Your Body Already Knows How to Handle Fear — And This Exercise Proves It
I was asked to give a talk to a group of young physicians about how to choose the way you show up. And honestly, just thinking about it made me a little anxious — which is probably exactly why I said yes. 😅
That's a very on-brand move for a recovering Anxiety Girl.
Here's what I've learned after 20+ years of sitting with people through their hardest moments: knowing the tools doesn't make you immune to the times when fear tries to take the wheel. It just means you have something to reach for. What I wanted to give those physicians — and what I want to give you right now — isn't a lecture about fear. It's a felt sense of something you already know but may not have been able to put your hands on yet.
Because the most powerful thing I could show you isn't a concept. It's what your own body does when I ask it the right question. 🌿
Prefer to watch? Here's the full video:
How You Show Up When It's Hard — A Body-Based Exercise That Changes Everything | Dr. Stephanie Best
You Already Know More Than You Think
Before I walk you through the exercise, I want to tell you something: you already know more than you think about what works — and what doesn’t work — when something hard shows up inside you. The answer isn’t an idea floating around in your head. It’s in your body. Right now. 💛
Here's what I want you to do. Think of a challenging internal experience — not an external problem, but something that lives inside you. A self-critical thought, a painful feeling, a difficult memory, an urge you struggle with. Something that's probably been around for a while.
Got it? Now come with me on a short journey. . . 🌱
We're strolling through a beautiful English garden — acres of paths, topiaries, flowers, open sky. As we walk, we come across a statue of you.
This statue shows you at your worst when that challenging thing shows up inside. The statue’s posture, its stance, conveys to the onlooker exactly what it feels like to be you in that moment.
Show me with your body. Take a second and really do it. Stay there for a moment, and feel what it’s like to be in that posture, that stance. . .
Now let’s keep walking, to a different part of the garden. Here’s another statue of you, with the exact same difficult thing showing up inside. But this statue shows you at your best when faced with it.
Show me that posture. And again, pause for a moment once you’ve adopted that stance. Feel into it. . .
What the Two Statues Reveal
This Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) exercise has been used across the world, with people from every walk of life — in small villages and large cities, across Eastern and Western countries, of every age and background. And if you're like most people who have ever done this exercise, here's what probably just happened.
Statue one: you closed down. Shoulders hunched, maybe hands up guarding, turned inward. Small and defended.
Statue two: you opened up. Shoulders back, chest lifted, eyes forward. Maybe you even went full Wonder Woman. ✨🦸🏼♀️
Your body already knew the difference — without me explaining a single thing.
And here's what that tells you: the posture of closing off, shutting down, fighting the hard thing or hiding from it, is instinctive. It feels protective. But it's also the posture that quietly keeps you stuck. The posture of opening up, allowing, staying present, and engaging in what matters — that one you also already know. And it liberates you. Helps you ground yourself and take meaningful action even when the tough stuff shows up inside.
The best part? You get to choose.
The internal experience is identical in both statues. The difficult thought, the old fear, the uncomfortable feeling — it's present in both. What changes isn't whether the hard thing is there. What changes is your relationship to it. 💫
Open, Aware, Engaged — Three Words Worth Carrying
The second statue has three qualities I want you to hold onto, because they're the ones worth practicing:
Open — you're not fighting your experience or pretending it isn't there. The fear gets to be in the room. You're just not handing it the keys. 🗝️
Aware — you're grounded in the present moment, not lost in the story your mind is spinning. The difficult thoughts and feelings moving through you are weather. You are the sky. You've been there before every hard thing that has ever blown through your life, and you'll be there after this one, too. 🌤️
Engaged — acting in a way that reflects what actually matters to you, not purely in reaction to fear. Taking action as the person you want to be, not the person anxiety is telling you to be.
This is what Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) exercises are designed to build — not the absence of hard feelings, but a different relationship to them. One where you get to choose.
Before Your Next Hard Moment, Ask Yourself This
The next time you're walking into a difficult conversation, a presentation, a first impression — anything that matters — pause for just one second and ask: Which ‘statue’ (or stance) am I in right now? And which one do I want to be in?
Then shift. Both in body and in spirit. Shoulders back, chin up, chest open. Willing, aware, connected to your ‘why’ — to what matters most about facing this challenge. Feel what it's like to consciously choose that stance, even while the hard thing is still present.
You don't have to feel ready. You don't have to make the fear disappear. You just have to choose the posture — and let that choice reflect the kind of person you actually want to be. 💪
That's not a small thing. That's the whole game.
If you're struggling with anxiety and want more tools rooted in this approach, I'd love to stay connected. I'm a therapist in Charleston, SC who works with clients across the U.S. via telehealth, and this kind of values-aligned, body-informed practice is at the heart of everything I do. 🌿
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And if you're in a place where 1-on-1 support feels like the right next step, I'd love to connect. I'm a therapist in Charleston, SC who works with clients across the U.S. via PSYPACT — you can reach out here.
I've been asked to give a talk to a group of young physicians about how to choose the way you show up. And honestly, just thinking about it makes me a little anxious — which is probably exactly why I said yes.
Hi, I'm Dr. Stephanie Best. I'm a licensed clinical psychologist and I teach fellow members of Club Human how to use mind-body wellness to liberate themselves from fear and live more courageously so they can build lives they love.
This talk I'm preparing about choosing how you show up — it isn't just for these young physicians. It's something I've had to practice often myself, in life and in the lead-up to this talk. Because knowing the tools doesn't make you immune to the moments when fear tries to take the wheel.
If you're willing, I'd like to show you something. You already know more about how to do this than you might realize. Will you come on a journey with me?
For this journey, I need you to first think of something that's a major challenge for you at times. I don't mean an external challenge — not something like not having enough money or a job. I mean the kind of challenge that's inside of you. It could be a self-critical thought or belief, a painful feeling, a difficult memory, a sensation, or an urge to act in a certain way. I'll give you a moment to come up with something.
It might be something very old — something that has in fact been with you or has been around for a long time.
Once you've got it, come with me on a journey. We're going to go through one of these beautiful, expansive English gardens. It's acres and acres — there are trees and paths and topiaries and flowers. And we're strolling along.
As we stroll along, we come across a statue of you. And this statue shows you in a posture that really conveys to the onlookers — to us and everyone else looking — the felt sense of what it's like to be you with that challenging issue showing up inside of you. And it's you at your worst when dealing with that challenging issue.
Show me with your body. Really go ahead and try this. Show me with your body the posture you would put that statue of yourself in to convey that. And once you're in that posture, stay there for a moment. Close your eyes and feel into it. Feel what it's like to be in that posture with that challenging issue showing up inside and you at your worst.
Okay, come back. Come back to the garden with me. Let's stroll to a different part of the garden. Oh, it's such a beautiful day. Gorgeous sky.
Pretty soon we come across another statue of you. Now, this statue — this is you dealing with the exact same issue showing up inside. But this statue is you in a posture that conveys to us the felt sense of what it's like to be you when that difficult thing shows up inside of you and you're at your best when faced with it.
Show me with your body what posture you would put that statue in. Go ahead and try it. And again, once you get yourself into that posture, close your eyes. Feel into it. Feel what it's like to be you in this posture toward that challenging thing inside when you're at your best.
Okay, come on back.
Let me tell you a little something about that exercise. The type of therapy that I practice is called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT. And this has been used with countless individuals from countless walks of life all across the world.
Now, if you're like me and you're like them — when I asked you to show me the posture you would put your statue in when you're at your worst coping with that painful or difficult thing inside of you, you probably did something like this. You probably closed down, made yourself smaller, hunched your shoulders over, maybe put your hands in front of your face. Sometimes people get into a defensive posture, or an attacking one — trying to push it away. I don't want this thing inside of me. I don't want these thoughts, these feelings, these beliefs. I am hiding. I'm closed off. I'm unwilling to have my experience. I'm disengaged.
And if you're like me and the countless others who've done this exercise — when I asked you to show me you at your best when faced with that exact same painful internal experience, you probably opened up, threw your shoulders back, chest up, your chin might have come up. You might have even stood up or put yourself in a Wonder Woman posture. Open, aware, engaged.
ACT — Acceptance and Commitment Therapy — hasn't just been done in therapy. It's also used as Acceptance and Commitment Training with all kinds of people: from business CEOs to professional athletes. It's been used in small villages in Pakistan, in large cities, in rural areas, in Eastern countries and Western countries, with people of all ages, shapes, sizes, and socioeconomic statuses.
And regardless of who you're doing this exercise with — inevitably, when you ask them to show you themselves at their worst when coping with a painful or challenging inner issue, they close off. They get small. They hunch over. They shut down. And when you ask them to show you themselves at their best, they open up. Their eyes are bright and wide. They are facing forward.
That should tell you something very important. You already have the seeds within you of knowing what works and what doesn't work. When painful thoughts, feelings, and sensations show up inside of you as a member of Club Human — you know that what doesn't work is, unfortunately, what we instinctively do: shutting down, being unwilling to have it, closing off. Not open to it. Disengaging. Unaware of what's going on around us in our lives.
You know that what works best is to stay open — open to whatever thoughts and feelings are coursing through you at the moment — while you stay present and ground yourself in the present moment. Aware that these thoughts, these feelings, these sensations — they're the weather of the day. And you are the sky. You are the sky that has been there before and after every painful issue, including this one, that has blown through your life.
And you're engaged. Engaged in a way that reflects your values, that reflects what matters to you, that reflects the kind of person you want to be.
Note — it's the exact same challenging internal issue showing up in both of these scenarios. But you are the one who gets to choose.
So before your next hard moment — a difficult conversation, a presentation, a first impression — ask yourself: which posture am I in right now? And which one do I want to be in?
You don't have to feel ready. You just have to choose the posture. How do you want to show up?
Now, posture one. Now posture two. Can you feel that? Open, aware, engaged — in a way that's reflective of what matters to you and the kind of person that you want to be.
Try it. Choose the posture you want to be in the next time you're faced with something difficult.
And if you know someone who's about to do something hard and scary themselves — but it's probably worth doing — go ahead and send this to them.
Thank you. I'll see you next time.
