Overcoming Fear

Exposure strategy proved to be the most effective way of overcoming fear. It might be pretty hard to do, however this is the way to truly free yourself from your anxieties. Fear is like a poisonous scorpion holding you between his tentacles, it poisons you little by little and makes you sick.

Fear is probably the most powerful motivating force and it is widely applied by media, politicians and even businessmen to affect minds of people and get them do what they want (like when they convince you to buy security alarms, do vaccinations, get costly insurances and so on). The journalists in 19th century discovered that their works had much more success if it was somehow related to fear.

Your fears are many: fear of rejection, fear of poverty, fear of instability, fear of losing, fear of winning, fear of change, fear of unknown, fear of death... And then famous "what if" question. Everything is OK, we are all great, but what if I have cancer and it develops there inside right now and I have no idea about it? What if my spouse will leave me? What if I will have a sick child? As you give in to these thoughts, you lose energy and momentum. You don't enjoy your life anymore, you don't feel like doing something new and challenging, all you want is to get rid of this fear, but no, you are caught up in it. When you give attention to these thoughts they tend to grow to disproportional levels. Ironically this usually creates the very adversities you dread.

Your fear costed you a lot already. You have missed a lot of opportunities, you couldn't appreciate many things that were endowed upon you, because of that little voice inside that kept telling: "what if".

The key to is understanding that FEAR THRIVES ON THE UNKNOWN. This principle is at the core of exposure strategy. Challenge your fears, don't obsess about them but face them. Give yourself answers to your what ifs. If it is reasonable put yourself in situations you dread. This is an active way to deal with it, you are attacking rather than escaping. In the beginning you will feel very anxious and uncomfortable, but then after repeated exposure you will realize that it is not all that horrible as it seemed. You will regret that you wasted time worrying about it. To your surprise, you will find some inner strength, it is not all that bad. Once the situation is gone it doesn't repeat unlike the obsessive cycle when you ruminate over and over again about the same idea. So, if you are really concerned about yourself, expose yourself to your fears rather than running away from them. Stretch yourself, make those hard decisions you have been avoiding, confront people who are bothering you, please yourself before pleasing others, change direction of your life in a way that you know would give you more options, more opportunities. It is going to be hard and there is no shortcut to this, but it is worth that. Quick fixes do not work, their effect is only temporal. Think about it, think how much did your fear cost you up till now, get hurt and start over again. Fight it, feel alive!