photo credit: ? Mathias Pastwa ?
“Bravery is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it.”
– John Berridge
Throughout my teen years and early adulthood I was constantly afflicted by fear. I was afraid of midnight robbers, contracting exotic illnesses and losing my loved ones. I was afraid of change. Deathly afraid of change. But thanks to some “events” that took place at the most dangerous place on Earth I am now living my life with more bravery.
Today I’ll share these events in the hope that they might help you conquer your fears and develop some real world bravery.
Why I used to be afraid: the effects of my father
When I look back to my childhood, high school days and early adulthood I see that I wasted a lot of time being afraid. The fear was complex and multi-layered – diseases, death, punishment, lost family members, change, war, etc. I was afraid of a lot of stuff!
If I think about it with my “adult hat” on I reckon it probably had a lot to do with my father. He was a bit of drinker and while he was a good man (for the most part) he did do a lot of things that made my siblings and I fearful people. Things around our house were never stable or secure. We were always worried about what state he would come home from work in, and how he would react to our behaviors. It was touch and go for a long time.
When you are afraid of your father you generally grow up to be afraid of lots of things in life. You have trust issues. You are afraid of committing to people because you are afraid they will wrong you. You are afraid of chasing your dreams because it might not work out. And you are afraid of ending up like him.
A quick look at any psychology textbook will show you that a huge majority of our neurosis’ come from our parents and the way they taught us to cope with things and the way they brought us up. But do you know what the biggest way they influenced us was? It was the way they themselves behaved and lived. Their example. A child’s impressionable little mind picks up everything. Every fight with mom, every bad day at work and every bad vibe. Everything. And these impressions stay with us for the rest of our lives or at least until we are mature enough to start changing them.
A lot of my fear came from my father because he lived his life in fear while I was growing up. I can’t remember a single example where my dad taught me about bravery through his actions. I think thats why I was afraid for a long time. It was all I knew how to do.
What are you afraid of?
Do you have a lot of fear in your life? Are you not as brave as you should be? Some common fears include:
- Fear of flying
- Fear of commitment
- Fear of disease and death
- Fear of war
- Fear of failure
- Fear of success (yes, success)
- Etc.
The lessons I learned at the scariest place on Earth have helped me with all of these fears. I now have a set of tools I can use whenever fear rears its ugly head.
Conquering fear at the scariest place on Earth
Picture this. You are in place that has the highest crime rate in the world outside of Iraq. A place where you can’t go out after dark because bandits will rob, rape or kidnap you. A place where 55% of the Government officials are convicted murderers, rapists or fraudsters. Picture yourself as a young white boy with curly blond hair. Picture yourself stranded there at 3am while hundreds of onlookers peer out from behind their scarf-wrapped faces wondering what the hell you are doing there.
That’s the situation I was in straight out of first year college. My first overseas trip. I was sure it was going to be my last.
I had caught the wrong train. Plain and simple. It was my fault. I was supposed to catch the overnight train so that I would arrive at this hell-hole during light hours. But, lackadaisical me, I had caught the wrong train AND gotten off three stops to early. I was in the middle of f$%en no where!
Standing there with two massive backpacks watching the train depart the station at an alarmingly fast pace I realized I had two choices. I could panic or I could be brave. At first panic seemed like a good idea. After all, the heavy breathing was happening quite naturally – all that I had to do was introduce some screaming and the panic would be complete. But as I thought about all the things that I wanted from my life, namely living it, I decided that I would be brave and get myself out of this situation.
Here is what I did and recommend you do if you want to overcome fear:
Calm down
The first thing I did once I decided I needed to act was pick up my bags and find somewhere I could sit and calm down. I chose the public toilet. Due to the fact that I was already feeling nauseous from the fear this was not the most intelligent of ideas. It was smelly. But, the toilet gave me a locked door and a private space to sit and calm down before I moved on next.
If you have a lot of fear the first thing you need to do is settle your mind. If you are panicking and fearful you will not be able to move on to the next step so it is extremely important that you find a way to calm yourself down.
Get help
Once I had calmed down enough I decided that I needed to get some help. This sounds simpler than it actually was. In a place where the police are often responsible for a lot of the crime I realized that getting some good advice was going to be tricky. So who could I trust? I scanned the train station for ideas: the 30 year old man with a leather jacket and gold watch? Nope. The hermaphrodite selling drugs? Nope. The old guy with the tea stall? Bingo!
I don’t really know why I chose this guy. I think it was because he reminded me of my grandpa. He looked worn from hard honest work and probably supporting a family. He had his tea stall open at 3am after all. I walked straight up to him, handed him a big wad of money (not worth much back home) and asked him in my politest voice to help me find my way to my destination motel without getting kidnapped. It worked. He gave me step by step instructions that proved most useful.
When you have a lot of fear it helps if you can get some more objective information. Fear often clouds your judgment and makes it difficult to choose the best choice of action. You might have a mental image of a brave person just running in to a seemingly hopeless situation in order to save the day. I am betting they wouldn’t do this unless they had information or knowledge telling them their odds were good. Being brave doesn’t mean being stupid. Part of being brave is knowing when to ask for help.
Trust yourself
Once I had the information from the tea stall owner I had the sudden realization that it was now up to me. He had given me the tips that I needed but he wasn’t able to take the frightening journey for me. No matter how much I wanted to pinch myself and wake up from this nightmare I realized that it was up to me and me only to get myself out of there safely. And to do that I had to trust my judgment.
So I started walking in the direction the man had told me to go. If I came across some people that didn’t look right I just trusted my intuition and changed my route. If someone tried to lure me in to a car or offer me a ride I ignored them. It was working.
If you want to conquer your fear you need to trust yourself. Doubt is not going to get you anywhere. The bravest people always back themselves in every situation because they know there is no one else they can really truly rely on. A big part of overcoming fear is trusting that you know the best thing to do for your own situation.
Making it to the hotel
99.99% of the time your fear is unfounded. It is unnecessary. This was true of my ordeal in the scariest place on Earth. The drama was in my mind, not the outside world. I made it to my motel safe and sound and wondered why I had stressed myself out so badly over nothing.
Isn’t that what always seems to happen…
Conclusion
Life is extremely short. Statistically we might get 80 years but many of us get much less. When you look back on your life you will regret nothing more than having missed out on certain experiences because you were too afraid. It is even more bitter when the fear was unwarranted or illogical.
I hope something in this article might help you overcome your own fears. I would love to hear about your fears or how you have overcome them so please leave a comment if you have the time. It might really help someone.
Originally posted on October 8, 2008 @ 5:04 am
Fear to me makes me feel that everything in my life will not happen. Rescinds means to cancel, make null or void. Fear cancels our dreams and goals. Fear tells us that we cannot achieve the things we most desire.
How do you deal with fear Shamelle?
First, by way of introduction, I’m both an airline captain and a licensed therapist. Working with people who have trouble with flying has been my specialty for twenty-eight years.
There is a great deal of misunderstanding about the cause of fear of flying. It is not caused by a bad flight; most people on a bad flight don’t develop fear of flying. Difficulty with flying is caused by insufficient ability to regulate feelings when facing uncertainty.
Research since the advent of the functional MRI just eight years ago has helps us understand how the brain works. We now recognize that the ability to regulate feelings is learned and that the part of the brain that does this regulation requires stimulation of the right kind during the first two years of life. The right kind of stimulation requires a caregiver who is empathically attuned to the infant and responds to the infants signals, rather than simply providing for the infant according to an agenda set by the caregiver.
If the child is afraid, the caregiver needs to tune into the child’s fear in a way the child really knows the caregiver feels the same way. Thus the child knows he or she is not alone.
Then, the magic happens; the caregiver then lets the child know that — though the child’s fear is 100% shared — the adult has an additional point of view, which is that it is not the end of the world; it will work out alright.
Many of us, obviously, didn’t get such optimal early development. Thus, when facing uncertainty, we control our anxiety by being in control of the situation, or by having a way to out of it.
That works fairly well on the ground — except for annoying those who regard us as control freaks. But when flying, there is uncertainty, of course. And, not being in control and not having a way out, there is no way to regulate the feelings.
Therapists try to help with CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), but anxiety can develop so rapidly that CBT techniques cannot keep up with the anxiety build-up.
Hypnosis is pretty “hit or miss”. If it helps on one flight, it can fail to help on another flight.
Medications are not to be recommended — according to the World Health Organization — because when sedated, the passenger doesn’t move around enough to protect against DVT, Deep Vein Thrombosis. If a DVT clot forms, it is a serious and potentially life-threatening problem.
Also, use of medications — according to research — is only helpful in very mild cases of fear of flying. In more severe cases, medications make the flight worse!
I have tried to give a good understanding of the cause and cure of fear of flying in a video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcx6ZsvKHSA&feature
That is some interesting stuff there. I had a fear of flying for a long time. The only thing that seemed to help was practice.
Its interesting you note how important the parent/child relationship is.
Thank you for posting such an awesome comment!
My greatest fear is that something bad will happen to my kids. It’s a classic I know, but this fear can really make me numb. I’ve had periods where the fact that this is beyond my control seems almost impossible to live with.
One good thing which has come out of this is that it has “forced” me to think long hard about the meaning of life. And about how I can make it meaningful – which your blog is about also.
Thanks for another inspiring post!
It is a genuine fear Miss Attica. I only have a cat but even thinking about something happening to him makes me feel ill.
Thanks for stopping by again. Always love your comments.
TDM
Hmm… it seems that you have a talent in writing, great blog. Add to my feed reader!
Thanks so much for the compliments! Hope to see you around the blog again.
TDM
As a child, I was extremely anxious. Afraid of the dark, afraid of the cold war, afraid of the dentist, afraid of the other kids in school, afraid of my parents getting mad at me, afraid I’d never be accepted and get a boyfriend … and on and on.
As a result, I was pestered at school. I think they zoned me out just because I was so insecure and always afraid. It led to a vicious cycle I had much trouble getting out of.
Right now, I’m happily married, have my own business and there are only three things I’m still afraid of.
– failure (even though that gets less and less. Failure is normal. You pick up where you left off and move on)
– the dark (when I’ve watched a scary movie. Stupid me)
– the dentist (I swear, it’s a phobia. I can’t get it out of my system).
With the help of friends and not in the last place my former boyfriend, and my current husband, I overcame a lot of the fear that stemmed really from insecurity. I love them dearly for it. They made me realize I can go out there and chase my dreams. Which I did.
Hi Wendy.
It is funny you mention the “fear of the dark” one because, if I am honest, I am afraid of the dark sometimes as well. It’s not so bad that I need a night light or anything like that but I am definitely a lot jumpier when it is dark. Especially so after a scary movie. The Japanese movie ‘The Grudge’ made me scared of the dark for weeks. And I am a grown man with extensive martial arts training!!! Ridiculous!
Thanks for your comment. I found it quite inspiring.
TDM
For several months now I have a fear of driving or going shopping alone. I have had bad sinus and ear issues for about six months now. This makes me lightheaded although nothing has ever happened on a serious nature with this problems. I won’t go to resturants or drive for fear that I may get dizzy. Any suggestions that may be helpful would be greatly appreciated, I need to get my life back.
Gerri
Hi Gerri.
That sounds quite tricky actually. Have you been to see a doctor about this problem?
Actually, my best mate has had a sinus problem for ages now. I picked him up from the Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist today in fact! Maybe he would be better to give you some advice? I’ll send him and email and ask him to come and have a chat.
TDM
Hi Gerri,
Sorry I am not much help, I have had chronic and acute sinusitus for about a year but I haven’t really had that effect, although I do lose my balance when i clean my sinuses with water too quickly.
My only advice is to go and see an Otorhynolarangologist, or Ear nose and throat surgeon though if you haven’t already, I don’t know if thats financially viable for you but assuming you havent been to a doctor at least talk to a general physician about the problem, I let mine go for a long time and the increase in damage has made it difficult to repair. Sorry I couldnt be of more help.
Alex
This is a wonderful site. There seems to be very compasionate people here. I am glad I suscribed to this site, it often get me through a bad day.
Have a wonderful day
Gerri
Hi Gerri. We do seem to have a lot of helpful and compassionate people here. Looking forward to seeing you around again.
I often have very frightening thoughts about my life. Sometimes being afraid of failure or worrying about things that I cannot change is really blocking. When I find myself reaching this point I always think about my elderly days. There will be a time when I will be an old man, and honestly, I don’t want to have memories of my youth full of fear and worrying. It really helps me to take action to overcome my fears. They are only the products of my mind, and I don’t let them stop me doing the stuff I really want in my life.
Hey MCM.
I think that is a really good thing to remind yourself of – old age. Regret is a terrible thing.
Nice one!
TDM
Two of the things you said – Calm down and Trust yourself – what if I’m not able to do those? If there’s a 10% chance of failure, my mind starts seeing just those 10% bad things, and I panic/back out… How can I calm down? Talking to myself is not helping. Talking to others does help, but after a few days, I go back to my previous behaviour. (mostly instigated by someone saying something negative or precautioning me…)
Hi Naru.
Why don’t you trust yourself? Look back in to your past and see what you can come up with. Perhaps if you find a reason or cause for your lack of self-trust you might be able to overcome it.
Let us know.
TDM
Wow, simply amazing post. Had it sitting in my RSS for a couple days waiting for a good time to read and the wait was worthwhile! Great article its something I have starred and will refer back to….Thanks so much!
Thanks Chris – really glad you enjoyed it.
TDM
Fear of success and failure are intertwined lovers for me. They dance. Holding each other tightly. Sometimes they dance a samba or salsa, some nights the tango. The problem is I can’t look away. I can’t peel my eyes from their vicious movements.
Often I am literally unable to move, unable to get anything done despite a desperate want and desire to do so. Success is hard for me. When I concentrate, when I break through success is sitting there. The hard part is breaking through that barrier.
Jim – what a wonderful writing ability you have! Fear really can be crippling. I agree with you that the hard part is breaking through the barrier. The more often you do it the easier it will become.
Thanks for commenting.
Fear is kind of “all-pervasive” in the lives of men, isn’t it? I mean, not fear of flying kind of fear, but fear of not being loved, fear of not being enough, fear of death, fear of being lonely, fear of whatever makes you believe you’re actually smaller, “unworthier” or more vulnerable you are.
Once you get rid of all fears, you’re done. You’re all love. What’s your take on this?
Nice post. Excelent topic.
Thanks.
Hi Nando.
Excellent question!
I think fear is a product of attachment. Have you ever heard the saying “we fear the unknown”? Well I think it is more like “we fear the loss of the known”. Mankind is afraid of losing what we are attached to. If you look at any outburst of anger, hatred, racism or any other vice you will see that it is always rooted in fear. And this fear comes from being attached to a way or life or a set of beliefs.
So where does the attachment come from? Well, in the Buddhist tradition one learns that attachment comes after a organ interacts with an object and labels it as “something”. In order to give reference to that “something” you have to create a “me”. Once you have created that “me” you then solidify your idea of “other” and want to defend yourself from that other.
For example, we have organs for seeing, hearing, smelling, touching and thinking. When we see with our eye organ we label that object as outside and therefore separate to us. But that is just a mental concept and may, in fact, be a misrepresentation of reality.
So what if the whole concept of “self” and “other” was flawed? What if those concepts could be gotten rid of? Would the anger, fear and attachment also dissipate?
I think so…
Thanks for the comment.
TDM
This comment is like its own post, I liked the post very much, and the comment 🙂 When I am afraid, and I attribute any “anxiety” type feelings to fear, I recite a mantra in my head that Frank Herbert used in his Dune Novels for conquering fear. It helps unbelievably well. I’ve been using it for years, and it immediately calms me. Here it is if you’ve not read Dune, it changed a bit in the different novels but the concept is the same, and I’m paraphrasing a bit, but its what I say to myself.
“I will not fear, fear is the mind killer, fear is the little death that destroys all things. I will face my fear, I will let it wash over me and through me, and when it is gone there will be nothing, only I will remain.”
As I’m reciting this to myself I fully envision my fear, I name it, flesh it out, make it as real as possible. I imagine the very worst that could occur should my fear come to be, I fully immerse myself in the fear. While saying the mantra, its like I sensitize myself to it, and realize that there is nothing I can do about it, or that the embodiment of my fear is really nothing but sheets in the breeze, when I was subconsciously turning them into fearsome ghosts.
I recite this to myself over and over until my mind and body is calm again, and I’m in control. It used to take many recitations, now I can usually do just 1 or 3 and I’m good to go.
Fear is a useful tool, and once I fully realize what’s causing me the anxiety/fear, I may decide that what I’m doing isn’t worth the risk after all. But instead of being gripped by the emotion, I now am making a “boardroom decision” rather than an emotional one.
I’ve recently this past year started taking gymnastics, and my wife complains because I’m too “fearless” she’s afraid I’m going to get hurt. Its not that I’m fearless, its that I use my fear as the tool it was intended for and not as a master of my actions. He’s more of like a handy adviser that I need to brush off or put in his place from time to time, but definitely has useful info to contribute to my decision making.
Wow Mikey awesome comment!
It’s interesting what you say about fear being a useful tool. I think it is definitely there for survival reasons but we have taken it too far. Do you feel you have become more or less fearful since doing this practice? Is the amount of fear you have different or just your ability to cope with it?
I really like that mantra. Thank you so much for sharing.
Hope to see you around the blog again.
TDM
I cannot attribute all my decreased stress/fear level to that mantra, but more the shift in focus that caused me to use the mantra. The mantra itself is just a focusing tool, kind of a reminder to my brain, a self prompt. In working with kids with disabilities we often teach self prompts, its kind of like a behavior cue for yourself, no different than telling my dog to sit, and he sits. You train one’s own mind to respond to a cue, in this case it has turned into this mantra. When I cue myself with it, my mind calms down.
I am less fearful and less stressed since picking up that practice some years ago. Its not for any lack of stressful impulses, or fearful cues, its more that I’ve learned to recognize them when they begin to sprout, and I tag them for what they are. Essentially turning on the lights and seeing the sheet, rather than imagining the ghost. So the impulses are still there but the way I handle them are different.
This attitude can cause relationship conflict though. I’ve often been less “emotional” than my family who I think are very dramatic people. Its not that I don’t feel emotion or enjoy it, but when it comes to negative emotion, or crisis type situations, I’m very able to detach my emotional state for what it is and go into the “boardroom”. Later when I can allow it, I’ll then be emotional. This can be upsetting to people though, who seem to need you to be in their world of emotion with them, and I’ve sometimes wondered if there were something “wrong” with me because of it.
So emotions for me, particularly negative ones are sort of like a vehicle that I can choose to drive or not drive, its up to me. When my mother was in a really bad motorcycle accident and her husband was killed, and she was very hurt, I immediately went into “boardroom” mode. I became the focal point for the family, worked through the problems and got things moving in a productive way, like keeping my mom from losing her house because she can’t pay her bills for example. It wasn’t until later after I put things in order that I “allowed” myself to grieve, and boy did I ever. But once the crying was done, it was done, I didn’t revisit it over and over. I had enough of driving that particular vehicle 😛
Sorry to go long winded on you, your writings have helped me to be more “musing” lately, and writing it down helps me to organize what I think. Thanks very much for what you do.
~Mickey
Wonderful! Thank you so much for taking the time to write that Mickey.
Brilliant!
WHOA. Great take. That explains a lot to me.
Because when I wrote above fear of not being loved, or feeling not being worthy (enough to be loved), I was talking about something that I believe is more visible, more known by the person who feels it (although most people keep it in the unconscious). When you go deeper and say that the senses meet an object and than label it, while simultaneosuly (?) give birth to the creation of “me”, you’re explaing quite more.
My question then turns to: who comes first and what is the best state-of-being on the middle of all interactions between senses and objects?
You said that the interaction between senses and a object happens in the first place. If so, what’s the cause of the action of labeling that object? Wouldn’t labeling being a consequence of the creation of “me” and “something” (and the fear of losing the known world)? If all that happens at the same time, what’s the most enlightening state-of-being for living (if that is something like that)? To abandon the known?
That is pure Jiddu Krishnamurti.
🙂
Hey Nando.
I get the feeling you know more about this then you are letting on! 😉
I think the best mode of being is simply not to get caught up in the labeling part too much. Let the sense organs and the objects interact but leave it at that. View everything as a dream.
Remember, we are so habituated to doing these things that we don’t consciously choose to create a “me”. It is long established.
Awesome comments Nando I’ve really enjoyed them! Hope to see you around again.
TDM
I want to trust your feeling, TDM! 🙂
Thanks for the nice advice. This post made my day and I’m really liking your blog and your work. Your responses and participation here really impressed me and got the conversation going very well.
Just want to share a video that has a lot to do with the “neurosys” subject you wrote on the post. It’s a 1h speech a buddhist monk gave on Google Tech Talks last week. The title is: Be Your Own Therapist.
http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=nasIq4E9nNg
Thanks once again, TDM!
Cheers!
That is a nun Nando!
Yes, sorry. Her name is Robina Courtin, she’s being called Venerable Robina Courtin. Her speech is very intelligent and interesting.
I find that fear paralyzes me. I fear success and find myself doing things to impede myself. I am trying to become more organized to do smaller things that lead to bigger things in order to achieve success.
Good luck PGE! And The Daily Mind will always be here to help you.
It’s rare that I fear the big things such as death or disease but I have several small, seemingly irrational fears which are, none the less, quite paralysing at times.
One of my biggest fears is of being the centre of attention. I don’t like my own birthdays and will only agree to a party if it’s very low key or a joint celebration so that there is someone else there to take centre stage. I am terrified of public speaking and I am even afraid when I have to walk into a room full of people because I know their eyes will be on me and I feel like I’m being judged. I am good at hiding these fears, especially in social situations. Most of my friends and family would say I’m a confident person, but I know that it does affect me quite a lot in the workplace. I have no idea how to overcome it.
I am less fearful and less stressed since picking up that practice some years ago. Its not for any lack of stressful impulses, or fearful cues, its more that I’ve learned to recognize them when they begin to sprout, and I tag them for what they are. Essentially turning on the lights and seeing the sheet, rather than imagining the ghost. So the impulses are still there but the way I handle them are different.
You said that the interaction between senses and a object happens in the first place. If so, what’s the cause of the action of labeling that object? Wouldn’t labeling being a consequence of the creation of “me” and “something” (and the fear of losing the known world)? If all that happens at the same time, what’s the most enlightening state-of-being for living (if that is something like that)? To abandon the known?
Hey there.
Check out this article – it explains it perfectly.
http://www.lamayeshe.com/index.php?sect=article&id=425
Being afraid is just one of the states of mind. You have really explained it worthly to overcome fear and be brave against all odds.
I am less fearful and less stressed since picking up that practice some years ago. Its not for any lack of stressful impulses, or fearful cues, its more that I’ve learned to recognize them when they begin to sprout, and I tag them for what they are. Essentially turning on the lights and seeing the sheet, rather than imagining the ghost. So the impulses are still there but the way I handle them are different.
Hey, just wanted to comment on what an excellent blog you have here. I literally use the tips in these blogs all the time. I also have a story on how i get over fears B, C, and D, by facing fear A.
So fear A is being afraid of the dark, fear B is of spiders, fear C is of assorted crawling insects (beetles cockroaches, etc., and fear D is of some one jumping out and attacking, mugging, or surprising me in some way shape or form.
So this is how i got over fears B, C, and D by facing fear A.
I one day decided that this being afraid of the dark is just to much: keeping others up with night lights, making others get things in the back of my closet, etc. so i went into the dark and went right out. Then i realized i can overcome my other fears by facing this one, so the next time i went into the dark, i pictured all those other fears being inside of the dark. So i pictured spiders, robbers, and insects inside the dark. I went in (and this only worked when i closed my eyes) the dark and just stayed there picturing all the fears of mine around me. Now obviously something that isn’t really there cannot hurt me, so obviously nothing in the dark hurt me. But i still saw all the fears there, this made me realize that just because they are there does not mean they are going to always start hurting you or crawling around on me. So i now go along in life not being afraid anymore…..
The moral of the story is the same thing as the sports company, NIKE’s slogan: JUST DO IT. Don’t be afraid to face what makes you afraid. You can either sit there in life and be stressed out all of the time over this irrational fear of yours, or you can FACE IT, get over it, and laugh in a month of how much of a goof you were for being afraid of that fear in the first place.
I mean think about it, (setting aside the robbers of course), what could the dark, spiders, or insects do to me, last time i checked, there is generally nothing in dark but air, and air cannot hurt me. all a spider or insect can do is crawl on me, oooh crawling anything but crawling. most fears are of things that can do absolutely nothing to you, so why not make your life a little easier and at least attempt to get over your fears.
Hope my story helps,
Sincerely,
Brett Epstein
“Bravery is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it.”
True.. Very True.
Looking back in history of mankind.. all the great men were those who overcame their fear – from presidents to businessmen to saints all accomplished and came out as success in areas where their deepest fears lay.
Nice post !
I’ve really enjoyed reading your articles. You obviously know what you are talking about! Your site is so easy to navigate too, I’ve bookmarked it in my favourites 😀
you are so right when you say that “99.99% of the time your fear is unfounded” its so stupid, so how can we kill our Ego?
Great article Many of us, obviously, didn’t get such optimal early development. Thus, when facing uncertainty, we control our anxiety by being in control of the situation, or by having a way to out of it. thanks for sharing this post
Chicago movers
hi love this site i only found it today i have a fear of flying but im fine when were cruising or landing but taking off is the thing im the most scared of in the world i feel safer in small airplanes i think its because its lighter so we get airbourne quicker but in big aircraft when it has 4 engines i feel less safer even though its safer (it has 4 engines)im 14 and i travel on a aeroplane about twice a year with my parents and after im finished with my holidays im dreading the next holidays i was never scared of flying until 2 years ago i dont know why but i feel when we are taking off that it is the most vulnerable point of flying because all the weight is at the back and if the engines failed we wouldnt be able to glide to safety i know officially its the safest way to travel but if you arnt controlling your fate how can it be its just one of those things you cannot be sure of but i dont understand why im scared my grandad was a pilot for 20 years and the highest rank on a big airline and my mam the top airhostess for saudi arabian airlines its just all so weird because i love airplane i think they are amazing they are all i watch on youtube and im seriously thinking about being a pilot but how can i in this state please help me thanx