When Fear Knocks At Your Door, Don't Answer
I shouldn’t have let fear in the front door. He knocked; I answered and let him in. I’m not sure when this happened exactly; I know I was too young to realize that this decision would cause me a lifetime of agony. You see, once you welcome fear into your life, he doesn’t leave. He’s always there, hiding in the shadows, waiting for his time. And if you aren’t strong enough to keep fear in his place, he will try to destroy you.
Some fear is healthy. It brings balance to our lives and without it we would bring ourselves great harm. Fear keeps us from pulling our car into on-coming traffic, for example. Fear of the unknown puts us on the alert when we encounter unfamiliar people and circumstances. It is self-preserving and in some circumstances, a good emotion. On the other side, sometimes fear goes on steroids and marches relentlessly through your life destroying every good thought you can throw at it. Some people call this a symptom of “Depression”.
I have had fear-less times in my life, times when nothing got in the way of my goal. I was strong, decisive, and as FEARLESS as the King of the Jungle. Then something happens and fear smells, well fear, and here he comes. “What if you can’t do it”, “What if you aren’t good enough”, “What if you fail” speed through my brain like the Indy 500, running the endless loop, over and over again until I question every decision I have and will make. Holy crap. Can’t move forward, can’t move back, you are stuck with fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the known, fear of death, fear of life, fear of fear. A regular fear fest.
One of my biggest (irrational) fears is that I am wasting my life, not doing anything important. Silly huh, especially considering that I am directly responsible for another branch on my family tree. I have two children, a son, and daughter, and my daughter blessed me with three children of her own. I gave five spirits a chance to have a human experience, and a pretty good one at that. I lose sight of this sometimes, this hugely important job that I did. I am so busy fearing that I am just ordinary, I totally miss the point.
Nobody lives forever and nobody is free from fear one hundred percent of the time, these are facts. It is also a fact that you can change your perception of life, choosing to live with faith instead of fear. I have this saying in plain view on my desk and read it often. ”Fear knocked at the door, faith answered, no one was there.” I got it out of a fortune cookie, by the way. Faith can mean anything you want it to. For those who believe in a higher power, faith is in their God; those who don’t share this belief system, faith is in something else. I believe in God so my faith in him is helping to keep my fear in check. When I feel fear is inappropriate for the situation, I examine what is happening right now, what was I thinking prior to the feeling of fear, and then I remind myself, you can only have one feeling at a time, which would you rather be feeling, fear or peace?
While writing this article, fear had to give his input. “What if you can’t finish this article”, “What if you don’t win”. Well, fear, it’s like this, this is the end of the article so I did finish. And if I don’t win that just means someone else’s article addressed the subject better than mine. So I will continue to write because I love it and because I can. If I could change the decision to allow fear into my life, I would but I can’t change what decisions I made in my past, all I can do now is move forward, one fearless step at a time.
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