Facing your fears can feel overwhelming, but you are not alone and you are not powerless. In this season’s final episode of Ask Dr. Jodi, I am joined by my daughter Lily for an honest conversation about what it means to do something that scares you. We talk about why some fears are worth facing, why you do not have to force yourself to do everything, and how to know the difference. Whether you are navigating anxiety, feeling pressure to be brave, or just want practical ways to move through discomfort, this episode is for you.
Facing Your Fears: How to Decide, How to Cope, and Why It Matters: Fear is a normal part of life, but not every fear needs to be conquered. This week, Lily and I explore how to tell when a challenge is worth it and when it is perfectly fine to give yourself a break. We share personal stories, like Lily’s recent blood test and my own flying anxiety, and dig into why having a choice and an exit plan can make all the difference.
You will learn:
Key Takeaways
You Always Have a Choice
Facing your fears is about feeling empowered, not pressured. You get to decide which challenges matter to you.
Anticipatory Anxiety is Often Worse Than the Event
Worrying about something can consume more energy than actually doing it. Getting to the other side often brings relief.
Exit Plans Help
Knowing you have the control to leave or change your mind makes it easier to try new things.
Not Every Fear Needs to Be Faced
If the outcome does not matter to you, you don't need to face that thing.
Celebrate Every Win
Every time you face a fear, no matter how small, you build resilience and confidence for the next challenge.
Thank you so much for listening to Ask Dr. Jodi! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please take a moment to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and share it with someone who needs inspiration or help to heal!
[00:00:00] Dr. Jodi: Welcome to tonight's episode of Ask Dr. Jodi with me, Dr. Jodi And Lily. And Lily, my daughter Lily. You're back. Okay, so this is our last episode for the season, and we're gonna take off in the summer because you need to have some space. There's a lot of stuff going on and sometimes you need to give your body and your mind some space to wrap things up.
[00:00:25] Dr. Jodi: Think about things, do things that are creative. [00:00:30] Wow, I could, this could be a whole episode, I guess, is how you need downtime and how to schedule and plan downtime. This does not mean that I am having downtime for two months, it's just that I wanted to take these tasks away so that I could get other things done and yes, have a little bit more space.
[00:00:48] Dr. Jodi: Doing the show. Lots and lots of work. I love doing. It's so fun. I love doing it with Lily. I love the nights that I have with Lily. Tonight we're gonna talk about doing something that scares you and definitely [00:01:00] publishing a livestream show every week. Is a testimony to the fact that I do things that scare me.
[00:01:09] Dr. Jodi: I do things that are imperfect. I do things that could go wrong. I do things that might not work, that might not be any, but I do them because I love to share. I love to share this information, and I get responses from people watching all the time that what I'm talking about is landing. I've been a therapist for 28 years at [00:01:30] this point, and I understand people, I understand problems, I understand behaviors, and I understand how to feel better, and that's what ask Dr.
[00:01:39] Dr. Jodi: Jodi's all about how to feel better. So in tonight's episode, we're talking about facing something that scares you, facing something that scares you. So how do you face your fears? How do you do it? Why do you do it? Why do you need to do it? All of that we're gonna cover in tonight's episode. So let's [00:02:00] do it.
[00:02:00] Dr. Jodi: Let's do it. How do you face something that scares you? Now I wanna do a caveat here because we don't always have to face things that scare us because sometimes things scare you and you should be afraid of them and you should avoid them. And then there's sometimes things scare you, but it's something that you want, right?
[00:02:19] Dr. Jodi: There's something that you want. They have to get past this to get that thing that you want, and you don't wanna avoid that thing that you want because you can't get past that fear [00:02:30] that. Yeah, so that's what we're talking about. We're talking about how to face your fears so that you could get the thing that you want that's beyond facing that, if that makes sense.
[00:02:42] Lily: And there's also like a difference between, what was the caveat? It was like,
[00:02:48] Dr. Jodi: like you don't have to face all fears. If there's something that's dangerous and you're afraid of it, like yeah. But there are, there are some things don't go there that
[00:02:54] Lily: aren't even danger, like that, like jumping out of a plane.
[00:02:56] Lily: Like people will live through that. But like, [00:03:00] I don't wanna do that.
[00:03:00] Dr. Jodi: Right.
[00:03:01] Lily: Live I don't to despite doing it.
[00:03:02] Dr. Jodi: You mean don't they live? If you don't do that, you'll live.
[00:03:06] Lily: No, I mean, I mean that it's, it's dangerous, but it's not
[00:03:10] Dr. Jodi: relatively,
[00:03:10] Lily: it's relatively dangerous. Like a wa Most people are. Okay. Yeah. It's relatively
[00:03:15] Dr. Jodi: safe,
[00:03:16] Lily: but yeah.
[00:03:16] Lily: It's
[00:03:17] Dr. Jodi: And relatively dangerous.
[00:03:19] Lily: Yes. Right. But. Like that scares me and that's not something I really need to overcome. No. There there's like, I don't, I don't think I'll enjoy it even if I do it. So there's, it's like you don't have to [00:03:30] face fears that are dangerous and you always don't have to face fear,
[00:03:33] Dr. Jodi: fears that you don't need to.
[00:03:34] Dr. Jodi: There's no why for it. Yeah. This is the thing. If you have a priority, if it's something that you want to be on the other side of, or you want something, you have to, you have to walk down this hallway to get a cookie. And the hallway's dark and scary, but you really, really want that cookie. I'm giving you a really simple example.
[00:03:52] Dr. Jodi: Yeah. But if you don't want the cookie, you don't wanna walk down the hallway, or if the cookie's not worth it, then you don't walk down the hallway.
[00:03:58] Lily: But that might seem really [00:04:00] obvious, but sometimes I feel bad when I don't wanna do something, but I'm like, maybe I should push myself to do that. Do I even want like the end result and then I don't have to feel bad anymore?
[00:04:10] Dr. Jodi: Yeah. So that is a good point that you make because a lot of times we have so much pressure on ourself. We have so much high expectations on ourself that we feel like we have to stand up to fears that don't matter. You know, if we didn't want the cookie, we feel like we have to go down the hall to prove that we could do it, or something like that.[00:04:30]
[00:04:30] Dr. Jodi: We need to let that go because that is crazy making and you're not crazy, but it'll feel like you're crazy when you're trying to make yourself do something that you don't wanna do. And you have all this resistance and you're judging yourself and judging yourself. And this is what we do as humans, as judge yourself so badly for ridiculous things.
[00:04:52] Dr. Jodi: So all of that caveat before we talk about facing something that you're afraid of. Because you don't have to. [00:05:00] You don't have to. It's only if you want to, and I love that. And sometimes you have to because you want that thing so much. It's like non-negotiable, you know? So like what? Say you're starving and you need that cookie, or you, that's how you get food.
[00:05:15] Dr. Jodi: Or like, you don't, you're I don't know, this is dumb, but like, you're afraid of cooking, but you need to, I don't know. I guess you could avoid it. I'm trying to, no, there's, I'm trying to think of an example. We didn't think all this, but there's some things that it's like, maybe [00:05:30] I got a good one. Maybe you don't wanna go to a funeral.
[00:05:33] Dr. Jodi: Because it, it kind of makes you really uncomfortable or you don't wanna go to wake. It makes you really uncomfortable, but it's your best friend's, loved one, and you really wanna support your best friend. Right. So it feels non-negotiable, like you gotta go Yeah. But you are choosing it. It feels like you don't have a choice here because you don't wanna not go, but it is still a choice, if that makes sense.
[00:05:56] Dr. Jodi: Right. So it's like you feel like you have to, I have to do this. [00:06:00] Or if you have to take a test, To get the grade or to get the credits, you have to take the test. You don't wanna take the test. It might scare you or it might cause anxiety to take the test, but you want the credits. So we use terms like I have to, and it makes us feel powerless.
[00:06:16] Dr. Jodi: But you're actually choosing to get the credits, and that is an important distinction.
[00:06:21] Lily: Yeah,
[00:06:21] Dr. Jodi: because if you keep reminding yourself that you are empowered and you're making the choice, you don't feel. So [00:06:30] powerless, which is gonna decrease the fear and the anxiety. I think that's an important piece of it.
[00:06:34] Dr. Jodi: Yeah,
[00:06:34] Lily: totally. Is that kind of related? Like sometimes when I was little I would be nervous to be like away from home or like going, if I went to camp or something. And I would always be like, do I have an out, do I have a way back home? And like, maybe camp was like an hour away. So it's like I, it would be kind of annoying to leave for you guys, but I probably wouldn't leave.
[00:06:56] Lily: I just like wanted Are you saying I just like wanted choice? Oh, I love that choice.
[00:06:58] Dr. Jodi: Having an exit [00:07:00] plan?
[00:07:00] Lily: Yeah.
[00:07:00] Dr. Jodi: That's, is that different? No, it's similar. It's. It's similar because if you feel like you are choosing to go and you know that you could make a different choice, you don't feel trapped.
[00:07:12] Dr. Jodi: And a lot of times that decreases our anxiety enough to get us someplace. I love having exit plans. If you have social anxiety or if you have anxiety about going to a place, but you really wanna go, it's like a concert. You really wanna see them live. It's your favorite band. But being a a crowd like that really triggers [00:07:30] you, but you really wanna go.
[00:07:33] Dr. Jodi: Yes, have an exit plan. You may execute the exit plan or you may not, but having the exit plan could get you to go and not miss it. Mm-hmm. And if you have to use it, then you've made a good choice to use it. But if you may not use it, like you have that exit plan a lot and you don't use it, but it makes you feel empowered.
[00:07:51] Dr. Jodi: Anything that makes you feel empowered or reminds you that you're empowered, it's not like, it's not like a manipulation. You're not manipulating and making yourself [00:08:00]thinking you're empowered when you're not. You are empowered, right? You are empowered, and so that is an important thing to continue to remind yourself that we're empowered instead of what the anxiety wants you to think is that you're disempowered.
[00:08:15] Dr. Jodi: I think that's a trick to all of us. If you are making the decision, your own decision, that you wanna do this because for some reason you have to find your why. Why are you doing it? Why do you want that cookie so bad? I [00:08:30] know that's a dumb example, but
[00:08:31] Lily: No, I mean it's, it makes sense.
[00:08:33] Dr. Jodi: Yeah. You have an example you were gonna talk about?
[00:08:36] Lily: Oh, yeah. Well, this morning I just got blood tests. Yay. Blood tests. What did I do? Yeah. Oh
[00:08:46] Dr. Jodi: yeah. This inside joke.
[00:08:48] Lily: Um, yeah, I got blood tests just like routine this morning, but I hadn't gotten them in so long, like before middle school, but everyone tells me that it's routine, so I don't know [00:09:00] what.
[00:09:01] Dr. Jodi: Well, you know, I don't think people your age get blood tests routinely.
[00:09:05] Lily: Well, unless
[00:09:06] Dr. Jodi: they have something wrong, I
[00:09:06] Lily: guess.
[00:09:07] Dr. Jodi: But you were just always afraid of needles. Oh yeah, I was. Yeah. You've always, always been afraid of needles.
[00:09:11] Lily: Mm-hmm. But I can do shots now. Like I, shots don't really scare me. But you used to not be able to, but I used to not like shots, but for some reason, just like the switch between it being like on the outside of my arm to the inside is like terrifying.
[00:09:24] Lily: But the idea of it, yeah. And so then [00:09:30] I had to do that this morning, but I did it. It was really quick and kind of, it's not ridiculous, like I was validated. I'm valid to feel upset and anyone else is, but it felt a little ridiculous when I was done
[00:09:44] Dr. Jodi: that so easy that you were so afraid of something that was so easy.
[00:09:47] Lily: Yeah, and I could have like the, like blood tests, like the order can happen at any time. So I could have waited, like I could have waited a long time. Oh yeah. Before it wasn't like [00:10:00]urgent. Right.
[00:10:00] Dr. Jodi: So really you wanted to face that fear so that it wasn't the anticipatory anxiety of that someday I have to do this.
[00:10:08] Dr. Jodi: Yeah. And if that was for a month or two months, that anticipatory anxiety that, oh my gosh, I have to do this. It's gonna be awful. It's gonna be awful. Sometimes it's better just to get on the other side of it. Maybe that is your why. It's like, I don't wanna have this pressure and this anticipatory anxiety on me anymore because everyone's telling me it's really quick.
[00:10:29] Dr. Jodi: It's [00:10:30] fine. It's not a big deal. You don't look at it. And she did it. She's on the other side of it.
[00:10:35] Lily: So she got
[00:10:36] Dr. Jodi: a cookie, right? You almost got a dumb D at that, like a lollipop. Yeah. I forgot
[00:10:41] Lily: about.
[00:10:42] Dr. Jodi: It said there was lollipops at the lab, you know, and it said if you're fasting, you have to wait till after. And so she was gonna wait till after and she to get you a lollipop.
[00:10:56] Dr. Jodi: Oh. 21 years old. You that girl. A
[00:10:57] Lily: lollipop.
[00:10:58] Dr. Jodi: Yeah, I
[00:10:58] Lily: know. I am [00:11:00] really just like lucky to not have to have had that until now. That's what I should be grateful about. Yeah. That your
[00:11:05] Dr. Jodi: health is so good. So
[00:11:07] Dr. Jodi: Anyways, so facing something, sometimes it's about getting on the other side of it because you want to rule out any health problems and make sure you're okay.
[00:11:17] Dr. Jodi: And that actually settles your anxiety more knowing that there's no problems, right? So if you have anxiety, like is there something wrong? And then you have to do the blood test, you wanna get on the other side of it. Does that make sense? So [00:11:30] there's so many different whys. It's not just you want to do this hard thing so that you could get the opportunity or the reward for it.
[00:11:39] Dr. Jodi: Sometimes it's about eliminating that pressure. Sometimes it's about, it takes a lot of brain space sometimes to anticipate. So say you have to be around a person who's been mean to you before. So this is a good example. I had a client who worked with somebody and this person liked her and she didn't re, she didn't return those [00:12:00] feelings, and then he got really mad and jerky.
[00:12:03] Dr. Jodi: And then he stopped working at the same, they worked at the same place. Did I say that? And he stopped working there for a while. He took some time off because he had something. And then when he came back to work, she was really nervous that when he came back and they had to work together, it'd be really awkward or he'll be mean again or whatever.
[00:12:21] Dr. Jodi: So she was just really worried about it. But when he came back, like the first time was tense. And sometimes you just wanna like get on the other side of that [00:12:30] tension. He wasn't like abusive, mean, he was just like, just mad at her. And so that was just awkward. It wasn't dangerous or anything for you.
[00:12:38] Dr. Jodi: That's another important feature that we forgot to mention. You have to decide if it's dangerous or not. If you're afraid of something and it's dangerous, we did say that the caveat in the beginning, but if it's dangerous, don't get over it. Right? You keep it there because you want it there. But this example this example, she was not in danger.
[00:12:56] Dr. Jodi: It was just about being awkward, and so she was so [00:13:00] nervous about how awkward it would be that it was good to get it on the other side of that awkwardness like schedule get scheduled together and then. Awkwardness goes away after a while.
[00:13:11] Lily: Yeah.
[00:13:12] Dr. Jodi: It had been like a year. So like he wasn't still, it wasn't still like all triggered for him.
[00:13:18] Dr. Jodi: Yeah. I don't know. All, all examples are weird. So I give an example, I'm like, wait a minute. The people could think this and that, or the example blah.
[00:13:27] Lily: Uh um. [00:13:30] I feel like you. You are a good role model with that, because I feel like I bring up planes like every episode I'm on here, but anytime we talk about anxiety, you bring up planes, just do not like planes.
[00:13:45] Lily: But I didn't really know that. You didn't for a while. Oh mm-hmm. And it, because you just, you just like do it. I don't think you think about it before and then you just, you just do it. And it took me a [00:14:00] while for me to realize that you don't like them either unless we're on it and then you're like, we're both like, grab each other.
[00:14:07] Lily: We both grab each other.
[00:14:07] Dr. Jodi: Yeah. But, um, I don't like turbulence.
[00:14:10] Lily: Yeah,
[00:14:10] Dr. Jodi: but I don't. So it doesn't
[00:14:12] Lily: like ruin,
[00:14:13] Dr. Jodi: right. It
[00:14:14] Lily: used to for me. I've
[00:14:15] Dr. Jodi: gotten better. I used to not. I used to avoid flying. I used to be nervous for months and months. If I had something scheduled like year, like a long time, just panic.
[00:14:26] Dr. Jodi: And then then Did my program, my, [00:14:30] I did what, what I now sell in my flying anxiety, the Getting Over Flying Anxiety program. I did that to myself. I use these kinesthetic affirmations. I get over my fear of flying, but that doesn't mean when I'm up in the air and it's turbulent, I'm still like, my body is still reacting to that 'cause I, you know, it's really uncomfortable.
[00:14:50] Dr. Jodi: But instead of being afraid of feeling that way and being trapped in that plane for eight months before our trip, I just don't think about that. You're
[00:14:59] Lily: only [00:15:00] suffering in the moment.
[00:15:01] Dr. Jodi: Only suffering in the moment
[00:15:02] Lily: instead of
[00:15:02] Dr. Jodi: lot less
[00:15:03] Lily: anxiety
[00:15:04] Dr. Jodi: than six months of anxiety.
[00:15:05] Lily: Yeah. But it feels like the anxiety will protect you before, like, it, it feels like that before.
[00:15:11] Lily: It's such
[00:15:11] Dr. Jodi: a major lie of anxiety that, that it's protecting you. But
[00:15:14] Lily: that's what it feels like. And then, um, yeah, well, but there's something else about that though. I was gonna say, it was like suffering before I can think,
[00:15:25] Dr. Jodi: yeah, sometimes anxiety wants to protect you from [00:15:30] some future suffering or some future possibility of suffering.
[00:15:34] Dr. Jodi: You are like, I can't handle that. So you get really nervous about having to handle that. But when you're on the other side of it is never as bad as the anxieties told you.
[00:15:43] Lily: Yeah. Not never,
[00:15:44] Dr. Jodi: but mostly ever.
[00:15:45] Lily: That's what That's what I, I was gonna say, I forgot that a lot of times it's better than you think it is, but there are times where it's not.
[00:15:54] Dr. Jodi: So anxiety said, but what if it's not? Yeah.
[00:15:55] Lily: And then, yeah, but then those times you just deal with it like you, then you're [00:16:00] just like in the middle of it and it's worse and then it's fine. You can't, you just deal with it.
[00:16:05] Dr. Jodi: You have something to do. This is the thing about anticipatory anxiety. This is a good reason to get on the other side and facing fears.
[00:16:12] Dr. Jodi: 'cause anticipatory anxiety is most of the time more intense. And the reason why it's so intense is because there's nothing to do, right? You have nothing to do to fix it or do something or help yourself because it's not happening. And so the [00:16:30] anticipatory anxiety is so huge and you feel so helpless because there's, you can't do anything.
[00:16:35] Dr. Jodi: Five months in the future, you know, you can't take that action. But when you're in the experience, you may experience anxiety may be exactly what you expected. If you anticipated it for five months, you're definitely gonna have it. 'cause you brought that into your reality, right? So it's like, okay, this is when we were expecting it and it comes.
[00:16:58] Dr. Jodi: So even if it's bad, [00:17:00] then there's something you could do. You're in the moment, it might be intense, but you, I don't know, you might pace or you're doing something, you're occupying your mind or you're talking to somebody about it or you're, you're doing something, you're learning something. Whatever it is that you're doing in the moment to help decrease the anxiety works and then you're on the other side of the anxiety and it's gone.
[00:17:24] Lily: I don't know if we really helped. I mean, did we talk about, [00:17:30] yeah, so what to do. So basically in what to do is that you,
[00:17:33] Dr. Jodi: if it anticipatory anxiety is so bad, get on the other side of whatever it is. If you have a fear of, if you have, if you have a fear of like going over bridges, but you're going over bridges so much, your anxiety's, triggered, or you try to avoid 'em as much as you can, and so the few times you go over them, it's worse repetition.
[00:17:54] Dr. Jodi: Decreases your fear about that. So if you went over bridges every day, several times a [00:18:00] day, you would decrease your fear because we don't, we're not afraid of things that we do safely over and over and over and over again. You retrain your amygdala that that's a safe experience, but if you avoid, avoid, avoid, and what's why you have to go over it.
[00:18:14] Dr. Jodi: Your amygdala is gonna tell you how awful it is and you're gonna have a panic. So there are reasons to face fears. To decrease your suffering. That's another why is decrease anticipatory anxiety or decrease your suffering because you don't do it [00:18:30] that often. So doing it more often, there is a lot of good reasons besides just getting that reward or getting something that you want for you to face your fears if it's safe.
[00:18:40] Lily: Yeah, and it feels really good after.
[00:18:43] Dr. Jodi: It feels really good after you feel like really proud of yourself.
[00:18:47] Lily: Yeah.
[00:18:48] Dr. Jodi: Yeah, really proud of yourself and that, and you could carry that. You could carry that and do face something else, and then you proud of yourself again, and it builds your self-esteem up and then that'll help you in a lot of other ways.
[00:18:59] Dr. Jodi: [00:19:00] When you get over one fear, it's easier to get over other fears. And sometimes they just disappear because you've gotten over some and it's like a domino effect. So really awesome. Well, thanks for joining us on this episode. Facing Your Fears face, what you're afraid of so that you could decrease your suffering.
[00:19:21] Dr. Jodi: All right, well, I, we'll see you after the summer and I am still gonna be uploading videos, so if you are just [00:19:30] finding me for the first time, please subscribe or click the bell so that you know when I upload other topics on mental health and keep yourself feeling really, really good. All right. Bye. Oh,