RESOURCE 5
What Fear Looks Like and Sounds Like
Looks like:
Physical discomfort
- Stomach pain or feeling sick
- Pale face
- Sweating
- Trembling hands and tense posture
- Restlessness (i.e. fiddling with clothes, tearing up paper, chair rocking)
Feeling on edge or wanting to escape
- Lack of facial expressions
- Shrugging shoulders and not saying anything
- Uncontrollable laughter
- Close to tears and shaky breaths
- Inability to complete sentences
- Avoiding eye contact
Defiance
- Refusal to participate
- Disengagement or shutting down
- Being absent
- Distracting others or telling jokes
Sounds like:
Stalling or Avoiding the Task
- “I don’t want to do it.”
- “Can someone else go?”
- “I’m not ready yet.”
Making the task seem less important
- “Why do we have to do this anyway?”
- “This is stupid.”
- “It doesn’t matter anyway.”
Predicting a negative outcome
- “I’m so bad at this.”
- “This is going to be awful.”
- “I’m going to lose/fail.”
- “She’s so going to beat me.”
- “This isn’t going to be as good as hers.”
- “Too bad I have to follow her.”
- “I’ll never be smart enough.”