How to do Fear in Style

I realized years ago that fear is something that I'll never get rid of completely. I don't believe in being fearless. As long as we're alive, we are going to experience fear. But do you know what I do believe in? I believe if we're going to do fear, we can do it in style. And that's what I'm talking about in today's episode. So let's dive in. 

Welcome to the School of Self Image, where personal development meets style.

Here's your hostess, Master Life Coach, Tonya Leigh. 

Hello, my beautiful friends. Welcome back to another episode. I'm having so much fun this week. I've been teaching the Week of Calm and we are wrapping it up. And it's been really interesting for me to get to know this whole new group of women who are just now being exposed to my work and hearing from the community at large about what they're worried about, what they're afraid of. I think we all experience normal fear and it's a good thing. It's the fear of heights, it's the fear of predators or any kind of dangerous situation. And then there are some people that experience phobias. And these are intense and irrational fears of maybe specific objects or situations or activities. And they tend to go beyond a normal fear response. 

Some people have a fear of failure. And this fear revolves around the apprehension of not being perfect, of not meeting expectations, of making mistakes and being judged for it. Some people fear rejection. They fear being excluded and criticized and judged negatively by other people. Some people fear sort of an existential kind of thing, like the fear of life and death and meaning and the unknown. This is usually around our awareness that we're all mortal beings and we are all facing our own mortality. Some people are very afraid of change because it's that unknown, it's the uncertainty. Some people are afraid of success. They are worried about the responsibilities and expectations and maybe even the fear that people may find out that they're an imposter. Some people are afraid of loss, losing a loved one, losing a job, losing a home. But most people are just afraid of the unknown, the uncertainty that exists in the mystery of life, the uncertainty of how things are going to turn out, what the outcome is going to be. 

Listen, we all have fears and that's a beautiful thing because that fear response has kept us safe and it's allowed us to stay alive and to be here. And yet when unchecked, it can cause so much misery and struggle and it can keep us from experiencing the best of life. It's really unfortunate that they don't teach us how to navigate fear when we're in elementary school. And so what a lot of people do, and I did this, is you avoid it at all cost. You do everything to protect yourself. You do everything to avoid that feeling. And the result of that, on one hand, it does protect you in many ways, but it also costs you a lot because the things that you want and don't yet have are going to require that you feel a lot of fear because there's uncertainty, there's the unknown, there's the fear of success, there's the fear of change, there's the fear of failure that you have to overcome. And so how most people live their lives is believing that there's a boogeyman up underneath their bed. I know some of y'all believed that too when you were a kid. 

I remember being so afraid when I would get out of the bed that a boogeyman was just going to grab my ankles and then just pull me under. And so the fear became so great that I would get on top of my bed and jump as far away from the bed as possible to avoid that boogeyman. And then one day, I was so afraid and I remember it. I was just laying in bed thinking, oh my God, he's going to get me. And I was like, Todd, you cannot continue to live your life like that. And so I got out of bed and I ran over and I turned the light on and I looked under the bed and there was no boogeyman. And there was something about turning that light on that changed everything for me. But a lot of you all still have the light turned off thinking that there's a boogeyman under the bed. And how do I know that? Because I just spend an entire week with this community listening to what they're afraid of and what they're worried about. And I get it. If not checked, if not questioned, and if you don't learn the tools to navigate that, you will spend your life in the bed afraid the boogeyman is going to get you. And it may be so big that fear that you don't even get out of the bed because you're not going to risk it happening. 

But your best life is outside of that bedroom. It's out there in the unknown. What was really interesting this week is that we had two Zoom rooms. I'd never done this before. And so I was able to interact with two different communities. And one Zoom room was our VIPs. These were ladies who chose to upgrade and have access to some more bonuses, as well as my School of Self-Image members. They are always, always VIPs for anything I do. And then there was the other room with general attendees. And I taught the same things to both rooms. I did not hold back. I gave them both, whether they paid me or not. I gave them so much value. And I taught them the tools that I have been practicing for years to help me access calm when my brain wants to freak out about the smallest thing. But what was so interesting? Is that there was a very different energy between the general room and the VIP room. 

In the VIP room, because I would ask questions throughout the week, like where are you on the worried scale? On a scale of zero to 10, zero being no worry, 10 being so anxious that you just can't operate. In the VIP room, the majority of the answers were less than five. And you all that were there, you witnessed this, right? I mean, we had some that were seven, eight. That's normal. You're not supposed to be perfect at this. It's not a contest. You can't get it wrong. But it was fascinating that the majority of people in that VIP room experienced less worry. In the general room, it was like seven, eight, nine, 10. So if we were to do an average of the two rooms, we would see a very different result. Also, I would ask at the beginning of every call, like how's everybody feeling? Let me know in one word. In the VIP room, a lot of the responses were excited, joyful, abundant, happy, vibrant, optimistic. And in the general room, the vibe was more anxious, worried, sad, lonely, afraid, frustrated, disappointed. 

Now, there were exceptions to both rooms, but for the most part, the vibe in the general was very heavy compared to the VIP room. Now, what did I gather from that? Well, the VIP room had a lot of my members in there who have been doing this work and learning how to navigate fear and how to show up in their lives powerfully and how to transform their self-image. Now, a lot of times when I'm teaching self-image work, women imagine a version of them that is fearless. I don't believe in being fearless. As long as we're a human being, we're going to have fear. Fearlessness is impossible and thank goodness, because if we were fearless, we would be doing crazy things that would probably get us killed. But what I do believe in is not being afraid of being afraid. Every time I set a new goal for myself, every time I put myself in new unfamiliar situations, there's a little bit of fear there. But I'm not afraid of it any longer. I have a self-image of a woman who is courageous, which doesn't mean that I'm not afraid. It just means I'm not afraid of being afraid. I look fear in the eye and I say to it, I'm not backing down. Let's go. I might be shaking in my stilettos, but I'm going to walk through this. And when you stop being afraid of being afraid, you are going to amaze yourself with what you're capable of doing, experiencing, and most importantly, who you become in that process. And that is a lot of the work that we do within the School of Self-image. 

We work on getting clear, first of all, about what we want and then who we need to become to create it. We work on elevating our standards, upping our style, creating our environments on purpose to support who we are becoming. We focus on showing up like a queen in our lives. We are very mindful and intentional about what we let in to our lives. I call it our red velvet rope. We learn the art of discipline and we treat it as a form of self-love. This membership is hands down the best thing other than my daughter that I've ever created. I'm so proud of it. And the doors are open right now. They're going to be closing soon. They're going to be closing soon. And if you are tired of being afraid of being afraid, if you feel stuck, if you're struggling to reach your goals, no matter how hard you try, maybe you're doing a lot of thought work and you're taking a lot of massive action, but something isn't working, I can tell you it's a self-image problem. Because you are always going to work subconsciously to prove yourself true. And that's why members love this work because they're getting so many amazing results from it. It works. 

When you reprogram your identity to be a match for what you want, what you want, start seeking you in return. One of my favorite quotes is from Rumi where he says, what you seek is seeking you. Our self-image subconsciously tells our brain what to seek and what to create. And that's why I love this work so much. My personal extraordinary goal is to support 5,000 women in creating their after stories. And I want to use their after stories as evidence to other women who maybe doubt that they can create what they want, who find themselves in a dark place, who feel like they're stuck. I want them to be able to read these after stories and understand that the self-image method works. Yesterday on our call, I asked the members in the VIP room, I'm like, what would you tell women who are on the fence about joining? Here's what some of them said. SOSI tools have made such a huge difference in my life. Best investment ever. 

I jumped in as an annual member and don't regret it one bit. It is the best money you will ever spend. The worst money you will ever spend. It is the best money you will ever spend. The work is so good. It has brought me back to myself. I am a second year SOSI member and I absolutely love it. It's a game changer for my life. I'm living my most confident and intentional life. I have made so much money since being in SOSI. Jackie says best investment ever. For people who are debating whether to join, Tonya's lessons are pure gold. She is firm yet gentle with tough love that you will always cherish. Just do it. It's one of the best things I've ever done for myself. I literally have probably a hundred screenshots and I'm not going to read every single one to you. But I want to share it with you because I know that some of you have been thinking about the membership. You're on the fence and I encourage you just to decide yes or no. 

Living in the in-between is a recipe for misery. One of the things that I see a lot of women do and they don't even realize it, but they have this belief about themselves that number one they can't trust themselves and number two that they're indecisive and that has become their identity and now they have a lot of evidence to prove that true. And so you have to practice new behaviors to prove a new self image to yourself. And one of the best self images to put on and to experiment with is that of being a decisive woman. And so just decide. Don't stay in limbo. But if you decide yes, I am thrilled and I cannot wait to support you within the membership. We are going to have so much fun because I believe personal development should be fun and I would love for you to be one of my five thousand after stories. So you can head over to school of self image dot com forward slash join and you can read all about it. 

Now I want to talk about how I personally do fear in style. You all know style is important to me. It's one of the main pillars of the school of self image. We focus on mindset, style and surroundings. And to me, style is more than just the clothes you wear. It's how you do life. It is your expression. It's how you speak. It is how you smile. It's how you shake someone's hand. It's how you communicate. It's how you walk into a room. It's how you drink a cup of coffee. And yes, it's also how you dress yourself. And style has actually helped me to not be afraid of being afraid and to deal with fear. And actually I have used style to elevate my courage, which has allowed me to do some really scary things. 

Now I know that we can work on our thoughts. And for any of those who do a lot of thought work, you know that that can be very beneficial. But have you ever been in a situation that no matter how much thought work you do, you're still afraid? Yeah, me too. A lot. And so I have sort of learned how to bypass thought work in some areas of my life and just go do the thing. And do it in style. If I'm going to be afraid, I want to do it with some swagger. I want to do it with some panache. And so here are my suggestions on how to do fear and style. Number one, create an alter ego. An alter ego is this secondary personality or persona that you can put on, that you can adopt, that allows you to embody different traits and characteristics and behaviors that maybe you don't embody in your everyday life. It feels like you get to play a new character. And for those of you within the School of Self-Image, you know we talk about this a lot. 

The process of becoming someone new feels awkward. And you have to practice it until you become it. And having an alter ego is one of the ways that I love to practice that part of me who isn't afraid of being afraid. In fact, I would say that my alter ego is fearless. Even though I don't believe in being fearless, I believe she is. She's not even afraid. And I love putting her on and going into character when I am most afraid. She has a name. In fact, I talk about her quite a bit in Charm the Room, which is one of my programs that you get when you join as an annual member of the School of Self-Image. And I talk about how to develop your alter ego because she is a part of me that helped me get over a lot of social anxiety. And it's interesting because even though I don't feel like I fully embody her all of the time, I am more like her now than I used to be just because I do wear her quite a bit. I do practice being her because I'm afraid a lot. I think when you're living a big life, it requires that you feel some big fear. And so she has really helped me navigate those situations. And I'm not the only one. 

There are many celebrities who have alter egos. Beyonce has Sasha Fierce. Eminem had Slim Shady. Lady Gaga had Joe Calderon. So a lot of people have done incredible things and they've used an alter ego to help them step into that character that they've been. And that doesn't let fear stop them. And so from that, once you figure out your alter ego and who is he or she, then you can begin to think about how he or she carries themselves. Right. So the other thing that I love doing is striking a power pose. And it's going to look different for all of us, but our body language not only sends a message to the world, to the people around us, but it also and most importantly, it sends a message to ourselves. Just notice when unchecked and you are anxious and afraid how you carry yourself. Some people contract, some people slump, some people put their head down. They won't look you in the eyes. It depends on what the situation is. 

Some people run, they get out. And so using our body language, we can tell our brains, hey, listen, there's a new sheriff in town. We're not going to run. We're not going to shrink. We are going to open ourselves up to this experience and finding your power pose is so important. Again, I talk about this in Charm the Room, finding your power pose. For some people, it's hands on the hip. For some people, it's just taking up space because some of us are afraid to take up space. We're afraid to be seen. And so our body language reflects that. But when you begin to take up space with your physical body, it's telling the world, I'm not afraid. I am here. I deserve to be seen. I deserve to have space. The next thing for you to do and something that's really been helpful for me is to find what I call your courage couture. Meaning find the outfits, either the style and or the color that helps you to feel confident that builds your courage. 

There is a term called encloathed cognition that basically says that what we clothe ourselves in impacts our thoughts about ourselves. And I have found this to be so true. When I want to feel feminine, I will wear something that's very flowy, maybe lightweight, maybe it's a light color. Maybe it has a pattern on it. When I want to feel confident and courageous, I'm going to wear something that has angles, sharp angles. And one of my favorite things to turn to as a very fitted blazer. And for those of you in the membership, you probably see me wear blazers a lot. I have a blazer for every occasion. It's summertime. I have lightweight blazers. I have linen blazers. I have sequin blazers for evening time. I have wool blazers for the winter. I love a blazer because it is my courage couture. Now, you can also think about what colors give you courage. Color therapy is a real thing. Color represents different things to us. 

For example, red is a bold and powerful color that is associated with strength and courage and confidence. Black is associated with sophistication, authority, empowerment. Navy blue is a classic color that represents professionalism, reliability and confidence. Purple is a very calming color that is associated with luxury and creativity and individuality. Gold represents wealth, success, prestige. I could go on and on, but colors represent values, character traits, feelings. Now, what gives you courage is individual to you. I personally love wearing navy. It's one of my favorite colors. I also really enjoy wearing creams and whites, and those colors represent clarity, openness, confidence and poise. And so figuring out what style of clothing and what color of clothing helps you to feel confident and courageous can help you not be afraid of being afraid. And then finally, in alignment with the pillars of the School of Self Image, I have found it to be very helpful to create an audacious ambiance. My environment, I want to style it in such a way that it calms my nervous system and it builds my courage. 

So what does that look like? Well, it's putting on empowering music, and that's going to be different for all of us. You have to figure out what does that sound like to you. It's listening to teachers and mentors, whether it's through books, whether it's through podcasts, whether it's through video, but allowing them into my ear to remind me of my truth that I can do hard things, that I can reach my extraordinary goals, that I can handle what the world brings my way.

A lot of you all are just letting the noise in. You're letting the doubters, you're letting the critics, you're letting all of the negativity into your brain. And so you just intensify the fear even more. I like to do the opposite. I want to listen to beauty. I want to listen to encouragement. I want to listen to love and joy and excitement. And so I create an ambiance and environment to support that. And then finally, the people that you surround yourself with. Do they make you feel courageous? Do they build your confidence? We all can style our lives, whether it's through how we show up, whether it's through the way we talk, whether we show up to our environments to help us to handle fear and style. What I know to be true is that the future is unknown. 

None of us know what's going to happen. But how do you want to show up in that uncertainty? How do you want to show up in that mystery of life? Personally, I want to do it in style. 

Have a beautiful week, everyone. And I look forward to seeing you in next week's episode. Cheers. And I'll see you next time. 

Hey, are you ready to transform your self-image but lack direction and support? If so, I'd like to invite you to join the School of Self-Image. This is an exclusive monthly membership where you'll create your own powerful before and after story through weekly classes and coaching. You'll learn powerful techniques on how to elevate the quality of your mindset, style and surroundings to change how you see yourself and create extraordinary results in your life. Head over to schoolofselfimage.com forward slash join to learn more.