Make Fear Bearable

Fear comes in all different forms. Some are biological, spiders and snakes for example. In the past, it was a matter of life and death and in some places it still is.

Then we have the fear of other people's opinions. It is a hot topic nowadays and it is hard to say what is right and wrong. But the fact is that "other people" will have an opinion if we do nothing and also if we choose to follow our dreams. Another fact is that everyone has their own fear and thoughts to deal with so do not worry too much about the blog post that did not get that many views.

I think fear and procrastination goes a bit hand in hand. A way to deal with it is to break it into small easy steps. There are of course many other ways to deal with fear because of its complexity. Examples of this can be learning more about fear, different breathing methods, mindfulness/exercise, and take help of a professional (therapist).

But today I will talk a little bit more about successively getting used to your fear.

If you are afraid of the dark, then you should spend time in the dark, start easy, lower the lights, be in a room where you feel safe, and so on. When it comes to kids, make it into a game, hide and seek? I did some firemen training with my son where he had to find his favorite teddy bear in a pitch-black room.

Fear is not a bad thing as long it does not stand in the way of what you want to achieve.

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear."

~ Mark Twain

Conquering a fear or making it bearable is a little bit like achieving a goal. It builds on your confidence and self-esteem. You can later take on bigger challenges in life.

I have been lucky that I could make some of my fears bearable through my work/life experiences. Backstory:

When I was around thirteen years old, a highly drugged person was hiding in the dark outside my front door. When I opened the door he pushed me inside and locked the door. He was screaming about bombs and people chasing him. In the end, I got him out of the house, and the police picked him up down the street not too far after. As you can imagine this traumatic experience left some marks and one of them was fear of the dark.

During my firemen training I went through a lot of exercises both in the dark and in small spaces. Similar training I do with my son but with taped goggles over my eyes, longer duration, and more stressful elements included. Another one was an obstacle course inside a dark container where the space was so small that you could not turn back. Getting hoisted down into a deep well was not my favorite memory of my fireman career.

I am getting that everyone can not go through fireman school. But I believe that most of us know what we have to do, we just have to put in the work and the fear we once had is not that big of a problem anymore.

Good luck and I believe in you!

"Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it... That is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear."

~ Dale Carnegie

Thank you.