How many of you have watched the TV show, “The Fear Factor”? I have only watched it a handful of times because, honestly, it freaks me out. Being swarmed by deadly stinging insects or submerged in water with fish that see you as food is not my idea of entertainment!
That reaction is no accident. Fear is one of the primary emotions behind stress. Did you get that? Those boundaries I alluded to last week—you know, the ones that you set and people keep crossing them? They are crossing them because you let them. Yep—the biggest violator of your boundaries and limits is you.
Maybe you are afraid of failure, or afraid of not pleasing someone else, or of losing control over a situation or person. Setting boundaries is pointless if you are too afraid to enforce them.
Our bodies are designed for two responses to fear (stress)—fight or flight. Let’s discuss how fight isn’t always positive, and flight isn’t always negative.
FIGHT
The phrase “fight like a girl” is often used for breast cancer campaigns, t-shirts, magnets, etc., etc., etc. Heck, I recently got a tattoo of pink boxing gloves hanging from the metastatic breast cancer ribbon!
We have been conditioned to believe that we have to fight for everything—family, career, health, social status.
FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.
But you know what?
I have realized that fighting takes a lot of energy.
I have learned to fight for what is important to keep me alive and thriving. Things like better eating and sleeping patterns. Better friendships and family relationships. Better marriage relationship. Better advocacy for Stage 4 cancer patients.
And then there are days when fighting is going to make me worse off. Cortisol, the stress hormone that our body releases, can do a lot of damage to our bodies. When stress is in overdrive, it will attack the body’s immune system. No one with cancer needs any more attacks on their immune systems! Neither do you.
Now I understand that sometimes, instead of fighting, I need to take flight and flee.
FLY LIKE AN EAGLE
Fly like an eagle? But that sounds so freeing, light, and worry-free!
Exactly. Flight is sometimes necessary to preserve our well-being. Flight can be a positive response that our body and mind need to rest.
Flight is NOT a negative thing. It’s a means of self-preservation that our bodies intend for us to protect ourselves from danger. Although at its core, it was intended to make us run from physical harm (like a dinosaur, a saber-toothed tiger, or a woolly mammoth!), it also warns us when our mental and emotional well-being is at risk.
WEEKLY CHALLENGE
You don’t need to wait for a life-altering health diagnosis to define your purpose—to define what you are going to fight for and what you are going to flee from. Your life depends on your choice-literally.
What fears are standing between you and your goals? What actions can you take to confront and reshape those fears to allow yourself to take control of your day? Your month? Your life?
Next week, I am going to talk about the tagline that I use … how can life be exceptional when you’re living with metastatic breast cancer?
Until then … go forth. Be exceptional!
