FEAR

 Nothing that Nature creates is unnecessary or bad. ‘Fear’ is organic and therefore necessary and not bad.

However, we do express a desire to live a fearless life. We praise people who are powerful, fearless and daring. 

History is replete with civilizations, emperors, kings, sorcerers, magicians, and political leaders who are praised for their ‘fearlessness’ and ‘power’.

Yet the truth is that all of us carry fear with in us. It is the most important emotion we carry with us. Fear is a cloak given by nature to empower us. It absorbs the shock that we may experience while facing difficult situation. We often distinguish fear in near physical terms. So we are afraid of heights, afraid of dark, water - the list can be endless.

Nature has given us fear so that we can think through - we learn, we protect ourselves and take care of ourselves and fear can help us to see things in perspective.

Our survival instinct helps us get over most difficult situations such as tsunami, floods, earthquakes and countless setbacks. We have seen all around us collapse and yet we come back to normality.

Difficulties of life we can face … but fear of difficulty we cannot face.

By itself fear is not a problem. It is only when we think of fear that the mind starts to take away the power. And you start getting anxious.

People who suffer anxiety or ‘fear of fear’, end up inviting the other person to get scared too. They do not empower people to face situations and difficulties, but take away his / her power of facing difficulties. Anxiety is passed from generation to generation.

The method of empowering a child or an individual is by inviting him/her look at the difficult situation and think it through – letting them know that feeling fearful is not wrong.

It is possible to encourage them to think on how he / she is going to handle the situation, is there anything he can do to protect himself and overcome the situation. When it happens we know how to swim it through, we know how to take care of ourselves. Just that we need inner strength and belief in ‘self’.

  

At an emotional level - loss of loved ones, rejection, ridicule or somebody snatching things from us or loss of loved relationships - when it happens we know how to come out of it. But, the very thought that it will happen to us, will make us helpless and powerless.

Many families and organizations instead of inviting people to handle their fears, increase them. They render them powerless, hinder the progress, and take away the survival mechanism. At times they fail to empower us with the various fears that our minds create.

What we are taught wrongly is how to pass on the fear and anxiousness to others. What we do not know is how not to take away the survival mechanism because, in reality, we can survive accidents, illness, and any set back.

 “People are disturbed not by difficulties, but the way they view them.” –

An interesting story about T'ao Hsin :

There once was a sage, T'ao Hsin, who lived in a lonely temple high in the mountains. A wandering monk visited him once. As the two were talking a wild animal roared close by, and T'ao Hsin jumped. "I see it is still with you," said the other ... referring to the instinctive "passion" of fright.

Shortly afterwards T'ao Hsin inscribed the Chinese character for the Buddha on the rock. When the monk returned to sit down he saw the sacred Name and hesitated to sit. "I see," said T'ao Hsin, "it is still with you!"