Of all human emotions, fear is the most devious, most powerful. Once you get traumatised, fear acquires a power to twist your mind into acting in strange ways for the rest of your life.
Remember your school days when a teacher, parent or a bully scolded or hit you? Remember how life altering it was, how you went to great lengths to steer clear of those people and situations? How you remained obsessed with those crippling emotions when you were alone? The scars of childhood fear can and do last a lifetime. It’s nature’s imperfect way of teaching you to avoid repeating those traumatic moments.
Your mind wasn’t developed and grown up then. You didn’t have the advantages you now have with age. Your fears expanded into monsters inside your head. Monsters that somehow remained in the shadows even after you grew up and gained control of your life. As if that wasn’t enough, you acquired fresh fears once you moved into your teens. Exams, girlfriends or boyfriends, romance, peer pressure, social acceptance, Facebook — all these became new sources of fear.
Fear of failing and fear of being rejected became your new bullies, and you started altering your behaviour to accommodate or avoid these feelings. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, you acquired fresh worries as you grew up and faced the world as a professional. Jobs, money, EMI’s, status, spouse, children’s future, promotions and what not. You again started altering your behaviour and personality to face and accommodate new traumas.
By the time you gain a mastery over them you will be well into your middle age, where a new fear of disease and dying will take over. The panic emotion of dying is by far the worst, brother. Once it catches you in in its tangled web, you are literally finished and there is no escape till you breathe your last.
Whew! That was a quick audit into your biggest most threatening emotion. I left out hundreds of other fears and worries, just focusing on the most important. Put together, they represent your biggest obstacle to living in the present moment, your most dangerous opponent who stops you from truly enjoying this day this minute of your life.
I did the fear audit also because I want you to do the same in more detail for yourself. Make a list of your enemies’ resources and assets, for you need to prepare yourself to fight this villain that has taken control of most parts of your mind.
Don’t be afraid. The worst is over. Now, with each week you will only grow stronger and more in control. Write down in detail all the fears that haunt you from the tiniest to the biggest, and we shall meet and strategise for war next week.