How to Overcome Your Fears

  

In my life, I’ve been scared a lot. I’ve dealt with fear in just about everything I’ve done. It’s a very powerful force in most people’s life. I don’t know that it’s power ever completely leaves us, at least in my experience. It certainly doesn’t control me like it once did, but it, or something related to it, still shows up from time to time.

When I started my first business, I become paralyzed with fear. I was scared of rejection, scared of what people might think, scared I would fail and, as weird as it sounds, I was scared I would succeed. (Most people, I have learned, are scared of success.)

Unlike most men, I wanted to get married young. I had hoped to marry at about 21. But 21 came and went. Then came 22, then 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 and still no prospects for marriage. At the time, I was attending a singles church. The church allowed people to come who were single between the ages of 18 and 30 (a whole new kind of meat market). At 31 years old, you literally had to leave the church, and find a new church to go to. I was scared I was gonna get kicked out! (Who gets kicked out of church??) Luckily for me, my now wife saved me from that humiliating experience. I snuck out just before my 30^th birthday (thank you honey!).

After I got engaged, I experienced a new kind of fear. Cold feet I guess. But I worked through that. Then we married and soon had a baby on the way. I experienced a bit more fear. I guess it’s normal to experience fear at some level. The challenge comes when we let it control our lives. Or, when our behavior becomes erratic or inexplicable because we are so demonized by the fear in our life.

My friend Mike shared an experience he had with his son that illustrates not only how real some of us allow fear to become, but also the reality that most things we fear are not necessarily as we perceive them to be.

Each morning Mike’s kids would come into his room to wake him up. It was a ritual that occurred day, after day, after day. He had long thought about a way to steal just one more minute of sleep. One day, he came up with an idea.

The next morning, just like every day, his little ones burst into his room yelling, “Daddy, daddy! Get up daddy! Get up!” Pouncing on him, they worked him over to get him out of bed.

“Look!” Mike exclaimed. “Out in the hall! It’s a bear! It’s a bear! Quick, come get in the cave and I’ll protect you!” The two children quickly crawled under the blankets with their dad. “Shhhhhh,” Mike whispered, “Don’t let the bear hear you.” The children became perfectly still and silent as though there were in deed a bear in the hallway. His plan worked. For another moment, he went back to sleep.

It didn’t take long for his kids to catch on, and his plan back fired. From that day forward, it became the new game. Now each day, both of his children would run into his room and get under the covers, hiding from the bear, but keeping dad awake at the same time.

One day, Ryan, Mike’s young son came running into the room absolutely terrified. He was screaming as loud as he could, “There’s a dragon in the bathroom! There’s a dragon in the bathroom!” At first, Mike was amused thinking that his son changed the rules to the bear game, but seeing the tears running down his sons face, he soon realized this was no joke. Ryan was serious. He really believed there was a dragon in the bathroom, and he wouldn’t go near it.

Patiently, Mike worked for several minutes to get Ryan to come with him into the bathroom, to see that there are no dragons. Finally, Ryan relented. They would walk into the bathroom together, hand in hand, Mike promising to protect him. Literally trembling, Ryan traversed the tiny distance from the bedroom to what he really felt was a dragon-infested dungeon. But he trusted his dad, and so on they went.

“Where’s the dragon?” Mike asked in a whisper?

“It’s behind the door.” Came his son’s faint reply.

Mike put his hand on the door, slowly closing it to reveal what the dragon may have been. In the end, the dragon turned out to be mommy’s green bathrobe hanging on a hook on the back of the bathroom door.

“You see,” Mike said. “The dragon wasn’t real. You thought it was, but it wasn’t.” Immediately Ryan stopped shaking and simply said, “Ok” and ran off to play with his sister.

That day Mike and his two young children created a new family motto, one that they, and I, have lived by for the last several years.

“Face the fear, and the fear will disappear.”

“Face the fear, and the fear will disappear.”

“Face the fear, and the fear will disappear.”

It’s been said that F.E.A.R is an acronym for, F- false, E- evidence, A- appearing, R- real. More often than not, the dragons live only in our mind. And what you’ll find, like Ryan did, is, if you will face the fear, the fear will disappear.

Again, fear is natural, but it’s when we stay in our fear that we become immobilized and make ourselves invalids, powerless to move on and make progress. We become prisoners of our own distortions.

Free Tip: Don’t do that!

A great book was written about this. It’s entitled, Feel the Fear, and Do it Anyway, by Susan Jeffers. That’s great advice. Yes, go ahead and feel the fear, but do it any way! Want to start a business? Feel the fear and do it any way! Want to ask that hottie with the smokin’ hot body out on a date? Feel the fear and do it anyway! Want to break your fear of heights? Feel the fear and do it any way! Want to do something that’s never been done before? Feel the fear and do it anyway!

There may be someone out there is who is 100% fearless, but for the rest of us mere mortals, our job is to simply manage the fear as it appears and, know that most things we fear, like the dragon in the bathroom, are only real in our own mind. Nowhere else.

The next time you feel fearful, remember Ryan and the dragon in the bathroom. Just because he thought it was real, didn’t mean that it was. In fact it wasn’t. Just feel the fear, and do it anyway. If you face your fear, your fear will disappear.

If you know someone who is dealing with fear, or who could benefit from this article, send it over to them. Feel free to use the “tell a friend” link below, or just cut and past this address and send it out.

Regards,





C.S. Hughes
Chief Visionary Officer
Personal Development for Free
http://www.PD4Free.com
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