Whenever I see or hear the word “fear”, Marian Williamson comes to mind: “…Our biggest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful…beyond measure! “She continues to say “Your playing small does not serve the world…”
Boy! How fearful have we become? We find every reason to be scared and fearful. We fear the downturn in the economy, we fear the results of the pandemic on life as we know it… we fear life, because it is not what it used to be…we fear that we will not have enough stamina to wither the storm… Fear is paralysing the very essence of our beings.
And because we are fearful, we play small.
We take no risks, set no goals, dream about nothing, make no plans and we slowly shrink ourselves to a grain of sand in a mighty universe.
What we do not realise is that fear is an illusion. Yes! we all know the acronym “False Evidence Appearing Real”. The false evidence, the things that we create in our minds to be unconquerable obstacles are not real at all, and if we would just apply ourselves, we would soon realise that we are powerful beyond measure, that we can achieve great things, and that we do matter in the bigger scheme of things.
The fears that stop us from playing big in the world are created in our heads. They don’t really exist! We are literally imprisoned by imaginary walls that we created out of nothing! .
This makes me think about scenes that play themselves out in our country’s national parks. African antelope species such as impala, kudu, and blesbuck, are caught by men holding up large sheets of cloth. The animals see those sheets as impenetrable walls, and so they feel they have nowhere to run except into the waiting cages. If those animals knew about the nature of the cotton walls, their actions and their outcomes would be entirely different! But they don’t know – and their fear prevents them from finding out. (Courtesy of: https://www.uklifecoaching.org/conqueringfear.htm?nav=b)
Our fears are flimsy walls and we can easily conquer them. Here is how:
Pretend that the fear does not exist
Fear comes in many forms. It can come from stinking thinking” (i.e. “I can’t do this,” “I am not good at this”. etc.). It comes from negative, drama-inducing, sensationalist media coverage. Did you notice that the media is mostly about doom and gloom? Eliminate (or at least drastically reduce) your exposure to fear-inducing entities (i.e. social media, newspapers, failure-conscious people, etc.).
Don’t give fear have time to think:
Your thoughts are powerful. Did you know that a single thought can be responsible for life or death in this world? My mentor always taught me this: “What you think about, you bring about”. So if you are going to think, rather think about what it is that you want to attract into your life. Visualise them, shape and polish them until they are crystal clear in your mind. Crystal clear visions blinds fear!
Just concentrating on doing these two simple things, will greatly eliminate the hold that fear has on your life. But to make the decision to do this takes courage. One has to have courage in the face of fear. When you are brave enough to make the decision to be courageous…. A superb piece of poetry from Guillaume Apollinaire comes to mind…
Come to the edge, he said.
They said: “We are afraid”.
Come to the edge, he said.
They came.
He pushed them… and they flew.