How do you stop Fear?

How do you stop fear?

How do you stop the paralyzing anxiety of the bad that may nor may not happen?

How do you trust that will all work out for your good?

How do you wait purposefully while all appears lost?

Those are the fear-based questions that I asked myself today. The answer is quite simple I yelled, cried, and kept going. See fear is something that never quite goes away. It is always on the horizon looking for ways to steal our joy, love, and hope. The only true way to combat it is to go through it. I had to confront my fears head on and find their true root cause.

What was my fear really based on?

Was I truly afraid of the possible outcomes of the situation or was it something else?

I know it was something deeper rooted and more sinister. It was my fear of lack. See humans are fearful of many things but the main ones are fear of poverty (or as I like to call it a fear of lack), fear of ill health, fear of loss of love, fear of old age, fear of criticism. At one point and time, most of us have dealt with all of these maybe all at once if it was a particularly bad week. There are things that life throws at us that we can either take or reject and fight tooth and nail. Despite the fact that I have fought most fears the ones that consistently return are the fear of lack and fear of loss of love. Of those two, the fear of lack is my most pressing. I have to be conscious of the thoughts that attempt to take root and make sure that the fear is not bigger than my dreams and possibilities.

There is strength in understanding your fears. It is important to know where you fears are coming from in order combat them. Stopping them is not your ultimate goal. Your ultimate goal is to know why you fear. Why are you fearful of the move from an apartment into house? Is it the commitment to a mortgage or a fear that something may happen that will hinder you from paying the mortgage? Notice the difference in the questions, the first one is fear based and the second one is root based. The second question gets to the fear of poverty that something may happen that will stop you from being able to pay your bills and you could possibly become homeless. It is not just you; it is you, your children, spouse, and/or other family members. Those all compound the fear of poverty. You began to focus on the possible worst-case scenario because it could happen. That is true but the best-case scenario is also possible and more than likely more probable.

We all deal with things that are so important to us that the fear of loss of it begins to consume us and take the love and joy we should have away. Yet how do we stop it. We first must acknowledge the fear and figure out the root of the fear. Where is the basis of the fear, loss of love, poverty, death, disease, etc.? Once we know the root, we can recognize that our experiences do not have to be our future. We do not have to give it the power to dictate where lives can and will go. There are many things that are beyond our control but we can control the thoughts that we give life to. We can either choose to give life to our fears and anxiety or to dreams and possibilities.

Fear only has the power that we allow it to have. Fear like anything that grows, has no choice but to die if it is not nourished and cultivated it. So make the decision to acknowledge fear for what it is, a weed that needs to be feed. Choose this day and every day to feed your dreams and desires and make them bigger and deeper-rooted then your fears. So when your fears come they have no sun to bask in and die.