Fear and your fitness goals: when to listen, when to push

0:13Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Muscle Science for Women podcast. I'm your host, Ashleigh VanHouten. Unfortunately, I am your only host today. It's just me on my, all by my lonesome, and I apologize for that. It's hard to get us both in the same virtual space sometimes. And Rachel is recuperating from living life. So you got to deal with just me today. I apologize, I'm going to do the best I can, but I am kind of excited about the episode today because As you know,, It is, Tover, It is spooky season.

0:51And? Dark and stormy night. It's actually early afternoon. It's basically lunchtime, but it is dark and stormy. It's feeling very spooky and fallish around here. And I thought that this would be a good time for us to have a conversation about Fear. And? It can be sort of a fun conversation about the things that we're scared of that are sort of silly and maybe how we've overcome fears or not. But I think that the deeper conversation here is. Understanding the mechanism of fear a little bit better so that We can recognize and respect when it is.

1:31Protecting us, And then also understand when sometimes it may be keeping us from things like achieving goals that we really want to achieve. And how we can override it when appropriate, because sometimes it, it's working against us, right? And fierce, Mm-hmm. Obviously, a scary thing to contemplate sometimes. I reached out to you guys on social media the other day and asked you what you were afraid of. And it's funny because I didn't really have anything big off the bat. Myself that I'm scared of because I tend my anxiety tends to reside more in existential realms that I wake up in the middle of the night Think about.

2:12Mortality in my children, and, All the mistakes I've made in my life. That's deep. That's for a therapist. That's not for you guys to work out right now. But I don't have a ton of, I don't have really any phobias. I'm not really scared of snakes or spiders and I don't. I'm not really claustrophobic. I don't mind an enclosed space, but I did say I'm not super pumped on Not even heights, but jumping out of plans specifically. I have run up. The CN Tower multiple times. I've been up to the top of the Empire State Building and look down. I live right next to a cliff that overlooks the ocean. I can walk right up to the edge of that bad boy.

2:52My husband, who, and part of his. Job in a previous life, he really. Dad of planes professionally, He was world class at jumping out of planes very. High heights and with hundreds of pounds of equipment in the middle of the night, this guy was really, really, Really skilled at it. And he was always saying, this is an incredible life experience. You should do this. You should try it. We could do it together. And I'm like, are you kidding me? I have less than zero interest in jumping out of a plane. And here's my reasoning. It's very practical.

3:26It's relatively safe. I am using big air quotes here. It's a relatively safe practice. However,, if, God forbid something were to happen and I were to be the unlucky person who Had a fatal accident jumping out of an airplane for fun. I would be so mad at myself. I could never... I could never. Forgive myself. That's a voluntary activity, you know? And I just jumped out of a plane like a fool. And I got what was coming to me. So that's why I will never do it, even though I'm sure it's really fun and life-changing.

4:04I just can't do it. Okay, so I'm already going down a rabbit hole of fears, but that That was the one that I offered up and I'm going to try to go back on. I took some screenshots of what some of you guys said because I think it's good to know that There really are some universal fears. A lot of people were telling me confined spaces. Spaces Let's see Falling, slipping, falling. That was kind of a big one. Maybe it's because we've got a lot of 40, 40 year old plus people listening to this podcast myself included. We don't want to fall anymore.

4:36Some people didn't like chewing. Some people were really scared of birds. Some people really scared of bees Birds and the bees really scared of that. Various. Gary, dead-eyed, Durs from their childhood. I get it I get it. Okay. These are all very, very scary. Have you thought maybe about Some more practical things that you might be scared of because oftentimes the things that are keeping us From stepping outside of our comfort zone and doing the thing we say we really want to do is that we're scared, we're scared to try.

5:11And maybe we don't even articulate or think about why we're scared This fear concept, Can be applied to our everyday life and are certainly our fitness and wellness and health goals. And I think we can unpack it a little bit here today and talk about. What it's doing, what it means, what's happening in our body, how that shows up in the way we behave. And how we might begin to make some changes for our own Improved quality of life. And our own willingness to try new things. I'm going to start talking What fear actually is, it kind of gets a bad reputation, right? Because it's a scary, unpleasant feeling. I've heard people say, if you, if you sort of switch your perspective, that fear is actually anticipation or excitement, then you can take away kind of the negative feeling about it. And okay.

6:02Could be a tactic, but sometimes you're just scared of stuff and it just is what it is and you have to kind of sit in Basically, it's ultimately, it's a protective mechanism, right? It's about detecting threats and it's, It's sort of something that's going on in our brain, but it's also very much something that's going on in our body. And I think it's important to remember, too, right now that fear. It's not a flaw. It's not a character flaw. It's not. You specifically, I'm talking to you, are scared of something. And so your week, we all have fear and we all have fear responses. It's a part of the way we have been designed as human beings and all animals, really.

6:41It's an incredibly effective survival mechanism. And similar to a lot of survival mechanisms that we feel now are working against us and make us feel like we're flawed or broken or not good enough in some way, like the way our body responds to maybe stress or chronic under eating or chronic overtraining by maybe gaining weight. And we think, Doesn't make sense. It actually makes a lot of sense, and our bodies are really, really good at keeping us alive. Not maybe keeping us stress-free or with the perfect set of abs, that's not the goal.

7:15The goal is to keep us alive. And fear is really, really good at that. It helps us detect Things in our ecosystem that are threatening. So we can change our behavior. Importantly, your brain, Doesn't really need to determine if the threat that it's detecting is actually dangerous. Four, it generates a fear response. And this is really the crux of it because this is how we become afraid of things. That if we can take a step back and evaluate are not actually dangerous, and I'll get to that a little bit more in this conversation.

7:52It's worth noting, and you might think, well, why am I afraid of this and this and this? That's so crazy and silly and and really not in any way dangerous or threatening. The system is is. Buyest and built towards An abundance of caution like being. Overly threat detecting instead of under because evolutionarily that makes more sense, right? It's better to be safe than sorry. That whole, that term we use a lot. And also again, like a false alarm being afraid of something, thinking something's around the corner and you think it's Tiger and it's not a Tiger, it's a shadow.

8:28Maybe you feel a little silly or maybe you have a racing heart for a minute, but you. It's better than the alternative, which is thinking it's a shadow and it is a tiger. And then guess what you're in real. Trouble, right? So we tend towards an overabundance of fear, response or caution. And so that's why you may find yourself more or more sensitive, maybe than the next person. What fear can do, it can sort of increase your attention. It can increase arousal in your body. So it helps you be really vigilant and ready.

9:02People who have been in scary situations talk about things like tunnel vision. Or time slowing down and you can it's like you're almost super human for a second you can see things happening like it's in slow motion and I'm sure most of us most of you listening I know myself we have all been in situations of real danger where we've had little snippets of this kind of experience. So I think most of you listening can relate to this. It's a really kind of incredible, again, response. And this is all what's happening in your body with stress hormones. It's making you really, really hyper aware and reactive to whatever is happening to you.

9:41Problem, Is that? Our nervous system, Can react that way. To. Not only, Power accidents or someone threatening you or you're going to fall off a cliff. It can also react that way to Reading something that irritates you on social media. Or someone telling you you have to do a presentation tomorrow. Or you're starting a new job or whatever. These things that not that they're unimportant, They aren't dangerous. Or say? But you're reacting to them bodily in a way that. Your body thinks it's dangerous.

10:18So? What I want you to get from this is that fear isn't, Necessarily telling you something's wrong. It's telling you that, It's detecting a threat. It's uncertain. And whatever is happening is important. It's worth addressing in one way or another, maybe not the way that you are currently addressing it. Water break. This may be a bit of an ASMR episode as well because I don't Get a break to. Listen to Rachel's Response and her, her. 100 smart additions to this. You're just going to have to So the next piece of this Knowing the difference between fear and danger.

10:56So we've already said your nervous system is going to potentially respond to anything that it detects as a threat. With a fear response, whether it's dangerous or not. So your brain detects something significant. You have an autonomic response in your body. So some physiological changes happen, things like your heart rate speeding up, The tunnel vision, I don't know, A lot of different things could happen there. Alertness, your breathing changes, muscle readiness, tenseness, things like that. These things are happening. Stress hormones are being released. So we've got adrenaline, we've got cortisol, all of these things that, again, they're not just there to make you feel scared. They, they aren't there for you to feel scared. You feel scared because you know what those, those stress hormones represent, right? Which is helping you mobilize energy to act.

11:45In a threatening situation. So this is all happening, attention narrowing. You've got the fight, flight, freeze situation. I also think this is an interesting sort of side piece, and I've talked with my friends about this again as someone who is a woman and who listens to a lot of true crime. We do have these kinds of conversations amongst ourselves, whether you are the fight flight freeze person. And I think we all know what we are if we've been in any kind of scary situation. And I got to tell you, just as a sharing side story, I have learned the hard way that I am a a freeze I am a deer in the headlights I'm not saying it's good or bad I don't think it's great but Body does what it's going to do. And I remember, This was years ago.

12:29I lived in New York and I was in a apartment really close to Queensborough Bridge. And I was walking one beautiful sunny summer day to the subway. And I was right by the on-ramp to the bridge. And a truck. Carrying, Something explosive Voted, About, I don't Fifty yards away from me. And? This was, I don't know, 2007, 2008-ish. So in New York, there's a state of alert to explosions. And I heard the noise and I saw pieces of truck land. 10 yards away from me and a plume of smoke and all this was happening right next to me and I didn't jump.

13:20I didn't scream. I didn't yell. I didn't run I stood in place and watched it happen. And I remember thinking back on that and thinking that doesn't seem to me like the best survival mechanism, but. It's what my body did and somewhere along the line in my upbringing, in my genetics, I don't know, my body said, if you just stay really still and don't make a fuss, You're gonna be okay, I guess, you know, me and the deer. That's what we do. But anyway Again, side story, but that's what I do. I freeze. So maybe you think of Right now, about what you do, what do you do?

13:58Do you fight? Do you immediately kind of take action and? Go into it and dive into it. Do you run? Do you freeze? It's an interesting For me anyway. So? Bring in this back around. Fear isn't the same thing as danger. They can both coexist. But fear can exist without danger present. Most of our fitness health-related goals, most I say not all, but most are not dangerous, but they can still offer a few response if we are uncertain, if we're nervous. If it's unfamiliar, If we have had experiences in the past, in the past, rather that are informing something.

14:40A story that we're telling ourselves, Trying something you're not good at. A lot of us have varying degrees of comfortability with that. And then there is a little bit. There can be some danger if we're talking. I don't know. You're You're adding a lot of weight to a bar. You're, trying a sport that is new and potentially a little risky. So there's a fine line there. It's just worth noting that sometimes that fear response While it is good and it is valuable, It can sometimes be telling you a lie. So that's kind of what I wanted to get at with that piece.

15:17Now I want to talk a little bit about why. So the one of the responses to fear, which is? Avoidance, negation of whatever it is that's scaring you. Can feel really, really good. It sort of works for you in the short term, but. When it's the response that you have chronically to trying new things to things that are unfamiliar, it's working against you. So think about a time when you have had something on your plate, something coming up, something that you're you're. Expose to that that. It makes you nervous or makes you afraid. That isn't actually dangerous. So we're talking about, again, entering a competition, starting a business, going on a first date, posting something that you're unsure about, like these kinds of things, right?

16:05And you're nervous about it and you're having this fear response to something that really you don't need to be. And so you say, you know what? I'm not even going to And What does that feel like in the immediate? Aftermath, it feels really good. So I'm going to give you another personal example as somebody who is introverted and in a especially introverted period of my life. I have a tendency these days to be really, really pumped when Social engagements get canceled. So I booked something. A month out that I really want to do, theoretically. I want to go out and I want to do this thing and I want to engage in the world. And then when that time comes up, And it's dark outside and it's cold and I have to get a whole outfit on and get in the car and drive an hour to go do this thing. I'm going to be And like it's the last thing I want to do. I'm maybe not having a fear response, but I'm definitely having a stress response to going out and having fun Okay. And I know some of you guys can feel me on this. And when I say, you know what? I'm just not up to it today. I'm just not going to do it And I cancel or or even better, someone cancels on me and I don't have to go and it's not even The relief that I feel.

17:15Feels so good in that moment. I'm like, yes, I don't have to do it. And whatever anxiety or stress feelings you're having, they immediately go down and you feel relief. And what your brain is saying is, I feel better when I don't do this thing when I avoid it. And again, Sometimes that's the right call. But When you, Have this avoidance loop that repeats. And when it's about things like starting your new business, posting this thing that is, I don't know, Business or goal related. And doing this thing that's stepping outside of your comfort zone that relates to something you really want to do, you're just uncertain about it. Every time you don't do that, you feel the relief, you kind of take this break and you go sit and relax and don't think about it. You're strengthening this loop.

18:06Of I'm afraid of this I'm avoiding it I feel better So now my brain is learning. I should just avoid things that are uncomfortable. Because I don't want to feel this So this is how fear Not connected to, again, amusing quotes, real danger. Can kind of shrink your world. It can shrink your ability to live the life you actually want to live. So again, all of these things, and if this is such a theme with Muscle Science for Women, is that Nothing. Is a hundred percent good or a hundred percent bad? You know, avoidance sounds like a bad word, just like fear sounds like a bad word. It has its place.

18:47But too much of it is. It's not what you want Okay. Another break. When we talk about avoidance to. And now I'm kind of closing in on on. What we talk about with this podcast, which is not the fear of clowns or jumping out of planes, it's the fear of of. Briing something. Stepping outside of your comfort zone and learning something new, trying to achieve a goal you've never achieved before. Fear doesn't just look like, "Oh, I'm so scared. I can't Or it doesn't even just look like, oh, I'm not going to do it. I'm quitting before I start. It can look like a lot of different things. And sometimes we don't clock it as fear.

19:29It can be things like, procrastinating on the things you know you're supposed to be doing. Perfectionism, which is a really interesting one because I think a lot of people consider perfectionists or people aiming for perfectionism as people who are Always doing and are are never kind of scared to try. They're always just doing everything better than everybody else. This. Constance state of it needs to be perfect before it's done. Can actually be a fear response as well because it can it's kind of you're telling yourself I'm not done yet or it's not good enough yet I gotta keep keep going keep going or keep trying or keep iterating instead of just doing the thing And being done or moving on, constant sort of distraction, constantly changing or tweaking a plan.

20:14So the person who has a plan has a goal and then two weeks later okay well I had to kind of switch this up or I had to stop and start over or I had to do this thing this thing came up and I got to do this life happens but when it's kind of constantly like that when you're constantly over-preparing when you're constantly making excuses oh I couldn't quite do it because this thing happened or that thing happened or this is coming up Something's always coming up guys that's I mean that's one of the biggest Things I'm telling my clients. There Always.

20:42Then coming up, there's always going to be a challenge or an obstacle. So? When we're in it, we may not recognize it as fear. And if you have a, I don't know, a trusted friend or a coach or something who's maybe encouraging you to think through this and work through this, and are you, is there a fear? Is there something underlying that's actually stopping you? You may not recognize it until you think about what the actual behaviors are that you're doing. It's not necessarily just being like, oh no, I'm scared There's.

21:10There's the fear of looking stupid. There's the fear of letting people down. There's the fear of really actually trying and failing and what that It feels like to you what that means to you that can be upsetting. So? There's a lot of reasons to be afraid of things that are not dangerous and they're valid. We all have these fears. We all are worried about. Letting people down, letting ourselves down, looking dumb, not doing as well as we think we could. These are all very human. Very common fears.

21:40And also still not necessarily a good reason not to do something. You know, So? Next, we're going to talk about How you don't have to get rid of fear. We just need to sort of get better. At, Passing out. What we're reacting to, why we're reacting to it, and whether or not that fear is valid or whether we should maybe be overriding it in favor of another option. And before I get to that, I'm just gonna sneak a Sponsor add in here because we are lucky to have sponsors they pay to keep us doing this and we appreciate them so much so today's sponsor is Polo button They make five to zero drop barefoot style minimalist shoes.

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24:12But I tell you, you'll have a really hard time getting in those big, Huge cushion, squishy marshmallow shoes again after you've tried these. So Paluva.com, use the code MUSTLEMAVEN for 10% off your first pair And thank you, Paloova, and back to the show. OK. So now we're talking about. How fear isn't necessarily a stop sign. It's just. Giving you information. And how do we take a step back and actually parse out this information? And use it. Instead of it just sort of being a. This is scary, we're Or, I'm going to completely ignore the signal and just barrel right through right there's something in the middle that we could be doing so There's sort of three questions that you can ask yourself when you are working towards something, trying something new, and you're having this response and you're thinking, oh, I kind of want to quit. I really kind of don't want to do this. I'm not really sure why. Why am I scared?

25:08Here are some things that you can sort of ask yourself to evaluate. For you decide. Before you do the action. So the first question is, is there actual danger here? So again, If we're talking about my jumping out of a plane situation, yeah, you could say that's pretty valid. There is absolutely danger there. And maybe that is not worth it. Maybe it is. There's a risk reward thing happening there. But if your goal is to. Invest in a coach if your goal is to Do a high rocks if your goal is to. Work on your bench press.

25:44The danger is, Generally pretty minimal. Right? Or I mean, again, we're not just talking about fitness here. If your goal is to start a new job is to move across the country, some of these are big things. Big things, but is there actual physical immediate danger happening? Okay, so based on that question, You can ask the next question, which is, Okay, if it's not dangerous and there is a fear response still happening, what exactly am I afraid? Will happen. And in this question, this one's really important because what we're asking you to do here, is make whatever this threat that you are feeling vaguely and generically, but intensely in your body, make it specific. And I'm sure you've heard this from, I don't know.

26:30Therapists sort of. Type of podcast online, but it's the idea of. Specifying and externalizing and making real, whatever scary, makes it less scary. And that is true. Right? So if you think, okay, I want to do a photo shoot in six months. And I want to look my best, and it's that's not dangerous, but. I'm afraid that I will. Not give it my best and I'll do this photo shoot and I will feel like crap about myself and I will feel like I wasted all that time. And I wasted money and it will reinforce my feelings that I can sort of never look the way I want to look.

27:16So that's pretty intense, right? That's serious. That's real. When you've kind of externalized it, Okay, that's it. Let's sit with that. Let's think about But here's the next. Line of thinking here. If that happened, Thing you're afraid of happened. Then what? Could you handle it? What would you do? And so think about it. You could think, OK, well, Yeah, that would be pretty devastating for me, and I'm not really ready to. To kind of have that conversation with myself. Maybe, then, The answer becomes.

27:52Maybe I'll take six months instead of trying to dye it down for this perfect photo shoot. Maybe I'll, pursue a different goal. Maybe I'll try to get really strong, maybe I'll work on my body image, maybe I'll do something else. Or you think you know what? If it's if it's not perfect if I'm not perfect I've got this this photographer that I really, really like, and they're going to make me look great. It's going to show me what I did accomplish and I don't need to be perfect. I'm just going to try my best and see what happens. It's not And then maybe you suddenly are like, this isn't as scary as I thought it was going to be. I' This isn't.

28:29This isn't just some vague threat anymore. This is a real goal that has real consequences and I'm ready to deal with it. However, it goes down, right? So these are the three questions. You can ask yourself to really kind of Make, Make something nebulous and scary tangible. And maybe there's still fear there. Maybe there's still risk there, but it's real and you can get your head around it. And maybe, This line of questioning can also help you In your goal planning so maybe if we're continuing this line of thinking if you think okay well I'm doing this thing in six months maybe instead you change it to I don't know nine months or maybe you With your coach or your planning, you set a check in at three months and say, how do I feel here? If I'm feeling good and like I'm on the right track, let's keep going. If not, I have an out then or whatever.

29:24You know, so what you're really doing is you're instead of thinking, okay, well, if I can't do this perfectly or if it isn't going to be a success, I'm scared and I don't want to do it. You just think maybe there's uncertainty here, but can I can I deal with it? And is that maybe part of the whole process is me The uncertainty of life. And of the specific goal. So I just want to reiterate that. The three questions Is there actual danger? In whatever it is, I'm facing. If there is or if there isn't what exactly specifically am I afraid of in this situation get it out It's better out than in, right? As they always If that scary thing that I'm afraid of happens, Can I handle it?

30:08And I hazard to say that 99% of the time, Yeah, you can. You can handle it. And, Maybe it's successful and that's amazing and maybe it's not and you learn something. You learn something about yourself. Which is also incredibly important and sometimes in retrospect more valuable. Right? So? Were you still with me guys? I know. It's a lot of me talking. Next up If we've decided to forge ahead. And we are going to act and we're going to do the thing. We're going to move forward despite having some fear and having some apprehension. How do we go about doing that? Because we don't want to push down our feelings. We don't want to ignore them.

30:49How can we work maybe with it? Okay? So. There are some sort of little action points here that you can consider. I mentioned it before, the first one specificity, right? So the more specific we get on our actions, our goals, our behaviors, our plans, right? The less generally, the less fear that we have, because a lot of fear breeds in ambiguousness, right? And in not really knowing. What's going on or what's what could happen or what the the potentials are so the more specific you get and this is why working with a coach can be really helpful because a lot of people will come to me or whoever and say I want to get in better shape I want to look better I want to eat better And those are all great, but extremely vague goals. So the more nailed down you can get, I want to add 10 pounds to my bench press in three months. I want to do this high rocks in five months and not bar for put my pants.

31:45That's a great goal Maybe a little more specific than that but you get the point The more specific you are, the better you can. Work back from the goal and set a plan in place that will have you feeling supported, comfortable, And empowered as you move forward. Another big piece is, Having smaller steps, so sometimes the goal that you have just seems so big and overwhelming that it's scary in itself because you're just like, how do I get to this place? You know, I'm so far away from it. So if you want to lose fifty pounds, if you want to sign up for a bodybuilding competition and you've Hardly ever been in the gym. These are huge, Very overwhelming goals.

32:26So instead of? Trying to think, how do I get from point A to point B? Zed, You think like, okay, let's start. Width. Consistent walking practice. Let's do that for a bit till that feels good. Then let's figure out the food situation. Let's start by getting rid of the processed food, 90% of the processed food. Let's do that until that feels better. Let's go to the gym once a week and do what feels good. And then in a few months, you'll suddenly be there three days a week and you'll have a program, a progressive program. It has to happen incrementally.

33:01In small steps, in progressive steps. And again, this doesn't just apply to fitness. This applies to pretty much everything in life. No one goes from zero to a hundred. Despite what Drake says, I'm sorry, I'm Canadian, I had OK. The next piece is exposure and experience. And this is something actually that I've been learning in another course that I'm personally taking. Self-development to help my. My own coaching clients, People do not become. Confident in themselves, trust themselves, or confident and trust in anyone else.

33:36It's just because you say it, right? That fake it to you, make it think kind of doesn't really work in the situation. You don't say you're not going to. Meet me as a stranger and trust me because I said you can trust me. How you're going to trust Is by repeated experiences where I have proven that you can trust me. And this goes for yourself. So you will feel confident in your ability to show up for yourself and work out I need properly. Go to sleep on time, whatever it is that you're trying When you've done it, a bunch of times.

34:09Even when it was hard, even when it was inconvenient, even when you fell off the wagon, then you came back on. That is how you. Gain. Prostin confidence in yourself. So it's this kind of repeated exposure and repeated experience of doing the thing. Helps you continue to do the thing, and then do harder things and do more things and do better things. So if you wait until you're Confident, or you trust yourself completely or whatever until the time is right. You're never going to move forward. You got to just do it. Do a little something. The smaller steps, right? The specific steps that I've talked about.

34:46You just do it and you do it again and you do it again and you do it again until it's just what you do and you trust yourself and you know yourself and You can build on that and that's also reducing your own fear and your own uncertainty. So again, you're scared of heights. You don't skydive tomorrow. You, I don't know, walk up a couple steps and look down. Start small and you do it. And you, you repeat the exposure, and you repeat the experience. Next, we've got, and this, these all relate, but it's voluntary discomfort.

35:17So we've talked on the podcast about getting comfortable with uncomfortable, being uncomfortable, and a lot of people who are recreational, semi-professional worker-auders, People like us who have done this forever and just love to do this. We have some more experience maybe with being uncomfortable. We know what it feels like to feel pain in the gym or really discomfort or to feel nervous about a workout because we know how hard it's going to be. And sometimes we can take that for granted. A lot of people don't have experience with that and they don't. It doesn't feel natural for them to Have nerves about a fitness.

35:51Goal or to feel discomfort or feel. Teen. Exertion to the point of pain or discomfort, you know that that can feel. I'm scary. But I have always believed that Sort of the exercise, A piece of this is such an. Excellent way to experience voluntary discomfort because it is generally speaking such a low risk high reward behavior you know yeah it can feel really unpleasant some people can work out and feel like they're gonna bar for feel sick or feel tired or feel like, oh, I don't want to feel that way again. But it does become addictive because it is rewarding in so many ways, physiologically, mentally, emotionally.

36:35So finding other ways, if the gym and that kind of discomfort is easy, peasy for you and not really that much of a stretch. Maybe you can find other ways. Voluntary discomfort. Maybe I can force myself to go be social when I really don't want to. Maybe you can sign up for a class. Maybe you can join some new For community and? I do something that's just a little bit like, I don't know. I don't know I want to, but I don' Go do it And you might surprise yourself how it feels. And what it opens up for you. And then there's this concept of reframing, right? When fear makes you want to shut down, The only options aren't quit.

37:18Ignore it, You know, there is something in the middle and this is what we've been talking about this whole time is acknowledging it, putting a voice, putting words around it. Figuring out what part of this fear is useful to keep, if any. And what you can throw away, if any, and also what you can do about it. Because that's the other thing, right? Is empowering, empowering yourself in any situation. You probably have more control and more choice than you believe that you do, but it doesn't have to be Quitting outright, or ignoring it. You know, there's a lot that can go on sort of in the middle. So I think that Fitness goals and working out, it's it can be that deep.

38:00Really, it can be a a helpful fear practice for some of us. And we've all sort of been there on some level or another. And if you're still listening, it's maybe. This is something that's topical for you. Maybe you have something brewing some goal, and maybe it's not fitness related. Maybe it is. But I think that. Process can really teach you something about how your body and your brain respond to fear and how you can re-teach it. In a way, Better benefit you. It really can be, I believe, a low risk way to expose yourself to when appropriate, overriding that fear mechanism, getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. So sometimes the things that you fear the most It can be the things that are actually the most important to you. And if they keep coming up, and if you keep thinking of something and getting afraid of it and pushing it down or ignoring it or procrastinating or saying, I'll do it next time, it's probably because it's something that's important to you on some level. It's something you want to explore. It's something you want to experience, right?

39:05And I think that that's worth sitting with and thinking about. And not ignoring and feeling kind of crappy about it forever. The goal isn't to become fearless and to never have fear. That's impossible. And it's not also to stop listening to your fear when it's telling you something. Because it is giving you valuable information. It's not nothing. It's not there for no reason. The goal is to become better at deciding which fears are Deserve your attention and which ones? Deserve to control your behavior and when you the better we get at that the better we get at Pushing through one necessary to Experience more of life and get more out of Our time.

39:54That's it. So? I guess this wasn't as spooky as I originally intended. If I had a post-production team, I'd have them put some kind of scary, I don't know, music in around here, but... I think we're done. I hope that this was helpful. I found it cathartic because I have I've experienced this. I've had I've had fear stop me from doing things. And I've had experiences where I've over overridden that. And I've never regretted it. I'll tell you that. Now you guys are probably going to write it and say, well, then jump out of a plane and I'll say, damn it, you got me.

40:35I'll have to think about it I'll get back to you on that. But anyway, I hope you guys found this really helpful. And if you have more questions, if you want to give me some feedback, if you want to give me some thoughts, if this brought up anything for you, if you want to tell me a story about something you were afraid of and then you overcame it, oh, I would love that. I would love more. Of you writing in kind of stories that we can share on the podcast. I'd love to have sort of more involvement with the listeners. So if you are brave and you want to share something, I would love to hear that. You can send us an email.

41:07At Muscle Science for Women at gmail.com. Number four. Or you can go to muscle scienceforwomen.com and we have a contact page where you can just write a question, thought, feedback, whatever you want, write in there and it goes right to us. If you like this podcast, write write a comment, write a review, subscribe, give us a five star rating, share it with somebody. This stuff is so, so important. Rachel and I have some really, really big goals over the next, I would say year, year and a half. That we will be sharing with you as they.

41:37Continue to evolve, but we really need you guys because that's this is who we're doing it for and. You guys are the ones who decided whether we pass or fail so no pressure but If you like the podcast, if you are learning from it, we would love for you to share that in some way and help us out with your support. So that's it. Until next time, happy spooky season. Go watch a scary movie or something. Tell me about it. I love Halloween. I can't wait to eat my kids peanut butter cups that they collect.

42:09October thirty first. So until next time, thank you for listening. Don't be insane. Don't do stupid shit We love you. We'll see you next time