The Reason I No Longer Value My Fear
I experienced a lot of fear during the first couple years of my marriage. Getting married made me think of the future ahead and I found myself overwhelmed with all the unknowns that life could bring.
It felt like my responsibility to think of all the possibilities and prepare for them.
Honestly, at first, my fear seemed like a good thing. It felt like my friend. My fear told me to be smart and get prepared for the inevitable doom ahead. It seemed to be protecting me from the bad things to come, but it all became too much, I started to become lost in it.
One night, I had a nightmare that I was going to die the next day, I spent the evening planning my funeral. The following day came and I wasn’t dead, but I knew I was going to die, so I decided to go ahead and have my funeral. I laid in my coffin as people came and I said goodbye to everyone I loved. I will never forget how heavy this dream was. I was absolutely filled with despair. My grief had gripped me.
When I first woke up, I was convinced it was a “sign” that I was going to die soon and I needed to start saying my goodbyes. After processing my dream I had a revelation…
I never died.
I spent the entire dream planning my death, but I never actually died.
*Epiphany*
This was happening in my actual life.
I was worrying, planning and fearing things that were not actually happening. I was losing out on my life while I was imagining my fears. This moment forever changed the way I view my fear. Suddenly, it all seemed clear...
Fear is not my friend.
Fear is not my guide.
Fear is not my protector.
I do not want my fear.
I will not allow fear to rule me.
I will not allow fear to be my god.
I will not baby my fear.
I will not value my fear.
I realize that it is impossible to just stop feeling fear. I know it is so much more complicated than that. But I believe it is vitally important to define our relationship with it. Fear does not protect us, fear steals from us, yet somehow many of us still see it as our friend. Fear is not our friend.
Fear is the thief in our life that keeps us worrying about the “what-if’s” and steals from the “right now’s”.
The “what-if’s” in this life are limitless. If we entertain them, we will have no shortage of horrible things to imagine. When we give respect to our fears, we just get more fear. Fear breeds fear. It will confuse us and eventually consume us.
To say that fear doesn’t affect me anymore would be untrue. Fear still seeks me out, but I no longer respect it. I see fear as the bully it is, always trying to intimidate me from living. Fear wants me to live my life from my coffin. But you know what? I refuse to be taunted out of living this life. I absolutely will not lay in that coffin, until I am forced to.
Do I expect my life to bring me difficulties? Absolutely! When those difficulties come, I will face them… and I will get through them.
I am not suggesting that we live in a fantasy world where no bad things exist, I’m stating that our fear is creating a fantasy land of its own.
We shouldn’t deny the struggle of our reality, we should face the reality in which we live, without adding more difficulty than is actually there.
Our fears are not our reality.
We must stop viewing them as definite predictions of our future and start viewing them for the scare tactic that they are.
Instead of relying on our fears, let’s rely on our hope. The hope that great things are ahead and the hope that we are strong enough to get through the “not so great” things.