Sunday, October 30, 2016

Letting go of Fear

Hi to everybody.

When I was a little boy my friends dad bought him a bicycle. It was a brand new Raleigh bike with straight handles and a three speed gear setup.

I could not ride bike at that time, so I asked him if he could teach me. That same afternoon, after school, we were standing next to the pavement with Chris holding the bike. Me, one leg over the crossbar and my foot on the pedal, nervous, scared and very excited, all at the same time. Chris then pushed the bike without warning and shouted that I should pedal.
Needless to say, I traveled  about ten yards before I lost my balance and crashed, with my friends brand new bike. We tried another three times that afternoon, to no avail. By now I was so scared, holding the handles that my knuckles showed white. I was so rigid and stiff out of fear that it was impossible to hold my balance.

The next day after school, Chris told me something that I would never forget in my life. He said to me to relax. "Just relax, then you will be able to hold your balance" he said. It worked and I could ride the bicycle.

We are so fearful of what might happen to us, that we are holding the handles to tight. That is why we are suffering from all kinds of sickness, related to stress and anxiety.

We fear mainly two things in life. We fear death. We fear the future.
 
Fear is a huge problem in our modern world, and instead of letting go of fear we are creating fear. We are looking at horror movies, vampire movies, scary movies; we are listening to people who find it sadistically pleasurable to tell us the most horrific stories. The world is going to end on exactly that date and hour. That is their prophecy, and amazingly thousands of people actually believe them. You should not eat this or that, they say, because it causes cancer. 

Television is a good example of how big industry motivates us in buying their products. The biggest motivator is fear. Think about the insurance industry. They scare us into buying their products, just in case something goes wrong. Have you seen how high the crime rate is they say. Just be careful that you do not become a victim, without our products. And you pay and pay. The most amazing scary stories  gets around, from death, germs or losing your belongings. We are victims of fear. 

Winnie the Pooh and Piglet walked home one Saturday afternoon, after visiting Rabbit.
 On their way home a vicious thunderstorm broke out. It was a terrible storm. Thunder, lightning and a howling wind. Trees was uprooted or hit by lightning, and little Piglet was scared, very scared. He shouted on the top of his lungs, "What if a tree falls on us?" For a moment Winnie hesitated, because Winnie was also scared. But then sanity prevailed. Winnie stopped and waited for Piglet to catch up. "And what if a tree doesn't fall on us?"he asked Piglet. That calmed Piglet down and they reached their home safely.
Image result for winnie the pooh and piglet holding hands                                                      
What will happen if… followed by something negative, something terrible that might happen to us in the future? There is a possibility but in most cases very unlikely. The anecdote for fear is, what will happen …followed by something positive. Negative thoughts have a tendency to create a negative outcome, and a positive thought creates a positive outcome. The lack of fear creates positive outcomes.

I understand when people go into a relationship with fear. Fear that their partner might cheat on them, fear that their partner might leave them, fear that their partner might abuse them. Whenever such a person is so afraid, it creates such a terrible lack of trust. When there is a lack of trust there cannot be a good relationship. Many of us are in relationships with a lack of trust, and a lack of trust means there is a lot of fear. So because there is a lack of trust, because of the fear we cause the relationship to crash. That is the negative loop we are into. What we fear will most probably happen. This fear stops us from enjoying life. Nobody wants to be in a relationship with a fearful person. There are so many rules that need to be obeyed, just because of our fears. When we are fearful we are tense, and when we are tense we fall off our bicycles. We need to learn to relax. Fear causes all kind of sickness.

This question always comes to my mind. Why do we have to fear God? That is the kind of fear we are taught from childhood, from when we are small. God loves us but we must fear God. Why is that? We are taught to love our partners but we must also fear them. 


If there is no fear that means you can relax, and when we relax you can start enjoying life. That is why you are on earth. Our biggest fear is fear itself.

So the best way of overcoming fear is to have a positive attitude. We must stop falling into the trap of having all this contingency plans. If this plan doesn’t work, at least I still have plan b or c.
Stop been so controlling. It is the control freaks that cause us so much fear. They want us to fit in with their plans and if we don’t we become fearful of what they might do. That comes from very painful experiences they had in their past, when they suffered a lot. Because they suffered a lot they think that the only way to protect themselves is to control more. So they are such fearful people, they always plan, figuring something out. Just in case they might get hurt again. They go into relationships with all their plans ready, they go to work with plans, and they even have plans for their children.
People don’t need to be like that, they create problems not only for themselves but for the people around them as well.
We do not know what might happen in the future. Why then, do we ask people to promise us that they will do something correct. We don’t know what will happen next. Why can’t we just adapt to life as it unfolds around us.

I have learned that the only way to overcome fear is to be kind. Just be kind at your job interview, or have to give a speech or whatever. Be kind to your children, even if they do something that doesn’t fit into your plans. Not only to be kind, but also try to put some fun into whatever you are fearful to do. 

Lastly stop all this worrying. Worrying comes from fear.
Hope you enjoyed this post. Don't be scared to leave a comment. It would be highly appreciated.