The Subject of Fear

Fear…

Not long ago, I created some teasers from my books around the word fear and as a result, I realized how often it actually comes up in my writing. Should it worry me? Stress me out? No, I find it fascinating.

Fear - it can save your life or it can also paralyze you. Fear is a basic instinct in all of us. To claim you are fearless is to fool yourself into thinking you are braver than you are. When, in truth, bravery is not about living without fear, but to face those fears and handle them the best you can. To voice a concern about fear is not weakness or shameful. It’s simply a way of dealing with it, or taking that first step to confront it. Courage is a key ingredient to facing your fears. Again, it takes courage to give voice to your fears. To open yourself to others takes a lot of courage, especially if you are already fearful.

The real culprit or enemy of the soul and body is stress. Stress is feeling like you are stuck and thinking or believing you need to be somewhere else. Like being stuck in traffic. There’s nothing you can do about it, but you’re angry and frustrated because you need to get somewhere else or you’ll be late. Or it’s about being where you are in your career, finances, education, etc., but thinking or believing you should be further ahead. That is insanity. That is stress. 

When you face your fears, you demolish stress. But you can’t face your fears until the time comes, or an opportunity presents itself. There’s no point in confronting your fears ahead of time since the situation that scares you most may never even come to pass. Sometimes the best course of action is inaction. Be still. It’s harder than you think.

Maria Bernard

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