The Mother of all (my) Fears
Photo by Anna Presso
That would be ME. After giving birth to all my fears, I nursed each and every one of them, I cuddled them, I fed them and raised them well. I took them along everywhere I went. I stayed up nights to tend to their needs. I even enrolled friends and family to help me deal with them. Sounds familiar?
Ever felt your fears are distracting and demanding, keeping you from enjoying things full-heartedly, from savoring the moment, from better performing? Does your fear ruin romantic dates and relationships and sometimes causes you to miss out on a lot of opportunities and experiences? Does it feel like you are carrying around this “problem child”, always embarrassing you and dragging you down? And if so, what can you do at this point? You cannot let a little “brat” run your life! There are numerous kinds of fear, and probably lots yet to be named, but whatever the kind, there are a few things worth being aware of:
- YOU created it. Almost all of our fears are self-created. As children, we learn them from adults, then we cultivate them and keep them alive and strong. It’s self-inflicted fear, actually. In every single particular case, it’s a bet you place on a negative outcome (I might get hurt, or die, or get dumped, or fired, or be found out etc.). But the positive might just as well, happen. Right? And thus, to focus on a negative outcome and to feed that idea, rather than the opposite – you’ve got it! it’s a choice you make.
- Everybody fears something. Hey, don’t you feel better already, knowing that you are not alone? Even the bravest people among us are not the superhumans who feel no fear whatsoever, but ordinary people who are able to walk through their fears and do what they need to do in spite of it. Which is extraordinary.
- At the very core, all the kinds of fear there are have a common root, the same mother if you wish – ultimately, fear it’s a belief that we lack the necessary abilities to deal with a specific future problem. There is no “fear” per se. To exist, it needs to be related to a specific situation, with a projected negative outcome and our projected inability to deal with it. That’s what we actually fear: not the bad situation in itself, but our bad response to it.
- It’s also worth noticing that, whatever you fear, it’s always in the future.” I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” – as so brilliantly said it Mark Twain.
I think the better you understand your fears and how they work, the better your chance of fighting them successfully. Which is a process never to be neglected or underestimated, since your fears hold you back more than any other thing in the world. Fear is the brick wall between you and your goals. A prison built from the inside out. Think about it! Think about all the wonderful things you would achieve if you would be able to break free from these fears that paralyze your actions … wow!
Ok, so what steps can we take to better manage our fears? Next time, I’ll share with you some very good rules, all tried and tested. And since Fear is in the eye of the beholder, ask yourself what do you have to gain by choosing to observe the bad outcome instead of a different, better one? To start observing the desired reality instead, well, as simple as it is, this decision alone can set you free. In case you get that far and it works, you don’t even need to come back and read the follow-up, which I will post soon anyway…You know, for the rest of us…
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Nice post, you really hit it on the head there.
I remember reading Dune when I was a lot younger and the main character had a litany against fear that I found interesting :
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration
The book is a love/hate story, but the wording was not bad at all imho. I am looking forward to reading the follow-up soon!
as I said above, reading this post on fear let me think the follow-up will be practical (which it is) but also more about behaviors that following rules.
dude, Dune was such an epic FAIL (the movie) that nobody took the book seriously anymore. please upgrade to 2009
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