fear
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How to doubt your fears
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1 min read
Fears are the mind-killer. They will eat the soul if you let them have their way. But fear is unavoidable — it’s in your DNA to fight or flight. There are no limits to what the lizard brain can fabricate. The imagination toggles with ‘what if’ scenarios, enduring anxiety before ever experiencing an event. Yet the head…
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Trust the routine
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1 min read
The writer, blogger, or boxer must always keep in training. The artist or athlete can’t wait for the muse to inject them with productivity serum. Routine is much more compelling than inspiration, which is fickle, comes in flashes, and rarely sticks. On the flipside of consistency, is also imperfection. The practician not only faces the…
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Making peace with fear
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1 min read
We can make peace with the anxiety of anticipation. But it’s the hope that kills. What we need to gauge the nerves is mental preparation. One way of accomplishing this is through fear-setting, which requires that we envision the worst outcome. By going toward the fear, we undermine its strength and power our resolve. The…
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Managing the amygdala, the fear center of the brain
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2 min read
If humans didn’t have an amygdala — the two tiny almond-shaped nuclei in the temporal lobes of the brain — we wouldn’t have any fear. We wouldn’t know how to process risk, thereby letting us go hug a bear or climb the highest cliff. But we do feel fear and in most cases, we’re smart…
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Crossing to safety
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1 min read
Home is where the heart is, but it is not where we discover what the world is about. All reality exists in the streets, behind the shadows of a passerby. What is artificial is the parochial nature of home. We are blind to what we can’t see, organizing our periphery to notice and absorb what…