What are you afraid of?

Physical things like natural disasters, fires, planes crashing, car wrecks, or maybe just slipping on the ice and landing on your backside?

I fear all those

(especially the last one, having been diagnosed with osteoporosis in my lower spine).

How about terrorism, the upcoming presidential election, the economy?

I fear those too.

But you know what I fear the most? What other people think of me.

How many of you are paralyzed by what others think?

• Have you written something, painted something, composed something, only to hide it away?
• Do you truly believe in something whether it be religious, spiritual, political … only to clam up when people want to talk to you about it? And what happens if the discussion turns heated? What do you do? Are you able to defend your belief?

Fear that controls

What others think of me is the fear I face every day, the one that controls me. It’s the most destructive fear, the one that prevents me from realizing all the great potential given to me by my Creator.

Running into fear, one step at a time

I wrote in a previous blog post about the advice to run straight into a fire in order to escape from it. This applies to fear too.

Often that “running” is a series of baby steps. But they are all steps in the right direction.

One person’s success story

I came across this wonderful post about one person’s success in dealing with the fear of what others think. She too believes in those series of baby steps.

Read it and tell me what you think. Can you overcome your fear in that way too?

My own story

I wrote a lot about overcoming fear in River of Grace, from dealing with literal life and death issues, to just stepping out and trying something new. This link leads to the pages in the book – click on the Table of Contents link and choose Chapter 6 to read a bit of what I experienced running into my fears.

What’s your story?

 

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