The Self-Care Mindset

CHAPTER 4The “FUD” Is Real

“We don't just burn out from working too much; we burn out from worrying too much and feeling that we don't matter.”

How do you feel given current events or issues happening in your life? Do you wake up feeling fear? Are you uncertain about the future? Does doubt creep into the corners of your life? Or have you gone numb by now?

Most of us experience feelings of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (normally shortened to FUD) in our daily lives and we tend to think we have to suppress, ignore, or reject these powerful feelings. Instead, we can use them as guideposts for better self‐care. But first, we need to understand how the FUD is directly affecting us.

FUD surrounds our day‐to‐day lives and is a factor used by politicians, media, public relations, cults, and social media influencers. It appears in various shapes and sizes as a sales and marketing tactic, negotiation, or even a management ploy to influence, control, and manipulate people. Over the years, the “D” in “FUD” can sometimes stand for “disinformation,” which we know intensifies the spread of doubt.

While FUD might be new as part of the self‐care conversation, it is a term that has been in our vocabulary since the 1920s and has been used as far back as 1693 as a propaganda tactic. We’ve become so conditioned to suppressing and ignoring these feelings and we deal with FUD alone or in hiding, but it’s costing us sleep, our sense of agency, and our mental health.

In Chapter 3, “Unstress to Get ...