you have become more identified with it.
Negating Thoughts that Contribute to Fear
When you start tracking your reactions, your resistances, you actively stop feeding into the fear.
When you actively stop feeding into the fear, your boundaries start to widen and the sensation of fear may turn into heat rather than restriction or tightness. From there, that heat might turn into excitement with more body awareness and lightness.
Equally so, this can be done with other emotions. It is hard work and you will come up against barriers of thinking as you identify with mental/emotional states such as blame, shame, self-reproach, and embarrassment, but it certainly can be done.
I have created The Trauma Care Audio Guided Meditations which address the most fundamental insights into the processes of trauma and dissociation and how you can work through them.
Roland really gets to the heart of what it is like to live every day with CPTSD . He writes with a unique insight and authenticity rarely found elsewhere. The underlying truth and message is despite any trauma that happened in your life, there is hope.
Niahm, Ireland