Dealing with Fear: Moving Beyond the Mind’s Prison
Fear is one of the most powerful forces in human life—and for those working in public safety, it’s a constant companion. Whether you admit it or not, fear shapes how you think, how you react, and even how you show up at home.
Dr. Ken Keis reminds us that 97% of the things we worry about never actually happen. Yet many of us spend huge amounts of mental energy living inside fear scenarios that may never come to pass. The result? Exhaustion. Cynicism. Disconnection.
So how do you actually work with fear, instead of letting it run your life? Let’s go deeper.
1. Feel the Fear—and Do It Anyway
Susan Jeffers’ classic work Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway makes a simple but powerful point: Courage is not the absence of fear—it’s moving forward in spite of it.
Fear doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you’re human. The trick is not to wait until fear disappears but to stop letting it control your choices. Every time you take a step forward while afraid, you send a message to your brain: “I can handle this.”
Over time, that message rewires your nervous system. Your world expands.
2. Play the Fear All the Way Out
Don Joseph Goewey, in The End of Stress, offers a strategy called “fear inoculation.” When a fear arises, don’t just stop at the first catastrophic thought. Instead, ask:
“And then what?”
“And if that happened, then what?”
“And then what?”
Often, you’ll realize that the feared event—even if it came true—is survivable. You’d adapt. You’d figure it out. You’d move forward. This exercise takes the power out of fear by forcing you to follow it through to its logical conclusion, instead of letting it haunt you in the shadows.
3. Fear Is Not About the Outcome—It’s About the Pain
As Tiffany Andras writes in Unbound, fear isn’t usually about the event or the negative outcome itself. It’s about the pain you believe that event will bring.
Think about it:
You’re not afraid of the conversation—you’re afraid of the pain of rejection.
You’re not afraid of failure—you’re afraid of the pain of shame or regret.
You’re not afraid of loss—you’re afraid of the pain of grief.
The good news? Pain is survivable. When you learn to hold yourself in moments of pain—to breathe, to ground, to stay present and hold your own heart—you stop being ruled by fear. Because nothing outside of you has the power to break you when you’ve built the capacity to stay with yourself through it.
4. Practical Tools to Work with Fear
Name it. Fear thrives in the shadows. Write down exactly what you’re afraid of.
Play it out. Use Goewey’s “And then what?” exercise until you see that you can survive.
Shift your state. Use physiological tools like the physiological sigh (two inhales, one long exhale) to calm your nervous system in real time.
Anchor in courage. Remember past times you did something hard while afraid. This builds trust in yourself.
Lean on connection. Fear isolates; connection heals. Talk it out with someone you trust.
Call to Action: Face One Fear This Week
Pick one fear you’ve been avoiding.
Write it down.
Play it all the way out using “And then what?” until you see that you are capable of surviving it.
Take one small, brave action toward it—even if it’s uncomfortable.
As Jeffers reminds us:
“The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out and do it.”
Courage isn’t about never being afraid.
It’s about choosing to stop letting fear own your life.
Because when you can hold yourself through pain, there’s nothing left to fear.