Please do not say “I have no fear” without reading the first article
Do you have fears that affect your life and that you cannot overcome? If so, would you like to overcome these fears and be free from them?
“Courage is not fearlessness, but the ability to face fear.”
– John B. Putnam Jr.
Please don’t say “I have no fears” without reading the first item below. It is likely that this is a hidden fear masked by denial that is keeping you from facing your fears. Know that fear is never a weakness. What weakness is living a life of fear?
In this article, you will find 8 steps I use to overcome the fear that has proven effective in my own life. I hope these steps will help you too.
1. Identify Your Fear
The first step to overcoming fear is to clearly identify and accept what you are afraid of. Fear is such a thing that it does not reveal itself in its true form. On the contrary, it hides behind a mask, weaves a cover for itself, and sneaks into our lives unnoticed.
Our mind plays tricks on us, deflects us, and we think that it is not a fear but our own “preference” or personality structure. So we don’t realize that we have a real fear to overcome.
Real Life Examples
To give an example from my own life, everyone knows me as someone who expresses myself well.
In fact, although I express my thoughts easily, when it comes to emotions I find it difficult to express them, especially in close relationships. As you can see, it seems as if there is not a fear but a personality structure.
However, this structure did not emerge spontaneously. Some negative experiences or observations turned into fears and became deeply rooted.
So much so that these fears hid themselves behind a personality structure and took on the lofty mission of protecting me, restricting me from expressing my feelings.
Believe me, this is not a personality structure. It is a “fear”: “If I express my feelings as they are, I am afraid of being hurt, of being misunderstood, of losing the love of the other person. I am afraid that if I reveal my feelings, they will be abused.”
Let me give another example. A close friend of mine has a very negative view of marriage. So much so that no matter how good her current relationship is, when the subject of marriage comes up, her feelings change and she wants to get away from that relationship.
On the tip of the iceberg, her logic tells her, “50% of marriages don’t work, marriage kills relationships, etc.” Habuki herself has never been married. So these thoughts are entirely based on other people’s experiences.
When we dig a little deeper, we find that the real fear under the iceberg is the fear of losing his freedom. Because of this fear, she lives a lonely life, both emotionally and physically.
And perhaps depriving himself of the wonderful experiences he could have had. But if you ask her, it’s not because of fear, it’s because she prefers to live alone. And she defines this as freedom.
2. Identify Your Paradigms
The second step you need to take to overcome fears is to center the paradigms operating in the background of the mind. This is quite easy and you can do it right now. Take a pen and paper and write down whatever comes to your mind about the fear in question;
What are your thought patterns about this fear?
Are there any proverbs or idioms that you use in daily life that reinforce your fear? What are your negative memories about this fear?
Even if you have not experienced it yourself, if there is a story you have been influenced by, add it to your list.
Write without thinking, just write. You don’t even need to form proper sentences. Let whatever is inside you come out in writing. You will then have a complete mind map of your fear.
The other day I was reading Joe Vitale’s book, “How to attract money.” The first step he suggested was to identify the thought patterns about money. For this, he suggested the above method.
Until I applied this method, I was not even aware of my negative thoughts about money. On the contrary, I thought I had an extremely good relationship with money.
When I picked up a pen and paper, I realized what a negative mind map I had about money. How many obstacles I was putting in my way to earn money?
To overcome fears, you have to clearly map out your mind map about them. Because this map will guide you on your way to victory.
3. Change Your Paradigms
You now have your mind map of the fear in question. So you also have the solution. Go through the items you have written down one by one and sort out which ones serve you and which ones don’t. Replace the items that you think no longer serve you with new ones. What you need to pay attention to here is that your new paradigm should be something you believe in, something you accept as reality. It should not give you the feeling that you are deceiving yourself.
For example, let’s say you are afraid of loneliness and one of your paradigms is “no one wants to be with me for a long time, they will eventually leave me”. If you want to change this thought, cross it out and replace it with this: “I love, I am loved, it is my birthright to love and be loved.”
It’s time to replace the old paradigms that have unconsciously settled in your mind with conscious awareness! Write your new thought patterns on a clean piece of paper and read them every day. Until they take root in your mind. If when you think of the old paradigms, they have no effect on you, but you think “what nonsense”, then the new ones are well established:)
4. Conquer Your Fear in Your Mind First
This step is very important. Perhaps one of the most important. Why? Because what you can’t even imagine in your mind, you can’t possibly do in real life. Know that everything you see around you was first imagined by someone. So, for something to be real in this life, it has to be real in someone’s mind.
Visualize the situation in which you feel fear. But this time, see yourself as someone who conquers fear, not someone who gives in to it. For example, if you have a fear of heights, imagine looking down from the top of a tall apartment building. In the first stage of your imagination, imagine that you are firmly anchored and perfectly safe. As you get used to the situation, gradually let go of your bonds and feel that you can now look down comfortably. Even more exaggerated! Imagine growing wings, soaring through the sky like a bird and enjoying it immensely.
5. Love your fear
Yes, I know, this article sounds ridiculous. But don’t be prejudiced, because it plays a key role in overcoming fears. Why?
Because this life is based on dualities that are opposite but complement each other. For example, black and white, day and night, light and dark, good and bad, etc.
So if one thing exists, its opposite must also exist. The reason why something exists is because its opposite also exists. For example, if there were no night, there would be no day.
Because if it were always daytime, we wouldn’t need to define it because it would be an immutable unity. We wouldn’t even be aware of it.
Many people think that the opposite of love is hate. But this is not true. The opposite of love is “fear”. Look again at the things you fear. You will see that there is no love in it.
To overcome fears, you have to dissolve them in love. Whenever you feel fear, send love to the event, person or situation you are afraid of. Do this even if you don’t feel like it. Fear cannot exist where there is love, just as darkness cannot exist where there is light. The antidote to fear is love.
Let’s go back to the example we gave at the beginning. Let’s take my friend who is opposed to marriage, and the basis of his thinking is the fear of losing his freedom. In fact, this person is in a relationship of mutual love. How can love and fear go together, you may ask?
The answer is very simple, because this person’s main fear is not marriage but the fear of losing his freedom.
In other words, he sees marriage as a trap and he has a great fear of this situation in which he thinks he will be imprisoned and restricted. It seems much safer to condemn oneself to loneliness and turn one’s back on love than to live in such a situation.
The fear of confinement and restriction does not contain love. That’s why the fear is there. When love is sent to this fear, it melts. The eyes closed by fear open and the truth becomes clear. The realization develops that nothing can interfere with human freedom. Freedom comes from the soul of man.
No one can imprison one’s soul except oneself. The greatest prison is the prison of fear. You can imprison the body, but never the soul. The poems that flow from the souls of people imprisoned for years are the best proof of this.
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