It’s easy to put us into this mode, isn’t it? Unknown noise, unexpected movement, fleeting moments when peripheral vision imagines it saw something… 

I have recently realised that most of my life I have been in a fleeing mode. I could blame my Soviet past (I was in the system for 12 years of my life after all) when risk taking was not part of life and the prevailing mentality was to mind your own business and survive. I could probably find a myriad of other excuses…

I have a history with fear – I was mugged (heading to celebrate the International Women’s Day), ended up in A&E and neurosurgery. To this day, one thing I regret is that I ran from the attacker. I still fantasise about turning back and fighting or at least facing him, instead of running away.

I suffered from nightmares when I was younger. I realised later that nightmares were a sign of internal conflict and that they could easily be dealt with (this was after I learned about NLP and namely Russian school of happiness – they call themselves wizards – Simoron). 

I found out about amygdala reading Seth Godin and brain literature (human brain fascinates me). It was one of those ‘aha’ moments. Suddenly the source of many of my fears was clear. It was biological and it could be re-programmed.

I realised I wanted to be brave. Deal with my fears. Grow a pair. 

A near death experience and child labour (same thing, if you ask me) provided further perspective. And suddenly it became easier to be fearless. One of a few things I loved about the experience. 

I am not giving into my fears as easily these days. Whenever flight or fight alarm goes off and my adrenaline spikes, I bring it under control and choose fight mode – not consistently yet, but at least definitely more often.

The biggest fear I have these days is that I won’t accomplish something I really want to do. First, that I won’t start. Then, that I won’t finish. Then that it won’t be good enough. I am working on it. This is something my amygdala can worry about it in the meantime.