| How
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Importance of Homeostasis:
What is Important in Working with Homeostasis
to Get Unstuck
Given the importance of homeostasis, you cannot root out or prevent it and its attendant fears, you can negotiate with them.
• Break the change in question into smaller steps. This reduces the intensity of the resistance. (Remember, homeostasis increases with the size of the change, not the nature or value of the change.)
• Pace yourself. Making the change over time instead of all at once reduces the intensity of the homeostatic reaction.
• Analyze the actual risk. Remember what you learned about Fear 1 and Fear 2 in "Principle 3: Discern Two Types of Fear"? Fear 1 magnifies danger as it minimizes your competence. Seek reliable information about the scope of the risk you are taking and the best means to meet it. The better your information about the actual risk involved, the less huge it will seem.
• Set milestones and celebrate when you reach them. This gives you a conscious history of successful change and makes it easier to move into scary territory in the future.
• Design an environment that supports learning and growth and avoid people, places and things that undermine learning. While a certain amount of resistance is inevitable (that's the whole point,) why waste any more of your energy and attention than is absolutely necessary on overcoming the tendency to stay stuck?
• Make a list of aspects of your environment and brainstorm the choices you can make in each to support stepping out of your comfort zone. For example, you might choose to ask your friends to support you in using empowering language or you might choose a gym based on its emphasis on safe training techniques.
Laying a Foundation for Balancing the Importance of Homeostasis
and the Importance of Change
Commit to fundamental personal practices that keep you centered, whole and flexible. Such practices instill in you a sense of stability and groundedness that minimizes the feeling that you are at risk when you go out of your comfort zone. Helpful practices include:
• Exercise
• Meditation
• Journaling
• Participating in a support group
• Working with a coach.
Make the Most of Setbacks
Reframe setbacks as perfectly created exercises in the workshop of your life. It will be easier for you to accept homeostasis and its role in making changes if you let go of the fantasy that there is or should be a point in your life after which you will have "arrived" and will no longer find change difficult.
It
takes 21 days to turn a new behavior into a habit. I invite you to print
and use this worksheet
in PDF format to record your insights and practice the principles
in this book as you work with your fears. There is room on each page for
you to record your fears, to discern two
types of fear, to explore how fear shows up in your body, and to work
with homeostasis. In addition, each day features an inspirational quote.
Alternatively, you are invited to download the whole guide here: Getting Free From Fear.
Remember to review the principles of dealing with fear in this book as you do your daily writing. The intentionality and care you bring to this process will be repaid a thousandfold in increased confidence, flexibility, and courage.
If you work through this book and keep a 21-day journal of your experience with fear, you will set in motion a long-term shift that will empower and support you for the rest of your life.
I'd love to hear your experiences as you meet and manage your fears. Send them to me at mollyATmollygordon.com.
Molly Gordon
Next: Books on Fear
About the Author
Molly Gordon is a Master Certified Coach,
who shows accidental entrepreneurs how to manifest the success that is
the natural consequence of living their hearts' desires with integrity,
authenticity, and passion. Since 1996, she has coached hundreds of clients
through personal and professional transformation. Her unique coaching
style is informed by her experience as a business owner and artist as
well as her lifetime commitment to service and creativity. She is a widely
sought after speaker and facilitator.
Molly says:
I support my clients to live lives of meaning and prosperity. Learn more
about business coaching and
personal growth coaching
I offer. When you are ready to transform your life, email me, mgordonATmollygordon.com,
to discuss whether coaching is right for you and to see if we are a good
fit. Until then, please accept my heartfelt good wishes.
Feel the fear and do it anyway. Susan Jeffers
How to Overcome
Fears and Anxiety
by Molly Gordon, MCC
Table of Contents
Business Coach and Personal Growth
Coach Molly Gordon
available in Greater Seattle Area and internationally can be reached at:
mgordonATmollygordon.com | Phone: 360.633.4397 | Fax: 206.201.5020
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