A short Optimize Plus One by Brian Johnson presenting a practical technique to transform fear into excitement. He cites Fritz Perls’ phrase "Fear is excitement without the breath," demonstrates breathing and posture cues (deep nasal belly breaths, smile, chest up) and a mental prompt (“I'm excited”) to convert fear’s energy into productive excitement.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. Continuing our exploration of how to conquer fear, how about a simple yet profound piece of wisdom from Fritz Perls, founder of Gestalt Therapy? Here's how he puts it. Fear is excitement without the breath. Once again, think about that for a moment. In fact, take a deep breath. You let that soak in fear. It's just excitement. Missing one important thing. You breathing deeply. That same energy that creates the fear is just waiting for you to flip the switch in the other direction and channel it into excitement. And one of the easiest ways to do that, breathe deeply through your nose, down into your belly, back out through your nose, nice and slowly. Throw in a smile and you'll really alchemize that fear into excitement. Throw in I'm excited. And you might just feel, not just intellectually get it, but truly feel the power of allowing that neutral energy to flow through you as excitement, giving you the V12 engine you need to go win the race that is your precious life. One more time, Fear. It's excitement without the breath. So today's plus one, when you feel, note not if you feel, but when you feel some fear today, take a nice deep breath in through the nose, down into the belly. Expand into the optimist version of you. Relax, smile, chest up, chin down, nice and tall, and go have fun doing what needs to get done. Love and high fives and let's do this.
