Put Fear In Its Place
Now is the time to put fear in it’s place.
A central question to life, no matter what is currently happening, is: “How do we handle our fears?” Do we succumb to them? Do we empower them by getting others to subscribe to them, to validate them? Do we try to ignore them, hoping if we do a good enough job they will go away on their own? Do we seek distraction from them? Do we self-medicate to ensure the distraction is more thorough? Do we blame ourselves or others for them? Do we actually consider any of these as ways of ‘handling’ our fears? What if we were to do something different?
What if we acknowledged our fear, looked it straight in the eye and thanked it for existing? If our fear could react, how do you think it would if that were our go-to reaction?
Fear has a purpose for existing, a reason, that is not to make us into trembling and terrified non-doers, non-livers, or what I like to call fear zombies. It actually has a simple task, to alert us to possible danger. Key word: POSSIBLE. We are not supposed to believe it indiscriminately. In fact, quite the opposite. We are supposed to scrutinize it, question it, ask it to serve us. Instead of the other way around.
Knowing this, what stops us from doing this? Is it a learned behavior, a misinformed belief, a fear of fear maybe? If we relegate fear to its original biological imperative, to keep us alert to possible danger and then scrutinize what it has alerted us to, through objective criteria, we can take something that has often ran our lives into a dismal downward spiral of non-action and re-purpose it into something that serves us instead.
It all starts by changing one reaction — look at it rather than turn away. Scrutinize it, question it, don’t automatically accept it and act on it. Especially if it is a fear about something that greatly affects you and your life, something that stops you from being the person you want to be and living the life you need to live.
Look fear right in the eye, see what it has to show you so that you can make the most informed and optimal decision. Then make it. You deserve a life where fear serves you, not the other way around.
Want to know more: Read Using I.D.E.A. to handle your fears
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