My Fear Wasn’t Real

What is Fear?

The flight-or-fight response is activated in conjunction with a perceived threat. This is a normal survival reaction that protects us, but what happens when our fear isn’t real?

My symptoms would always change. I became a skilled craftsman, creatively developing multiple coping mechanisms in an attempt to deal with my many fears. Many times, I was mortified at how my body would react to uncomfortable situations. Anxiety attacks, so embarrassing! I could feel another one coming along. Knowing now what caused one, my initial reaction was to stay away from ever doing that again. A simple routine, not so simple anymore. Paralyzed, like a deer caught in a set of headlights. Can’t move, can’t speak, can’t sleep. Hating myself for not ever knowing how to be normal!

The Reason for Fear

My anxieties were not realistic. My flight-or-fight response was working overtime trying to protect me from things it perceived as a threat but actually were not. Realistically, I knew I shouldn’t be afraid. My fears were starting to control my actions and hindered me from being myself. For instance, I was scared to become a nurse. Due to my lack of confidence in myself, I was very intimidated in social situations.

I hated that I was being controlled by my fears. After many years of battling myself, eventually, I learned that I had to embrace my fears. I started to understand that I needed to overcome my fear to understand something deeper about myself. I had to change my thinking to change my perceptions that were causing me not to trust certain situations. I needed to believe in myself.

God is love. When I trusted God, I learned how to be at peace with myself. When I am at peace, I am with God. Fear is a good thing because it prompts you to find the truth about who you truly are. Fear is telling you that something is wrong and needs to change. Fear keeps me grounded. Fear keeps me dependent on God for guidance.

I had to confront my fears and not let them keep me from things that I wanted to do. Light versus darkness relationship is actually a love relationship. We can use the darkness to find God.

Don’t Ignore Fear

Confront your fears: Never let fear stop you from doing anything that is good. If you ignore fear or let fear keep you in fear, then fear will become strong in you and will rule your every decision. Fear is not God, so we cannot make decisions based on our fears if those fears are not realistic. For instance, jumping of a cliff is a realistic fear that one should not do because you will probably die. Fears related to confidence are fears that should be challenged. Taking a risk by accepting a promotion that you are worried you might fail at is something that should be challenged. We all have fears, but sometimes our fears are insecurities and insecurities should be confronted in ourselves honestly. We need to recognize when we are afraid because we don’t believe in ourselves. We need to recognize when we are making excuses not to do something because we simply think we are not good enough. We cannot listen to our voice that believes what the world tells us about ourselves. Instead, we need to understand what God is saying about who we really are. If we always choose faith in what we know is good, we are choosing to believe in God. We can then be confident that will be making our best choices and will be able to overcome our fears.

Sometimes we are afraid of change, but if we want to grow with God we are always making changes to ourselves and sometimes our environment. God wants to reveal to us just how special we are. He has blessings He in store for us.

Letting fear run our lives is not letting God be in charge. Sometimes we have to make tough decisions, but God does not give us any situation that we cannot handle. If we choose to believe that we cannot overcome our fears, we are listening to our own voice, therefore, we will not overcome. That is when we find ourselves stuck in life, feeling depressed and hopeless not understanding how to have what we want.

We are learning God’s perfect way, but we are also not perfect. We make mistakes and that is how we learn. We also have to be careful not to be too hard on ourselves when we fail.

Be grateful for challenges. Life has challenges because challenges create the resistance we need to learn something bigger about who we truly are. When we are afraid of the unknown that is when it is time to trust and have confidence in God’s promises.

Darkness

We all have our darkness,
We all have our pain,
That can push us to identify,
Something bigger than ourselves.
Even darkness has purpose;
Without darkness,
There would be no light.