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Faced any fears lately?
To what extent would you go to face and remove fears from your life? I recently watched a television show where the lead actress was agoraphobic. One day, she decides to face her fear and see what happens if she leaves the safety of her house and goes out into the real world. She asks someone she knew to drag her out of the house if need be since she herself will not be able to do it. Maybe this is extreme. And maybe this is possible only in television shows and not for real for agoraphobic people. But it surely got me thinking…
Thinking about till what extent would I go to face my fears. And will I even think of doing so. Moving out of safety zone seems so much of an effort. And scary at times. Will I ever move on and show that much courage to force myself to go beyond the world I know I am safe in.
As I usually do, I closed my eyes to travel back to varied experiences that I have had when I moved beyond my safety net, when I persisted inspite of being afraid and then I travelled to those when I let my fears win. I heard conversations that I have with myself to find out what are my fears. What fears do I have that limit me in some way to be a part of this world, that don’t allow me to participate wholly. And most importantly what do my fears cost me.
This is what I found – the biggest, most exciting and most memorable moments of my life have been those when I went ahead inspite of fears and excelled. It does not matter what aspect of life I pick up – career, people, relationships; wherever I have faced fear and excelled, I have felt alive. Those moments by themselves are so powerful that they have become my source of support and morale boosters through out my life.
For times when I tried inspite of fear and failed, if I have excelled later on, these simply become some trying times I had and most of times, I don’t even remember them.
For times when I tried inspite of fear and failed and gave up, my fear remained. It persisted. Sometimes the fear increased. But hey, no harm done. I haven’t got killed by anything so far 
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Hello — just came from pinkblock’s blog carnival.
I had a similar reflection recently, and have been challenging myself to use fear as a beacon, instead of a sign to avoid something. It’s pretty challenging — I’d say I still fail more often than I’d like — but when I do go toward what I fear, instead of moving away, I gain greater satisfaction.
It makes me think about why and how we acquire fear. About in what ways this emotion is useful to us. It may not be how we think it is….
ari
Ari Koinumas last blog post..Trying Too Hard Is Just as Big of a Sin
I agree, facing fear successully is one of the most satisfying and empower experiences. Using fear as a beacon instead of a sign to avoid something – interesting thought.