Put Your Fear In Time-Out

Fear is not just a feeling, it’s a full-body survival response, and your brain doesn’t always know the difference between a broken bone and a broken heart. We talk honestly about what that means for real life: why rejection stings so much, why you freeze before a presentation, and why “playing it safe” can quietly shrink your world. Along the way, we start with something surprisingly connected: the power of intentional couple time and how recharging your relationship can give you more patience and a bigger emotional buffer when stress hits.

From there, we unpack fear in career growth and professional life, including the dread of failing publicly, the story you tell yourself when you don’t get the job, and how a growth mindset turns setbacks into usable feedback. We share why it’s still worth interviewing when you’re not sure you’re ready, how practice builds confidence, and how courage can coexist with being scared.

We also zoom out to collective fear and how uncertainty can turn into “othering,” scapegoating, and cruelty toward people with less power. Our clearest takeaway is simple and actionable: exposure. Real conversations, real community, and real curiosity break the spell of stereotypes and help us choose love, safety, and compassion over fear.

If this hit home, subscribe to Life on 10, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review. Then tell us: where is fear constricting your life right now? Email us at LifeOnTen@gmail.com

Transcript

Welcome And Spring Check-In

Couple Trips As Relationship Recharge

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hello and welcome to Life on 10. Hello everyone. It is Angela and Vanessa. Hi, hi, hi, hi. It has been nope, it hasn't been a long time since we it kind of was. Um, but we are happy to be here. And um, Vanessa, yes, what spring plans do you have? Let's start off with that. Well, you have any spring plans?

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Yes. I am doing a cruise to Mexico. Robert and I are doing a fun solo trip. Um, solo couple trip. Like, that's what I meant. It's we're not, I'm not going by myself. Robert and I will be going together without the kids, which is always wonderful. It's just, it's so, it's so nice to like just connect and be yourself and not have all the worries. And, you know, it's so wonderful to be able to leave my kids with my parents. It's I'm so grateful for that.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

That's really, really important in a relationship. Yeah. Is to that um couple's time, family vacation, then couple vacation.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Yeah. No, it's it's huge. It makes because then it makes a family vacations that much more fun. And it just makes, you know, the, you know, the as you move through life, you you can have periods of time in which you become disconnected from your partner for a variety of reasons, right? Work stress, blah, blah, whatever it is. And just having these intentional reconnection moments where you're just focused on each other and enjoying each other. And how it's it makes, I I feel like it just makes everything that so much easier. Like it just makes life easier. How so? So it because you have that, it's like, you know, when you go and you recharge your batteries, that's what it is, is it's it's recharging your couple batteries. And when you recharge your couple batteries, the things, the daily life stressors that come at you and world stressors that try to pull couples apart, you've got more, you have a buffer that keeps you from losing each other completely. Because I do think that a lot of times that's why people disconnect. Definitely. Is because of that. Things just get in the way, and then and then things just get so far gone. It's no coming back that you can't come back together again. Yeah, yeah. Unless you have an incredibly important reason to do it, you know, whatever it is. But uh that's why I am just so because I know that I'm I work so much and I focus on my career so much and intentionally and Robert and I want to do that. Like we have a, we have, we as a team have aspirations together for my career that will help our family and help us, right? That that we understand there's gonna be me not being home for days and traveling or having to take phone calls in the middle of Sunday. I literally took a phone call today while we were getting our nails done because there was like a, you know, like these types of things where you're it's like you're buying yourself that buffer so that when the things that would normally piss somebody off happen, you've got the money in the bank. Yeah, right. You've got that money in the bank of like, hey, it's okay. And then you know it's gonna be coming a little bit later. Well, we're gonna connect again. And because I do we do this every year, at least once a year. That's so we have our own trips together. And then I'm gonna go, we're gonna be going to um uh Disneyland for Star Wars night. Star Wars night, and we're gonna be dressing up.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Oh my god, it's gonna be the entire family's going to be.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

No, just Robert and I really so the kids don't love the Star Wars After Dark parties because they're not like folk, they're not, they're not, you know, you don't ride ride, like you don't go there to ride rides. You go there to like eat the fun Star Wars treats, to take pictures with the various Star Wars themes. Oh, the characters. And so you're waiting in line and and that just drives them nuts. Like they're just they like Star Wars, but not that much. They want to have fun. And this is not like to me, they just don't have that much fun. So we go by ourselves so that we can have fun and not be stressed out. I think that is phenomenal.

Why Fear Feels Like Injury

SPEAKER_01 4:06

That is phenomenal. It's gonna be awesome. You um you are probably one of the very few people that I know take put yourself in timeout. And when I say timeout, I mean the good timeout. Yeah, like give yourself that time out um to recharge and regroup. I love that. Yep, I love that. We are not talking about that today. We are not. So I are not when we got there. It's okay. Um it's it's good, it's good, it's good. What we are going to talk about today is something that all of us as human beings have experienced in our lives and will continue to experience um until we close our eyes for the very last time. What is that?

SPEAKER_00 4:52

It's fear, yeah. And I'm not like saber-toothed tiger gonna eat you fear, which that's there, yeah, but like little fears too.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Yes, yes, yeah. So I was in a con I went to a conference in Seattle, um, I think it was last week, may have been two weeks, and um a neuropsychologist, no, she was a neuroscientist, um, was speaking, and she said something I already knew. However, the group that she was speaking to, several of the audience members were like shocked when she said it, and um it caught them by surprise. So what she said is that your brain, our brains, cannot tell the difference between an actual physical injury, like being hurt, and an emotional one. I believe that it all registers in the same part of the brain. Correct. And then speaking of the saber-toothed tiger thing, that still is within us. Absolutely, right? Yeah, yes, but however, through evolution, we don't have to run from tigers anymore. The brain is still responding in that way. Yes, fight or fight. And so that fear, that fear can be so interesting. That fear can be, I'm gonna lose my job.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Yeah, I'm gonna lose this relationship. I mean, lose this or I'm gonna try to go into a relationship and this person's gonna reject me or I'm gonna get hurt. So I don't even try.

Career Fear And The Risk Of Trying

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Yeah. I have to, I have to present. Yeah. Same emotions come up, it triggers that same that fight or flight or freeze. Or freeze. Yeah, or I'm gonna freeze. Yeah. And so what I always tell my clients, because I I I have the honor, I'm gonna say it's an honor, of coaching people from all over the world. And one of the things, one of the many things I see um that transcends race, culture, and religion is fear. So I have clients who are, I guess, whatever, you know, C-suite people, however you want to describe them, all levels of life. And every client, no matter how successful they are, they have this tinge of fear about something. Yeah. And for some clients, it's I'm not gonna go to the gym because I'm gonna be judged, uh, people are gonna look at me, um, I won't be able to do the workout. And then for some, it's I I would never present. I can never stand in front of people, ever. And then for others, it's if I take that promotion, if I take that promotion, there's a possibility I'm gonna fail. Yeah. So I'm not gonna even try. Yeah. For the I'm not even gonna interview for that. Absolutely.

Failure Feedback And Growth Mindset

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Yeah, because it's not only when it's there's two different types of things I I think when I when I look at for trying. So there's one is if I try for something and fail, will other people see me as a loser? And how will I see myself? Because there's there's both, right? It's how how it will potentially, depending on that person's own level of fears, it will confirm one of the the biggest insecurities they have about themselves sometimes. And so um I think because I it for me, what I have found um is that I have actually had my biggest successes following failures. Uh that's every time I have something like not so awesome happen to me, or I tried for something and didn't get it, something better or bigger, a better opportunity comes along. Or I learn from it, or or and I one of the things that I think is really key for people who are professionals is even if you don't think you're the right person for the job, sometimes going and putting yourself out there, you get the experience of the interview if you get the interview. And you're demonstrating to the people who are, you know, that are hiring above you that you are somebody who wants to advance into various roles or opportunities. And so they'll see you and they'll think about you potentially later. You may not be right for this job right now. There could just be, it's not that you're bad candidate, it's just they found somebody who was a better fit. That's the way maybe I'm just myself. I'm like, it's you're it's not that you're bad, Vanessa, it's just you're not good for this role right now. And I had that exact experience happen to me where I applied for a job that is my exact level job. It's just at a different hospital. And I didn't get that job. I didn't even get put up into the panel. But then I got the exact same level job like less than a year later. What's what's the takeaway for that? What what what did you take away from that experience? My takeaway was A, I I got a lot of experience from the interviewing process. Yeah. Like that was so valuable just to see the questions that they were asking me and how that, so that the next time I was super prepared. I was interviewing for that same job, just in a different space. So I was like, oh, I'm gonna just have all those answers available to me. So it gave me, it prepped me and gave me the experience. So that was huge. Um, and it also gave me a little bit of information in the feedback that I got from the people about, you know, needing to get a little bit more experience and this, that, and the other. And so I immediately went out and started looking for more experience. Look at that. Like how, okay, if I need experience in this in order to get this job, well then how am I gonna get that? Right? It's just you take it as information in those instances.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

I I as I'm listening to you, what comes to mind for me is is like you have what we call a growth mindset. I do. You have a growth mindset. Yeah. And a lot of life is about mindset and perspective. Yeah. And whatever your parents did, or maybe it's just your DNA, you tend to go there to that place of of possibilities versus taking it personal. Yeah. So, you know, and and and I have to say, I because I coach so many people, I'm sad because overall they do not harbor that mindset. Yeah. And I don't care how successful they are, like I said, or race, whatever, religion, it's more of a mindset of what's wrong with me, what's it's me, and what and I'm not enough. Um, and so what tends to happen is that they stay in jobs that they dislike, yeah. They stay in relationships that are not serving them. And so they c they compromise they live under their greatness. Yeah. And I I just my I think the for me, one of the greatest rewards I receive when I do coach someone in that space is when they move from that space. Yeah. And they move closer to where you are, where they are just like, okay, I hear what you're saying. I okay, I'm gonna do it. I'm scared as shit. Yeah, but I'm gonna do it. Yeah. And they do it. And maybe they don't get the job, but boy, do they feel good because they felt the fear and they went for it anyway.

How Fear Shrinks Your Life

When Fear Turns Into Hate

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Exactly. Exactly. No, I think one of the things that makes me even more sad with fear, because you know, we're talking about fear in this context, about, you know, jobs or trying to advance in a career or trying to, the one that makes me the saddest is when people are fearful of each other, when they are fearful of sparking new relationships or trying new things in relations to um just, you know, or or not necessarily even new you trying new things, but just different ways of thinking. Like it's there's like this fear that if I give an inch on how I think about somebody else, or you know, for example, well, I'm just gonna throw gay marriage out there, right? This there was a fear that people, straight people who had had was that somehow letting gay people get married would erode the value of the commitments that they made. That is just insanity to me. But what but that was what that was, it's I think a lot of our poor decisions and a lot of our hatred or our misogyny or our bigotry or racism, homophobia, all these things are all based in insecurities and fears that we hold within ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

If if gay people exist, what if somebody thinks I'm gay? What if I'm what if I have a gay child? What if, right? Like all these things. If it's um, and a lot of it, like you said, growth or abundance mindset, these people, some of them are so just stuck in the scarcity. If this group of people succeeds, that means I am gonna lose. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Yeah. So fear that this fear, this is this is a this is a collective fear. It's a collective fear. What we were talking about earlier, it's it's definitely not individual, but sort of. This right here is collective fear. Yeah. And there is a book um called The Course in Miracles. And in this, and I say it's a book, it's a spiritual book, in this book, it states that there are two things that's going on with humanity. We either are coming from a space and a place of love or fear. Every decision, every action that we take is based on love, which I would say is safety. Yep, right, or it's fear, which is uncertainty. Yeah. And as human beings, we crave certainty and we crave um uh my menopausal brain. Um here it is, it's coming back. And we and we crave like the known, yeah, like what we know because that we equate that with safety. Exactly. So if you take that and you introduce people of a different religion, a different culture, different race, then that is unfamiliar to me. And so I'm coming from a place of fear. And when we come from a place of fear, our actions are never, ever, ever coming from a place of love, kindness, compassion, and and and respect. Yeah. It's always coming from a closed heart, which when we act from that space, our actions are oftentimes harmful. Absolutely. To the other person, and I would say even to ourselves. Oh, how then you're blocking yourself in. Yeah. And you're and you're keeping yourself from all the beauty and adventure that is out there when we open ourselves up for new relationships, learning about someone else.

Protest And Scapegoating In Hard Times

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I and you can see it, you know, we can't not talk about things that are going on in in the world right now. And we just had um, we're we're gonna date our podcast airing, but yesterday was another No Kings protest. And um, you know, you you look at how because I I just sit there and I go, how are a people able to be okay, right, with the way that that ICE is behaving and Border Patrol agents are behaving towards people who they have deemed as illegal, illegal immigrants, right? And I I just think like I just I really think that if if they're able to do it and accept it because, first of all, it's another. It's not them, right? It's another. And they aren't the ones that are at risk yet. And I say yet, yes, incredibly intentionally, exactly. Right? Um, because we all have different things about us that make us at potential risk from something or another at some point. Um, and so I just think that is it's and but why? Why are they able to look away? And I think it's just like you said, it's the these people are other. They they are fearful right now because we our economy is not great. There's environmental things going on. There are the things that were supposed to get better are not getting better. We're at war, gas is seven dollars a gallon, right? Like these things are happening and they have to blame it on someone. And instead of blaming it on the right people, yeah, yeah, we're blaming it on, we're scapegoating it on immigrants.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

You're scapegoating it on immigrants, you're scapegoating it on us, always black people. Yeah, you're scapegoating it on black people, you scapegoat it on women. Yeah, it's it's always the if you look at it's always the um, I don't want to say weaker, but yeah, it's always those people without power. Yeah. So you're you're blaming somebody that's has even less power than you when your frustration and your anger and your rage need to be towards the people with all the power who are building bunkers. Yeah, okay. Why are they building bunkers? Because they know what they're doing. Yeah, they are creating a society that is not going to be able to stand. And when people are unable to feed their children, to find shelter, housing, this is gonna become a very dark place. Yeah, I just I want people to wake up. And yesterday, I didn't get to march yesterday. I've marched in the previous ones. Yeah, but yesterday was a demonstration, again, in hope that people see the writing on the wall. They're not being fooled anymore. So, so that's fantastic. I feel like those people went beyond the fear that they may have been experiencing. Yesterday I was in, I was very surprised. I must say, I I did judge. I was in Lincoln and people were in Lincoln with signs, and I was like, oh my God.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Yeah, there is hope. There is hope. I've seen so much activity in Placer County that I never thought to see.

Exposure As The Antidote To Othering

SPEAKER_01 20:48

El Dorado Hills today. Yeah, yes, yesterday I was yesterday. I was like, oh my God. Yeah, people are really waking up. So there's hope. These people are going beyond their fears. Let's get back to fear. And so, how do how do how does one step out of that place where they're like, I, you know, these people look different? And I've heard things about how these people behave and who these people are. Now I've never engaged with the person, yeah, but I read about it, or I heard somebody say something, or you know, a podcast, a news person. So how does one get beyond that? Because that is the only thing that's going to save us that we understand that we're all interconnected, and we we have to start reaching out and beyond the fear.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

I don't I don't know. It's in my opinion, there's one answer and it's exposure. Tell me about her. It's talking more. It's you will if the longer you stay surrounded in your own bubble without exposing yourself to different people, different cultures, seeing like, for example, the the the immigrants that are in Minnesota, right? And I I believe it was I'm trying it was the Haitians that they said, or is it Haitians or the Somalis?

SPEAKER_01 22:29

Somalis.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

That they were saying we're eating eating the cats and dogs.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

The Haitians.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Yeah, but so so like that when they were saying they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs, right? It's exposure. It's exposure. Like you, when you don't, when you've never spent one second of your life with somebody from Haiti, never talked to them, never, then it is so easy to other them. And like I said, that is the downfall of our wonderful experiment, right? Like that is what is going to is the more that we faction ourselves and the more that we separate ourselves and other ourselves, that is what it's gonna be. Because then when you other yourself and and nobody else is is, then you're you you you don't care as much about people who are quote other.

unknown 23:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

And it's so it's that's what I'm thinking. I I see so many people that once they actually are like, oh, I've never, I've never sat and had gone to a Haitian restaurant, I've never gone here before, right? I've never had soul food before. I've never exactly I'm not saying soul food is Haitian. I jumped to another culture. You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying? Like it's it's that's what it is. And so that's why traveling and getting out and having friends that are different than you and listening and just you expanding your mind. You have to be receptive, though. Yes, you have to want that.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

It's not gonna come and knock on your door. It's like looking for the perfect man. If you're waiting in your room thinking he's gonna knock on your door, more than likely that's not gonna happen. So I you have to want that. You have to be curious and and and fight your fight back, fight back against your own fears. Um, and look for what you know you have might have in common with that person. First of all, it's so easy to say, what do I have in common with this person over here? They're they're human beings. We have way more in common than we have different. Exactly. You don't even have to reach deep to find the commonalities. Yeah, it's a human being. Yeah. Breathing. He needs to breathe, it needs to sleep, it needs shelter, all the things that you need. That same human being loved their children like you love your children. Absolutely dreams and hopes for their children like you have for your children. The saddest thing is that for me, it's not even, I don't want to say sad. I'm I don't understand it because I was raised by people who had the greatest empathy for other people. Yeah. And so we, when I say we, I mean my son, my my sisters, we struggle when we look at this world. It's like, what? Who were your parents? Yeah. That's where I go. Yeah. Who were your parents? How could you not have compassion?

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

How could you not? I don't understand it. And maybe that's just me being naive.

Next Steps And Listener Stories

SPEAKER_00 25:50

No, I I mean I'm I clearly come from the same same boat. I don't know. I don't know how you can't do that. So um, yeah. But let's we're our next episode. We're gonna pick this up when we come back. We're gonna be talking about fear, but we are also gonna be talking about how to get past it. Yes. And what does that mean? What does that look like? What are some tools you can use to make it so that um fear doesn't run your ruin your life, run your life. Um, yeah, that's what we're gonna be, that's what we're gonna be focusing on.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Yeah. In the meantime, I invite you to think about where you're constricting yourself or where your fear is constricting you. Yeah. And then um I would love to hear, like, how can they get in contact with us? Some stories where you were able to move beyond your fear.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

They can reach out through our uh podcast episode.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

You know, when you go to the podcast, you can if you put some stories there, that would be fantastic. And I promise we will read them on the air where you met your fear and you overcame.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

I will also put in the comment section in our in our story, we will put the email for um Life on 10. I would love that.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

I would love to talk about it. So please let us know.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

We'd love to talk with you.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Yeah, awesome, wonderful. Okay, as always, live your life on 10. Your 10. Bye bye.