In 2003, in an unusual ultramarathon that he later dubbed “the greatest race the world would never see,” national bestselling author Chris McDougall witnessed a race between the world’s fastest man and the world’s fastest runners—the ancient and mysterious Tarahumara. Taking place in Urique, Mexico, in the heart of the Copper Canyon, McDougall agreed to run in this epic race, and two miles into the 50-mile competition, he shares this heart-stopping scene:
“I scrambled out of the water and up the sand dune, growing more hopeful with every step…I started climbing the dirt trail just as the sun was slanting over the top of the canyon. Instantly, everything lit up: the glittering river, the shimmering green forest, the coral snake coiled at my feet…
“I yelped and leaned off the trail, sliding down the steep slope and grabbing at scrub brush to stop my fall. I could see the snake above me, silent and curled, ready to strike. If I climbed back up, I risked a fatal bite; if I climbed down toward the river, I could plunge off the side of the cliff. The only way out was to maneuver sideways, working my way from one scrub-brush handhold to the next.
“The first clump held, then the next. When I’d made it ten feet away, I cautiously hauled myself back onto the trail. The snake was still blocking the trail, and for good reason—it was dead.”
After a good laugh, Chris confesses,
“Someone had already snapped its back with a stick. I wiped the dirt out of my eyes and checked the damage: rock rash down both shins, thorns in my hands, heart pounding through my chest. I pulled the thorns with my teeth, then cleaned my gashes, more or less, with a squirt from my water bottle. Time to get going. I didn’t want anyone to come across me bleeding and panicky over a rotting snake.” (263)
A coral snake almost cost him not only the race, but his life…and it was dead.
Are We Hard-Wired to Fear?
Arash Javanbakht and Linda Saab, in their Smithsonian article What Happens in the Brain When We Feel Fear, explain that the fear response starts in the amygdala, the almond-shaped set of nuclei in the temporal lobe of the brain. “A threat stimulus, such as the sight of a predator, triggers a fear response in the amygdala, which activates areas involved in preparation for motor functions involved in fight or flight. It also triggers release of stress hormones and the sympathetic nervous system.”
So yes, the human brain is hard-wired to react defensively to potential predators.
But how often do we mistake potential predators for benign pretenders?
Researchers at Cornell University calculate that 85% of what we worry about never happens. And when the fear does happen, 79% of the people handled those challenges better than they thought they would. Moreover, they reported learning something very valuable from the experience. Calculating further—and here’s where it gets hopeful—they found that 97% of the time, there was nothing to worry about.
Only 3% of the time do we encounter our greatest fears: and when we do, we are more prepared for battle than we think we are.
Inverted Visualization: Turn the Enemy of Fear into an Ally
Flip fear on its head by using this simple modality.
Let’s say you have a dream, a goal, something you’d like to manifest in your life. Most likely you’ve involved some sort of visualization process in the manifestation of this goal.
Visualization of things we desire is a good thing.
But the problem with visualizing the things we desire without its inversion sets us up for disappointment at best, failure at worst.
Why?
Because when our focus is only on what we want, we stumble on the obstacles to get there. Our eyes are on the prize, and with our vision on the reward at the end of the race, it’s inevitable that we won’t see the hurdles on the track.
For example, let’s say you want to start a business.
The end goal? Double your income in a year.
It’s good to begin with that vision in mind. But once you’ve firmly established where you want to go, you need to identify the steps to get there; and if any of them invoke fear—fear of uncertainty, fear of failure, fear of rejection—then it is vital to employ inversion visualization.
Let’s say you’re excited about becoming an entrepreneur and making lots of money—but the idea of going to an unknown neighborhood and passing out fliers makes you feel uncomfortable, nervous and scared.
You’re scared that you’ll be seen as the “sales guy” or the “sales lady.” You don’t like going to new neighborhoods because it is foreign to you, and you don’t like the idea of being emotionally rejected by people in that neighborhood.
This is where Inverted Visualization comes in.
Sit down, close your eyes and visualize the worst possible outcome.
With fliers in hand, you step into a swanky new neighborhood.
In perfect synchronicity, all the neighbors open their doors, blast “I Hate Everything About You” and huck day-old donuts at your face. They sic Froo-Froo the Doberman Pinscher on you. They set your fliers on fire. They run you over with a potato chip truck.
Disappointment is the gap between your expectations and reality.
So when you expect to die passing out fliers for your new business, and you don’t, then you’re pleasantly surprised.
But if all you visualize is tripling your income, and your focus is on the end result—a truckload of money—and you unexpectedly find yourself gripped by fear of the unknown, and fear of uncertainty, and fear of rejection, then you might bail on the fliers…and you fail at developing very important growth needed to build a business.
It’s not if but when fear seizes you, because it will.
Anytime we realize our comfort zone is a cage, and we break out of that cage, we will experience fear, no matter how grand our end vision is. So to get from where we are to where we want to be we need to learn to effectively deal with fear.
Try It Out For Size
Your go-to modality of overcoming fear through inverted visualization:
- Anxiety Trigger: identify the fear
- Inverted Visualization: exaggerate the feared scenario to the point of hilarity
- Take Action: experiment and see how close your experience comes to your desired outcome and your inverted visualization.
- Document: what happened? How did you feel? Did you create a new ending to the “scary story”?
The Snake is Dead
Far too often the thing we fear is nothing more than a dead snake. Something that appears deadly but isn’t. Laughter shrinks the snake into bite-size pieces, so even if it has potential harm, the harm is nothing more than the flick of a forked tongue.
And just like the immortal words of Remus Lupin, who taught Ron Weasely to bravely confront the boggart-turned-behemoth spider, “The thing that really finishes a boggart is laughter. What you need to do is force it to assume a shape that you find amusing.”
How does your fear look in a vulture’s hat and a long green dress?