FEAR !
Fear is one of the experiences that we all go through. It has multiple dimensions - It may be a fear of failure, fear of public speaking, fear of being left out, fear of adversity, fear of losing control, fear of parents, fear of supervisor, fear of being caught, fear of confrontation, fear of rejection, fear of death, fear of accident, fear of losing job/money/loved ones, fear of losing your edge, fear of consequence, fear of unknown.
The amount and degree of fear is situational, for some there may be lot of fear during speaking in public but might have less fear when speaking to small group.
Fear also varies over a period of time; person may have fear initially when he/she started the business and as the time passes the fear might come down.
One might develop different types of fear due to experiences in life also.
There is another type of fear that comes from danger to life itself, like when you are attacked by a wild life or getting robed at gun point.
If you notice fear is always there with you. Just take a moment and see if you can identify the presence of fear right now (don't look at the source/reason just get present!).
Fear is like snake that is there within you, if you try to fight it out through your mind it also starts fighting back. If you just leave it will be just there and will not harm you.
How to handle fear?
One way to handle fear is to look at the impact. When one is under the control of fear what it stops is "action", say for example you have the fear of failure and you want to start a business.
What fear stops is to take action towards what is required to make the business run. Fear directs your attention for survival. One of the safest ways to avoid failure is "NO – ACTION"
To handle fear what is required is COURAGE, it is not the absence of fear but it is your willingness to take action in the presence of fear. Capt. Gopinath says it in his biography narrating his experience during the war "…I spent the night walking from trench to trench under the cover of darkness. It is not that we were not sacred. Courage is the counterpoint of fear. Courage appears when in war or business one is indeed sacred."
Give space for fear and let it be.
posted by Bystander ... at 7:19 PM
2 Comments:
Hi Raghav,
I am curious as to what motivated you to write on this topic?! Also, the post is longer than your other posts.
I differ slightly from your point of view. You advocate to give fear a space - to take no cognizance of it. However, that is only feeding the fear and letting it rule you.
The best way to fight fear is by confronting it head-on, IMHO. If one is afraid to fly in a plane, one should definitely try to fight it by traveling by a plane instead of avoiding it altogether. Avoiding things, people or situations that we fear never helps. It only prolongs the conquering of that fear. And why should we live in fear of anyone, or anything, given a choice?
Nilu, Thanks for sharing your candid view.
Sorry for the delay in responding , What I wanted to share was “Fear” is always there (many times we are not present to it and most of the time it doesn’t come in our way) , instead of working on fear we can look at what fear is stopping me to do? Am I under the control of fear or fear is controlling me?? It is just like a shadow, sometimes smaller than you and sometimes larger than you!.. when I say space , what I meant is being present that you controlling the fear or just being present that there is fear.
I agree that we should do something about it .. take some action.
Btw .. what me to write about fear is “Fear” itself (really… I was observing the presence of fear in me for sometime and how it makes me to take/not take some actions)
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