Face Your Fears

Fear is a primitive emotion that alerts us to imminent changes. So if you are trying to jump off a cliff, fear will reason with your brain to stop you from this foolishness. Now, if fear is always reasoning to prevent you from ever taking any risks in life, well you need to toss away that feeling. Let me tell you my story. When I was about to launch my podcast, I was scared to death, well not exactly death, scared to a frozen state. Why? Because I had so many fears. See if you can recognize any -I was afraid of failure, of being incompetent, of people laughing at me, of making a mistake, of the unknown, being uncomfortable, being unoriginal - The list goes on. The long and short of it. I was waiting for something to happen as of itself. What really happened was the more I waited, the more difficult it became for me. I stopped believing in myself, in my abilities. I mean I reached a point where I was worthless in my eyes. I stopped believing that I can do anything, ever. So I started distracting myself - Netflix, web surfing, binge eating. I was miserable before - I was a wreck now. Should I keep listening to my fears and hope that they will go away or should I jump off the cliff? Fear never goes away, ever, period. Fear is like a dark shadow that is always with us. It wants us to stay small, think small, lead small lives. As long as we cover, it wouldn't show its form. The best course of action is - face your fears. Sounds cliche. Like do I face my fears by taking a sword and cutting them up? No! When Hazrat Musa was given prophethood, he was scared. It was an incredibly difficult task, but you know what he did? He simply acknowledged his fear. He just said to Allah, "I am afraid". So, if you are thinking of starting something, learning anything new, switching over - and you are fearful, do just one simple step - write down your fears - on a paper, word document, journal, a tissue paper - just write them down. Understand you are your fears. Recognizing who your enemy is the first step to defeating them. Once you have those fears written, then, and only then you can toss them out. I know you want to live a meaningful life. That's why you are reading this. Just take that one step. It took me quite a while to list mine. Don't even think about the second or third because then fear will have paralyzed you, will tell you to stay where you are and be safe. The fears we do not face become our limitations and soon our reality. Just take the first step.

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