By Dimo wa Moraswi Sekele
We spent years running away, hiding and playing it SAFE. We do all this not because we want to, but because we are scared. We scared of failing; we are scared of what people will say, we have captured ourselves in a cycle of self-perpetuating and multiplying fear. A never ending vicious process that has enslaved most of us…
The truth is fear is the reason many are in hospitals depressed, in jails, trapped in unfulfilling self-drowning careers and relationships that don’t make them happy. Fear and happiness can’t coexist, fear will make you second guess every happy moment you have. It whispers in the back of your mind and incites ideas of doubt that start as just ideas but given a platform to grow they soon become mental prisons.
Fear or more accurately anxiety is a multisystem response to a perceived threat or danger. It reflects a combination of biochemical changes in the body, the patient’s personal history and memory, and the social situation. As far as we know, anxiety is a uniquely human experience. Other animals clearly know fear, but human anxiety involves an ability, to use memory and imagination to move backward and forward in time, that animals do not appear to have. The anxiety that occurs in posttraumatic syndromes indicates that human memory is a much more complicated mental function than animal memory. Moreover, a large portion of human anxiety is produced by anticipation of future events.
For us to understand fear better I suggest we start by first agreeing that fear is not real. If you fail no one is going to laugh at you, it is all in your head. Fear thrives on the what if’s, so it is a result of our own thought process. Have you ever tried to analyze the pattern your brain uses to come with all your greatest fears? I suggest you do that because you will realize fear is not a result of any systematic analyses of events or their possible outcomes, but rather a random pick of negative thoughts. The more fear gains momentum in your life the larger the nest of negative thoughts that presents themselves as well thought and researched threats or results of a well assessed risk analysis.
Well I am not here to sing fear praises, actually I am here to expose how pathetic fear really is. Fear is a creation of our wild imagination, it thereof makes sense why your fears always appear to be greater than life because for any new great idea, or exciting opportunity your mind comes with the most creative fears to discourage you from considering/acting on that new opportunity. But to a greater extend there is a primary/underlying fear on which most of our fears are based, it is important that we identify this source so we can reclaim our lives from it. A fear of height, confined space, darkness, animals and insects can stem from a fear of death because your mind associates all this to danger and ultimately death. A fear of speaking in public, failing, trying something new, can be linked to self-doubt or low self-confidence and how this is a fear is simply because we often invest so much of ourselves worth in what others think of us, this then creates an environment that limits us because in our minds if anything goes “wrong” we will become worthless in their eyes. If you have ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend in the same class you have probably came across this fear in its purest form lol.
But we can all live a fear free life. Yes it is almost impossible to live without fear but we can be in control of our lives and disarm fear before the actual war begins. By realizing you only have to worry about things you can control and minimizing the impact of such ‘events’ you are already in a better position to deal with life and its hurdles. A friend of mine has a fear of being cheated on, yes it sound crazy but it is real. He’d spend days without closing his eyes because he is scared his partner might cheat on him, but that is not what is really happening to him. He is scared of losing her and his mind formulated that if she cheat the relationship will be irrevocably spoilt and he will have no choice but to leave. From his experience you can see that he has given fear so much power that he has become a visitor in his own life, he is scared of something he has no control over and there is nothing he can do to prevent his fear from coming to life and most importantly he has stopped living his life, he is now living his fear.
Let us break free from our fears, one fear at a time. It is the first step to happiness! Realize that certain thing you will never have control over, but what you have control over is how you treat or react to them.
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