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PHOBIA LIBRARY

Read up on fear, panic and phobia to get a general overview of phobias and trauma and fear management. Learn mindfulness based self care principles and exercises for managing phobias from my books on trauma and self care.
JUMP TO A CHAPTER
​Fear | Function | Thought | Treatment | Coping
For Help See: Fear in the Brain | Fear Dictionary
THE LIBRARY TOPIC HOME PAGES
​​Introduction to Trauma, Fear and Phobia
Part 1: ​Defining Fear and the Fear Response
Part 2: Emotional & Cognitive Functions of Fear
Part 3: Maladaptive Thought Processing
​Part 4: Professional Therapy & Mindful Self Care
​THE PHOBIA COLLECTION DOWNLOADS
​Browse Collection of Phobias by Topic
Download Collection of Phobias
Download Dictionary of Fear and Phobia
Download Self Care Guides for Coping

PART FOUR - TREATMENT​
​​TREATMENT OPTIONS
MINDFUL SELF CARE
​ Learn the cognitive treatment options for self care centered in mindfulness, common defense mechanisms, boundaries, stressors, and strategies for coping with anxiety and panic for fear
TREATMENT | THERAPY | SELF CARE

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DOWNLOAD THE SELF CARE GLOSSARY

TREATMENT DIRECTORY

>> Treatment Home Page - Disclaimer
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​PROFESSIONAL THERAPY OPTIONS
Make the Best of Professional Therapy
Search for Medical Professionals (external)
Therapy Options
​INCORPORATING SELF CARE OPTIONS
​SELF CARE: Defining What It Really Means
Core Elements of Mindfulness ​Mindful Coping Strategies ​Self Care is not a substitute for professional therapy and treatment. Author is not a medical professional.

​RELATED SELF CARE GUIDES BY KAIROS
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​ALL CONTENT PROVIDED BY MY BOOKS ON MINDFUL SELF CARE FOR TRAUMA AND FEAR
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SELF CARE

Core of Self Care Is
SELF COMPASSION

The beauty of self care centered in the meditative practice of mindfulness. Learn mindful coping mechanisms for managing anxiety, panic and fear.
Mindfulness practice is self care for the health and well-being for the mind, body and soul.
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PRACTICE CHANGES BRAIN STRUCTURE
MINDFULNESS PROMOTES HEALING

MINDFUL SELF CARE DOWNLOADS

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THE MINDFULNESS GLOSSARY
Promote a Mindful Approach to Self Care
Guide to Learn the Principles of Mindfulness
​ Companion Glossary of Mindfulness Terms
Collection of Mindfulness Poetry by Kairos​
Understanding and Coping With Stress

SELF COMPASSION


​Self-compassion is extending love and compassion to yourself in areas of perceived inadequacy, failure, or suffering. Self-compassion has three main components – self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. It is similar to self-acceptance in CBT.

  • Self-kindness is being warm and loving towards yourself when encountering pain. The objective is to act kindly towards yourself rather than ignoring your perceived shortcomings or hurting yourself with self-criticism.
  • Common humanity: Self-compassion also involves recognizing that suffering and personal failure is part of the shared human experience.
  • Mindfulness: Self-compassion requires taking a balanced approach to your negative emotions. Feelings are not meant to be suppressed or exaggerated. Feelings are observed with openness and held in mindful awareness. Mindfulness is non-judgmental and a receptive state in which you observe your thoughts and feelings as they are, without trying to suppress or deny them.

Self-compassion is not self-pity, a state of mind in which you believe yourself to be a victim and lack the confidence and competence to cope with negativity or pain.

Self-compassionate individuals experience greater psychological health than those lacking it. It is positively associated with life satisfaction, wisdom, happiness, optimism, curiosity, learning goals, social connections, personal responsibility, and resilience. It is associated with a lower tendency for self-criticism, depression, anxiety, rumination, thought suppression, perfectionism, and disordered eating attitudes.

Self-compassion has different features than self-esteem, which is a subjective emotional evaluation of the self. Although psychologists proclaimed the benefit of self-esteem for years, recent research has exposed high self-esteem as causing narcissism, distorted self-perceptions, low self-worth, as well as anger and violence toward those who threaten the ego. It appears that self-compassion offers the same mental health benefits but without the negative associations.

SELF COMPASSION EXERCISES
Self-compassion exercises generally consist of either a writing exercise, role-playing, or introspective contemplation, and are designed to foster self-kindness, mindfulness, and feelings of common humanity. Self-compassion exercises have been shown to be effective in increasing self-compassion, along with increases in self-efficacy, optimism, and mindfulness. These exercises have also been shown to decrease rumination. For those vulnerable to depression, one week of daily self-compassion exercises lead to reduced depression up to three months following the exercise, and increased happiness up to six months following the exercise.

COMFORT A FRIEND EXERCISE
This exercise asks you to imagine that you are comforting a close friend who is going through a tough situation. You are then asked to compare and contrast how you react internally to your own struggles, and to work to applying the same loving kindness to yourself that you would apply to a friend.
  • What would you say to them?
  • What questions would you ask them?
  • What would you do to try to understand their situation better?
  • How might you communicate your understanding?
  • What would you do to make sure they feel seen and heard?
  • What else might you do to offer them compassion?

WRITING EXERCISE
In this exercise, you are asked to focus on an imperfection which makes you feel inadequate. Once you ruminate on this, write a letter to yourself from the perspective of an unconditionally loving imaginary friend. You are then asked to focus on the soothing and comforting feelings of compassion that you have generated for yourself.

CRITICIZER EXERCISE
This exercise asks you to occupy several "chairs" during the course of the practice. Initially, you are asked to occupy the chair of the self-critic and to express your feelings of self-criticism. You are asked to analyze this criticism and note its defining characteristics. Then, you are asked to take the chair of their criticized self, and to imagine verbally responding to their inner critic. Subsequently, you are prompted to conduct a dialogue between these two aspects of the self, the criticizer and the criticized. Following this, you are asked to imagine yourself as a compassionate observer of this dialogue, and finally you are asked to reflect upon the experience.

CHANGING SELF TALK EXERCISE
This exercise is meant to be conducted over several weeks, in the form of recurring reflection on the nature of your self-criticism. You are asked to notice when you are being self-critical, to react to your self-criticism with compassion, and to reframe the language of your inner critic.

JOURNALING EXERCISE
This exercise entails keeping a daily journal for at least one week, and is used to reflect on difficult experiences, self-criticisms, and other stressors. You are asked to analyze each of these events through the lenses of self-kindness (using gentle, comforting language to respond to the event), mindfulness (awareness of the negative emotions elicited by the situation), and common humanity (how the experience is part of the human condition).

WANTS AND DESIRES EXERCISE
In this exercise, you are asked to think about the ways that you use self-criticism as a way to motivate yourself. Then, you are asked to try to come up with a kinder and gentler and more caring way of motivating yourself to make the desired change, and to try and be aware of how you use self-criticism as a motivational tool in the future.

SELF FORGIVENESS EXERCISE
Self-forgiveness is an element of self-compassion that involves releasing self-directed negative feelings. Research has found that self-forgiveness promotes greater overall well-being, specifically higher self-esteem and lower neuroticism.

SELF ACCEPTANCE EXERCISE
Self-acceptance is an element of self-compassion that involves accepting yourself for who and what you are. Self-acceptance differs from self-esteem in that self-esteem involves globally evaluating one's worth. Self-acceptance means accepting yourself despite flaws, weaknesses, and negative evaluations from others.

COMPASSION EXERCISE
Being self-compassionate is about being present for yourself and holding space for the “humanness” of your experience. You do your best to understand it, without trying to fix it or without judging it as wrong or bad.

Instead of just ignoring your pain or approaching it with a “stiff upper lip” mentality, you stop to tell yourself “this is really difficult right now… How can I comfort and care for myself in this moment?”
Instead of judging and criticizing yourself for various inadequacies, self-compassion means you are kind and understanding when confronted with personal failings – after all, whoever said you were supposed to be perfect?

You may try to change in ways that allow you to be more healthy and happy, but this is done because you care about yourself, not because you are worthless or unacceptable as you are.
Having compassion for yourself means that you honor and accept your humanness. Things will not always go the way you want them to. You will encounter frustrations, losses will occur, you will make mistakes, bump up against your limitations, fall short of your ideals. This is the human condition, a reality shared by all of us. The more you open your heart to this reality instead of fighting against it, the more you will be able to feel compassion for yourself and all your fellow humans in the experience of life.

You’ll know compassion by the way it feels. Compassion comes with a sense that you are looking at yourself (or another) with a soft gaze and a gentleness in your heart, while still being objective and without being naive or enabling. Compassion is different from empathy because you are staying outside of the situation, rather than emotionally merging with it. Once you have connected with the feeling of compassion, imagine showing up for yourself exactly as you would for this other person. Turn those questions around onto yourself and your situation: What can you say to yourself?
Quick Links to the Elements of Mindfulness
This content is provided for informational purposes only. Author is not a medical professional. Talk to your doctor to determine what therapy is right for you.
Self care techniques are meant to supplement professional treatment not replace it.
PRIME DIRECTIVE OF THE LEARNING LIBRARY

BROWSE PHOBIA COLLECTION​
​Phobia collection is presented in eight themed parts
​VIEW LIST INDEX or ​JUMP TO A PART
PART [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ]

PHOBIA COLLECTION BY TOPIC

common ~ abstract ~ ordinary ~ bizarre ~ catastrophic ~ psyche ~ icky - academic ~ knowledge ~ education ~ literary ~ art ~ music ~ religion ~ political ~ law ~ order military ~ war ~ discrimination ~ science ~ chemical ~ energy ~ time ~ numbers ~ technology ~ nature ~ environment ~ astronomy ~ weather ~ geography ~ people ~ family ~ community ~ anatomy ~ medical ~ disease ~ emotions ~ senses ~ sensations ~ movement ~ conditions~ love ~ relationships ~ sexuality ~ lifestyle ~ places ~ events ~ objects ~ clothing ~ tools ~ vehicles ~ home ~ cooking ~ food ~ entertainment ~ sports ~ recreation ~ toys ~ games ~ monsters ~ characters ~ spooky ~ nightmares ~ delusional ~ joke ~ fiction
​​DOWNLOAD PONDERING THE PHOBIA
​Now Available for​ Download for Offline Reading
All the phobias in one download. Browse by both topic/subject and by alphabetized list
Download/Share: http://bit.ly/ponderingphobia

​OTHER PHOBIA AND FEAR DOWNLOADS:
​Dictionary of Trauma, Phobia and Fear
Self Care Guides for Fear & Phobias​
Library articles provided by my series Healing the PTSD Mind ​ and my series on mindfulness based self care Be Mindful Be Well​. The books are written from a trauma perspective. Content applies to fear, phobias and panic. Learn self care treatments with mindfulness techniques.
BE MINDFUL. BE WELL.
​Books copyright 2021 by By Kairos
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