Human beings have a deep urge of knowing something. Our
logical bend of mind is comfortable with whatever is known to it and
uncomfortable with whatever is unknown. We feel pacified with the belief that
whatever is known is rather always safe for us and unknown is always very
unsafe because that keeps us in our comfort zone. Even though our own human
mind is still quite unknown to us; we have learnt to find it safe based on the
probability that it is largely behaving in a manner which is suitable to the
harmony of masses. Even though some exceptional derelict minds have caused the
world to go fear stricken like serial killers, fanatic leaders etc.
If you remember when
you were a kid you must have been told stories of bad men and women , ghosts
and monsters , big animals and humans or out of the world imaginary stuff to
create fear in your hearts so that your mom could get you to either sleep early
, eat quickly or stop you from doing something mischievous. Of course you did
not know what they were exactly and what consequence would you land yourself
unto so your logical mind induced into you the fear of unknown.
The amazing thing is
even after we grow up we have never really overcome our fears we just swapped
them with something else. Fear of ghosts or fear of water or fear of animals or
fear of that sticky lizard on your wall was replaced with fear of examination
or fear of public speaking or fear of revealing the truth or fear of future or
fear of isolation, you name it and there would be somebody on this face of
earth with that fear. So trust me you are not a loner in fear.
What is fear ? Basically an emotion that kicks-in in
anticipation of a consequence waiting in future. The emotion kicks-in due to
our deep seated beliefs in life Like
When your happiness is too dependent on the reaction of the
world and their behavior, sometimes fear is from material objects and sometimes
from our created ego eg the fear of being insulted or being misjudged etc.
Or when you start believing that nobody has failed ever and
it is abnormal to fail or fear or when you are made to feel it is abnormal to
fail.
Or when you are unable to trust that whatever the
consequences in future all would turn out well and thus unable to focus your attention on the
task at the present.
Or when you are unable to accept that there are only little
things that you can do with your conscious mind and for everything else your
subconscious mind kicks in and dominates. The reason of our trying too much and
inability to Let go off the results.
The reason for all the above beliefs is rooted in the idea
that your destination can be reached through only one route, which means any
hindrance in that route will instigate insecurity in reaching the destination
and that is Fear.
Normally no man in this world is free from fear but it takes
skillful management of the Monkey mind to control fear. Humans are the only
beings capable of imagining their future consequences and thus controlling
their mind would mean to give repeated training to the mind to imagine better
consequences or at least results which are better than some worst case
scenarios.
For example a student having fear of examination or fear of
failure or fear of no admission can be trained to imagine results where he has
performed better than average and secured admission in a decent college. Imagination
of a believable consequence opens up the student’s mind to the various options
which in turn acts as a sense of urgency to take steps to work on that consequence
and also adds as a motivation. Most people mistake this as a state of day
dreaming and shun it as their logical mind cannot see immediate results, but
what they fail to see is that with every such anticipation of a better
consequence the mind invariably starts selecting or doing things that enhances
functioning of mind which in turn improves the future consequence. Thus winning
over the fear completely.
Lets take another example a rather simple fear of spiders technically
called “Arachnophobia” where you have a creepy feeling of having spiders
crawling over you and hurting you. Though a sense of defense is quite natural
for our body and is coded in our DNA but most often our mind plays tiny games
with us because of some old recordings stored in our subconscious mind. This
recording cannot be soothed down with any medicine, not that I am saying don’t
have your meds if you need them all I am explaining is that such a phobia can
be better addressed through a regular training of mind where the person can be
introduced to imagine better consequences while a spider is around. Even if the
person merely accepts the idea of doing this, the same mind which induces fear
is forced to take a reverse gear and address the fear from a different
viewpoint. The overcoming of fear would depend on the steps taken after that.
Here are a few things you can do to introduce yourself to
take a reverse gear on your fear, whatever it is
a.
Slow breathing.
It is an immediate relief to
any agitated mind. Count 10 to 1 is a proven and tested remedy.
b.
Next Imagine a good response for any event you
dread for once stop being logical and try it. You can test it as game without
worrying about how you are going to reach that state, like some video game
simulate it to fit a situation.
c.
Get out and talk to people who have gone
successfully through what you are going sharing experiences is a great way to
remove fear.
You can choose to participate
in a group that meets and shares. Or you can simply meet people who you think
have grown over your fear and gain more confidence.
d.
Appreciate your efforts you take to counter the
fear every trial is better than not trying at all.
e.
Focus on what you desire; the reason for why you
want to overcome the fear and decide it is way too precious so you cannot lose
to fear or give up at all.
Everyone needs a KICK after
which their fear vanishes in air. Once you have done all the above steps you
would need a strong reason which would act like your Boss and command your mind
to banish the fear, for that you have to know what you want to be or to do once
the fear is gone in short what is your strongest reason to fight that fear. That my friend is your Kick.
f.
Have something you can put your faith on ,
imagining that a higher power is always there to help you always helps. Call it
God or Energy or whatever in words but believing that something good is helping
you helps to tread past the fear easily.
Most
people think that pushing someone to eliminate fears is
the correct way of working on it. The fear of public speaking is a
classic
example of it. A person is pushed to his edge and embarrassed more in
the process because he is asked to face his fear without properly
initiating his mind to overcome it. Unfortunately fears are deep built
inside it can be overcome only
with stepwise encouragement and instilling confidence into your
subconscious
mind, knowing each individuals “Kick” then the fear gone will never
return.
