Fears paralyze, but they also reveal where something does not work right. By strengthening energy fields, Rico Brunner enables people step by step to change their attitude towards fear and develop a new perspective.
Rico Brunner, how do you deal with your fears?
In the course of my work and in recent years, I have learned that it is important to face your own fears, but at the same time it is also important not to overestimate them. For me today, fears are a bit like a teacher, how should I put this into words? Fears tell me that something is wrong, that something is not right. Therefore, I have learned to live with my fears and how to use them. And the exciting thing is that fears have lost their terror they may have had on me in my youth. So today, fears are in fact companions that help me to go through life mindfully, without overestimating or letting them take control over me.
Is the saying "Fear is a bad advisor" accurate in your opinion?
Fear is definitely a bad advisor, especially if you are dominated by fear. I think it's also important to look at how intense the fear is, what triggers the fear in you. What I can recommend to anyone who has fears is to deal with them rationally as a first step. In other words, to ask yourself: “What is the worst that can happen, what if the worst happened, would it be truly that bad? What could I learn from it? How could I prevent it? Would I have to prevent it in the first place?”
When you start to deal with your fears rationally, you gain a new perspective, and then something really exciting often happens: your emotions start to relax. Additionally, what also helps a lot is if you try to take a little distance from your own life; this can be through a walk to a place you have never been before, where you learn to look at your fears from a distance in order to gain new perspectives.
Fears are excessive demands that we are unable to understand or process, where we don't know how to react, and that's why fear is a bad advisor in that sense. Thus, fear is a good warning sign that says: "Be mindful and change your path or your approach."
And if someone is trapped in their fear, how do they become exhausted?
Fear can actually be demoralizing if it becomes a permanent condition. Fear paralyzes and overwhelms a person, and that's why fear actually robs you of your strength. Based on my experience, people who become exhausted through fear are not stable enough and are therefore overwhelmed by many things, which then leads to fatigue. In other words, constant fear, which then builds up and intensifies in different areas, triggers stress, which then causes exhaustion.
And how does this exhaustion, caused by fear, manifest itself in the energy field?
If you suffer from exhaustion, which is triggered by fear, then of course this exhaustion takes a different shape in each person’s energy field. But generally, you discover that the person begins to evade, you can see that their energy fields become exhausted, or limp so to speak, in a way they can no longer regenerate. And a strong indication that fears are responsible for this is that the person, in a manner of speaking switches off and gives up because they realize that they can't cope with it anyway. What I mean is, strong fears trigger resignation at some point, which can then lead to a lack of drive and exhaustion.
What are you actually afraid of?
That's a very interesting question. I would like to revisit childhood a little. As children, we are actually afraid of everything. In other words, we are afraid of the unknown, but we are also afraid of not being able to deal with the unknown. And fear is actually an excessive demand because we don't know how to behave so that we are protected. However, what is really fascinating about this is that there are people who have little fear in seemingly hopeless situations. And these are often people who are used to dealing with hopeless situations, who have become accustomed to this hopelessness, this fear, and therefore no longer have any fear.
And how do you work with clients who suffer from fear?
In my opinion, the most important thing is to work on one’s resilience, one’s ability to cope with stress, so that they become stronger in the face of fear. So that the fear becomes less overwhelming, and the person can then use their own strength, the strength they have gained, to deal with fears differently and change their perspective.
And what can someone do for themselves when they realize that they keep falling into this spiral?
Because fears cause excessive demands, it is important that they don't force themselves to go into fear. If someone forces themselves to go into fear, then it works with small fears it works excellently, with big fears it won't work, and I would advise against it.
I think it's about making sure that we become stronger, that we can change our perspective in order to gain a different approach to fear. We are often paralyzed by fear because we always look at it from the same point of view. And then the fear actually remains and as big as it is.
That's interesting, because there's also the approach that claims, for example, if you're afraid of spiders, then you should face it and let the spider crawl over you. But you say that doesn't always make sense?
That makes sense to me for people who want to face their fear. If someone has a severe anxiety disorder and is massively overwhelmed by their fears, then I would advise against it because it can lead to greater traumatization. And I think you also have to distance yourself from saying that you shouldn't and mustn't have fears, because fears are normal, and I think it's important that you face up to the fears that affect you in your life. And the fears that don't affect you can be left alone.
For instance, if someone works in a zoo and says that they want to work in a zoo and they have to learn to overcome their fear of spiders, then I think this would be a very effective method. If someone says that they want to overcome their fears generally and they have found a course whereby they can overcome their fear of spiders, then I think that would be effective as well. But if someone claims that everything is fine in their life, that they have no fears apart from their spider phobia, then the question arises as to what the real benefit is of getting rid of this spider phobia, unless of course they feel the need to do so. I think it's really important to note that we as humans are afraid of a lot of things, especially things that we don't know how to deal with.
Finally, do you have any specific tips and tricks on how to deal better with fears in everyday life?
What I would recommend is not to define fear as fear for yourself, but to define it in such a way that you might accept that you’re afraid of something that you can’t deal with it. You have to learn how to deal with it, what parameters can be changed in your behavior so that you are less afraid of something.
For example, if I'm afraid to drive on the highway, I might ask myself: “What would it look like, if I only drove 100 instead of 120 on the highway?”. And upon trying it out, I might realize that I'm not scared at 100. However, if I’m still scared to drive at 100, then I would look for stretches of highway that are less busy or drive at times that are less busy.
Thereby you can try to change the fear bit by bit, with a different attitude to actually experience this situation in a new way. There are lots of parameters that you can try out, which is exciting. For example, I know people who have changed their car and then they were no longer afraid on the highway. And not because they bought a big car, but simply a car where they felt safer, some of which were smaller cars. So it's always about changing your point of view, your own attitude, in order to be able to face fear.
So, by actually accepting the fears we have, we can thereby change the situation, is that correct?
Exactly, and then we should really ask ourselves whether it is perhaps normal for ourselves to be afraid in that situation. For example, if someone told me it was their first time in Paris by car, my first reaction would be to say that it's completely normal to be afraid. Being afraid is part of life. It only becomes negative when it paralyzes you and suppresses and prevents you from living.
Summary
Fear is not your enemy – it’s a signal. It shows you that something is wrong, that your system is overwhelmed. Simply recognizing this is already valuable. What matters is not to let fear paralyze you, but to try to understand it more deeply.
You don’t have to overcome everything at once. Small steps, a new perspective, and trust in your own strength can change a lot. It’s not about defeating fear, but about learning how to live with it – at your pace, on your path.
When you learn to feel yourself more clearly, you regain your ability to act. With every small step forward, you strengthen your energy field – and with it, your inner peace and stability.
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