The Antidote to Fear

We all have fears. The fear of what may happen in the future, of skeletons in the closet, of failing others and ourselves. We fear what would happen if our worst fears came true. Most of our anxiety stems from such fears. We read self-help books that tell us to ‘not worry’ or to ‘be positive’. But, it doesn’t work most of the time, certainly not every time. Someone asked me the other day, “Is there a way to rise above your fear?”

Well, it depends on the nature of your fear. If you have paranoia, phobias and worries resulting from excessive thinking then surely a calm mind is of immense help. My focus today is not on unfounded fears arising out of the chattering of a restless mind though. I’ve written and spoken a fair bit on that in the past. Instead, in this post, I talk about genuine fears. Those where a calm mind doesn’t appease your anxiety, fear where all forms of affirmation fail. Only one thing works in the face of such fear. What is that, you ask?

Let me share with you a little story first.

Many years ago a farmer owned a large farm along a certain seacoast. That region was particularly prone to violent storms making it rather difficult for him to prevent the damage. He was always looking for strong and strapping men who could safeguard his barn, pen and hay. But, no matter how well the farmer paid them, everyone would leave after facing a storm or two.

One day, a petite, short man approached him for employment. Looking at the thin build, the farmer was quite skeptical about his fitness for the job. He explained to the applicant that it was a physically demanding job and he couldn’t see how his small body would handle it. The man, however, assured him that he was more than capable.
“Everyone leaves after facing just one storm,” the farmer said.
“Actually, I sleep peacefully in the middle of a storm.”
The farmer, although intrigued by his answer, hired him anyway for he was desperate for help.

The little man proved to be an efficient and committed worker. He worked well around the farm, keeping busy from dawn to dusk, and the farmer was satisfied with his work. One night the wind bellowed loudly and a massive storm began building up. The power went out immediately and it was pitch dark everywhere. Jumping out of bed, the farmer grabbed a flashlight and rushed next door to the hired hand’s quarters.

Deafening thunder roared through the sky. A battery of lightning and mighty winds turned the quiet seashore into a horror scene.

“Wake up!” he shouted and shook the little man. “A storm is coming!”

The man squinted at the light in his face and closed his eyes again indicating he was in no mood to get up. In utter disbelief, the farmer threw a quick glance around his room to ascertain if the worker was actually drunk. But no, the room was clean of anything like that.

He shook him even more severely this time and yelled at the top of his lungs, “What the hell! Get up and tie things down before they blow away!”
“No sir,” the little man said rolling over in his bed. “I told you, I sleep peacefully in the middle of a storm.”

Enraged by his indifference, the farmer hurled a few slurs and rushed out to prepare for the storm. Outside, however, the haystacks were already covered with tarpaulin. The cows were in the barn, the hens in the coop, and the doors were barred. The shutters were tightly secured. Everything was tied down. Nothing could blow away.

Pleasantly surprised, the farmer apologized to the worker and went back to his bed too. To sleep while the storm raged.

The word is preparedness.

When your fear is genuine, arising out of reasonable anticipation or a certain action (or the lack of it), preparedness is the only way to help you face the fear. For example, if you fear failing an exam tomorrow because you haven’t prepared for it, it’s a genuine fear. Positive talk or self-affirmation won’t really help you. Only preparedness will.

And, at the root of readiness is a simple affirmation. Putting your hand on your heart, if you can say I did the best I could, then you’ve done your bit. The rest must be left to Nature, Fate, Karma, God, whatever you want to call that element. We can only do what we can and ultimately, we can only do so much. If you’ve prepared as well as you could, that’s all that matters. We don’t control everything that happens to or around us. There’s little sense in fretting over things beyond your control.

If you’ve put your seat belt on and you are obeying the traffic laws while driving carefully, worrying about an accident is a pointless fear. You have no control over it. Worrying about a plane crash while taking a flight is another example. Excessive thinking is the mother of such fears. Any specific fear you can’t get out of your head is a phobia. Either way, good meditation, counseling or other similar methods can help you overcome them. For all genuine fears, though, readiness is the only way as far as I know.

An old lady asked her co-passenger, a forty-something burly man, on a domestic flight, “What are the odds that someone could be carrying a bomb on our plane?”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” he said confidently. “It’s one in a million.”
“Hmmm…” she nodded.
“And, what are the chances that two complete strangers could carry a bomb on board?” the old lady asked after a few minutes.
“More like one in one hundred million,” he said and went back to reading his magazine.
“Well then,” she said and opened her handbag containing explosives, “I just massively improved our safety odds.”

It sounds funny but that’s often how a restless mind tries to tackle fear. We try to get rid of our worries by worrying more about them. It doesn’t work. The storms in your life depend on your potential. The more you have to offer, the more nature will throw your way. This is the only way to take you to the next level, to help you reach your potential and then cross it.

Pigeons don’t have the same scale of challenges as falcons. The bigger your existence the more powerful the storms. Those storms may be the inner tempests of emotions or blizzards of thoughts, they may be the external gales of adversity or hurricanes of circumstances. Regardless, if you wish to sleep in peace in the face of a storm, you’d better be prepared for it in advance. It begins by being mindful of and responsible for our choices and actions. There’s nothing we can’t learn, from being happy and positive to mastering the self — all is possible.

Storms will come. Let them. For, the joy of quietude and calmness is a million-fold thereafter. Every storm leaves you with a lesson. Such lessons alone make up the wisdom we acquire in our lives. Wisdom, further, is the ability to see in muddy waters, to steer your boat in choppy seas. You can’t escape the storms if you wish to enjoy the vastness of the ocean. Let’s step out, dive in, go deep. What’s there to lose? The whole universe is yours for the taking. Why live any other way?

Prepare. Play. Pause. Ponder. Repeat.

Peace.
Swami

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Editorial Note

As you’ve read above, the antidote to fear, genuine fear, is only one – preparedness. Fear is one of our most crippling factors, as human beings. It holds us back from achieving our highest potential. What about the conditioned fears caused by society? How do we overcome them? Is overcoming fear with faith possible? And what of our biggest fear? The FAQs below answer all these and more.

There once was this criminal who had committed a crime
(Because, hey, that’s what criminals do. That’s their job!)

Anyway, he was sent to the king for his punishment.
The king told him he had a choice of two punishments.
He could be hung by a rope.
Or take what’s behind the big, dark, scary, mysterious iron door.

The criminal quickly decided on the rope.

As the noose was being slipped on him, he turned to the king and asked:
“By the way, out of curiosity, what’s behind that door?”

The king laughed and said:
“You know, it’s funny, I offer everyone the same choice, and nearly everyone picks the rope.”

“So,” said the criminal, “Tell me. What’s behind the door? I mean, obviously, I won’t tell anyone,” he said, pointing to the noose around his neck.

The king paused and then answered:

“Freedom, but it seems most people are so afraid of the unknown that they immediately take the rope.”

(Credit)

Fear is the single determining factor holding us back from a life filled with bliss. Is there an antidote to fear? Not genuine fears, like you’ve read above, but for those fears which never actually come true? The illusory fears we spend our lives worrying about?

Yes. There is.

 

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The FAQs below will leave you with an in-depth understanding of fear and how overcoming this hard-wired state is not only possible but doable.

What is the root of all fears?

Often, it is said that face your fear but what does facing your fear really mean? And whatever it may mean, how to go about it? How to overcome fear in life? To begin with, personify your fear. Whatever your fear is, personify it and go for intense visualization.

Imagine your fear is actually a person and you are facing it. Talk to your fear, send it vibes of love and compassion and befriend it. The same energy that was fueling your fear will become your strength instead. Try it.

By fear, I don’t mean our primal fear of death and so on. Instead, I’m referring to conditioned fears we create or harbor due to our upbringing and other social norms. This approach often works because it goes straight to the source of your fear.

And, what is the source of our fears, you ask?

Continue reading The Source of Fear.

Is there a worse fear than the fear of death?

If you look around, you’ll discover that most people spend their entire lives in fear. Many are plagued with the fear of loss, of rejection, of failure, some also have a fear of getting old, but this is not what I’m talking about. I’ve observed there’s a fear that easily dwarfs all these put together. It may even be our biggest fear.

And, no, I don’t think that the fear of death is the greatest fear, it may be the most inevitable but we don’t live our lives constantly worrying about death. Do we? Sooner or later, everyone accepts it.

The base fear I’m alluding to is not instinctive, it’s not innate, we are not born with it, it’s something we learn, subtly, steadily and slowly. It is so powerful that over a period of time it becomes a part of our nature. If life was a language and each type of fear was a letter, the one I’m referring to would be the alphabet — it contains all other fears.

Continue reading about the greatest fear.

How do I overcome the fear of death?

All sane people have it — the fear of death. Let me segregate it into two parts: the fear of an immediate threat and the fear of losing life in the distant future. At the bottom of the second type is not just the fear of ever-inevitable death but also of life not ending in your preferred way.

There is a fear of losing everything you earned throughout your life, your relationships, your wealth, and above all, you. Often the greatest attachment one has, is to oneself, and death is about separation.

Hence the fear of death is one of the greatest. It may even be our deepest fear. It separates the real you from all that you thought you were.

If we change our perspective, the nature of the fear changes too. If you start to look upon death as a mere pause and not an abrupt end, you may even begin to like it, much less loathe it.

Think about this: once you cross the chasm of death, you will get another chance at life, another childhood, another youth, one more chance at living, at loving, at being.

Continue reading about the fear of death and how to overcome it.

How do I get rid of my child’s fear of ghosts and demons?

Your child gets scared because he’s still exploring the world. He has an imagination well alive in his world. If he believes in Santa Claus, he may as well believe in ghosts too.

When you read those fascinating fairy tales and religious stories of celestial beings to him, you create an imprint of myth in his mind. It’s only natural then that he expects ghosts and demons in the dark.

But I’m not saying stop reading out those stories to him. Just accept fear as a natural emotion in your child. Over time, Nature will teach him.

When reality outgrows imagination, fear disappears, for fear is always anticipatory. Yes, always. The present moment has no fear, it’s when you start to think about what may happen in the next moment can you have any fear at all.

The antidote to fear is faith. Continue reading about fear of the dark and the scary creatures that lurk in the dark.

How do I get rid of my fear and phobia?

Have you noticed how most of your fears never actually come true? Most of us have just gotten used to the security of living a fearful and stressful life. What if there was an antidote to fear?

The video below speaks about how to overcome our fears and phobias.

Timeline:

• 0:35: The difference between fear and phobia
• 1:56: The story of the man who had claustrophobia
• 6:51: Fear is always in anticipation
• 7:35: The story of the man who was always positive

• 9:21: Most of your fears never come true

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