Fear

We all have fears. Yes, there are some reasonable fears. Being afraid of something which can be harmful for our life is ok. For example fear of touching a high-tension line. But, there are many other fears which are baseless, which prevent us from exploring life.

What I have realized is “Fear is a response conditioned by past and fear is always of the unknown.” These are two basic qualities of fear. Let’s see how.

If you fear dogs (I used to fear😅), then possibly you may have had a traumatic experience with a dog. Now if you see a dog approaching, you don’t know what will happen. So,your mind calculates, looks on past and says “This is a dog. This is dangerous”. This is conditioning. You are judging all dogs based on one incident because you fear that which has not happened yet. Fear is always of unknown. If you know something, you will not be afraid of it. May be this dog coming towards you is playful. 

Fears are like dogs. If a dog barks on you and you run away from it, it will run after you (experienced more than once 😅). But, if you stop and look straight into that dogs eyes, it will not dare come towards you (personal experience). Similarly, if you run away from fears, they will chase you, they will never leave you. If you want to defeat your fears, look into it and just do what you are afraid of doing. You will discover something new. You will get to know something you never knew. You will realize your fear was illusory.

When I was small, I was afraid of dark. In last few years, I made up my mind to defeat this fear. I tried to sit in dark. When sometimes I would get up at midnight by chance, I would move to kitchen in dark to drink water. Then I would move to bathroom. In bathroom, it’s completely dark. So I would sit in that darkness in silence. Now fear of dark has left me. I enjoy sitting in that empty darkness.

So face you fears and move beyond your fears. Expand yourself. Fear is always of unknown. This fear of unknown tried to grip me when I wrote first few posts (because I am an introvert person who doesn’t likes much socializing). Sometimes this fear of unknown tries to limit me. But now I like to try what I am afraid of to break my conditioning.

Conquer you fears. Be fearless.

Har Har Mahadev!