Kristen Ulmer is a thought leader, master facilitator and fear/anxiety expert. Her education comes from practical, real- world experience, starting with being a mogul specialist on the US Ski Team. Kristen then became more notoriously recognized as the best female big mountain extreme skier in the world, a status she kept for 12 years. Known for big cliff jumps and you-fall-you die descents, she became sponsored by the likes of Red Bull, Ralph Lauren, and Nikon, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame September of 2019. Her mastery of other danger sports such as paragliding, ice and rock climbing, and adventure mountain biking also gained her the outdoor industry vote as most extreme “fearless” woman athlete in North America. After retiring in 2003, she spent the next 15 years studying Zen Buddhism. Her current work as a facilitator and teacher is the culmination of her decades-long experiences becoming intimate with fear.
In this episode, Kristen and I explore:
-Kristen's view that fear underlies other emotions such as anxiety, anger, sadness, and excitement.
-Kristen's own unhealthy relationship to fear, and when extreme behaviors turn into unhealthy addictions.
-How to be "intimate" with fear versus trying to conquer it or understand it intellectually.
-Seeing fear as "person" who needs to be accepted and validated (versus controlled).
-Re-imagining anxiety, PTSD, and mental health through Kristen's paradigm of understanding fear.
-How fear gets conditioned in childhood.
-How meditation and spirituality can inadvertently interfere with feeling fear.
-Non-resistance and "being in love" with our emotions.
-How our culture reinforces resistance and distraction from our emotions.
-How Kristen's model compares and contrasts with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
-Noticing your resistance patterns as the first step to being "intimate" with fear.
-The four levels of working with fear.
-Getting into "flow" with fear.
Audio Clip (at beginning of episode) - Kristen's induction in USSSHOF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujrrubEivBU
Kristen's Book, "The Art of Fear: Why Conquering Fear Won't Work and What To Do Instead"
Kristen's Website: https://kristenulmer.com/
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Website: https://matthewgoodmanphd.com
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~May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you live with ease and joy. May you be free of suffering~
