How to Overcome Fear
by Harv Simpson
There are two big reasons why people become victims or get hurt in altercations. They either don’t have any clue about how to defend themselves (which will hopeful change after they find this website) or they’re too afraid to even try. They freak out and lock up during the fight. They’re too afraid to try fighting back and they end up getting hurt.
If you want to learn to defend yourself, you have got to learn how to cultivate the mind of a warrior. You need to get over the fear of the attack and learn to get through to the other side.
You can call this mindset courage, you can call it a warrior mindset or even just simple confidence, but either way it’s one of the most important aspects of self defense. You can learn all of the moves and tricks you want, but you’ll never have the courage to use them until you rid yourself of the fear.
What is this Fear?
It’s the fear of being hurt. If you grew up without siblings (especially brothers) you may not have gotten into tussles when you were a kid. A lot people got over the fear of getting hurt in a fight back during those childhood scuffles.
But for those who have never had to defend yourself, it’s terrifying to think that you might be beaten or raped or worse. Your opponent may cause you a great deal of pain. What most people don’t realize is that your attacker will only cause you pain if you don’t fight back. Your fear becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
How to Get Over Your Fear
The first step to getting over your fear is practice your self defense tactics. The more you know and the better you know the moves you read in “Top Secret: Self Defense,” the more confidence you will have that you can use them when the time is right. You won’t hesitate or wonder, it will become second nature.
It’s that kind of self confidence that stops most people. They worry that they don’t know these moves well enough. What if they forget about it when the time comes? What if they don’t have the time to react properly?
To build you self confidence: practice, practice, practice. Practice at home on a pillow or on anything you can safely use. The point is just to get used to the movements so that you don’t have to think about them and they become a habit.
Accept Pain and Injury
Learn to accept the fact that you may get hurt. It’s rare that anyone escapes a real life altercation without some type of scrape. You might get hurt, you might get hit, but you’ll minimize any injury if you can keep your head and stop the fight quickly using your new techniques.
You might get a punch in the face, accept it. Better yet–expect it–that way it won’t shock you if it happens. You won’t be thrown off by the blow, you’ll have known it was coming and been expecting it. It will just seem like a step in the process, something that had to happen before you won the fight.
The point is that to be fearless you must accept that whatever happens is what happens. The more you fear it and resist it, the more your fear will grow and the more likely it will be that you’ll lock up during a fight and get hurt even worse.
So practice the moves in “Top Secret: Self Defense” until they become second nature and get comfortable with a little discomfort. These small shifts in your mindset can be the difference between making it home for dinner and a trip to the emergency room.
