If I could
rewrite the seasons of my life, I would choose never to be afraid. Instead, I
would embrace the challenges that occur with a sense of wonder and amazement. I
spent too many years allowing disappointments and trials to defeat me only to
find out decades later the trials had been used as opportunities of growth.
Someone once
said the word “fear” stood for False Evidence Appearing Real.
Yet, for those who are challenged by fear, the adrenaline that runs through
their body at that moment feels anything but false.
The good news is
after many years of struggling with the debilitating effects of fear, I can
tell you that fear really is the equivalent of a speck of sand we build into a
giant pyramid in our own minds.
Our mind truly
is our battlefield. Very seldom do the things we fear deserve the incredible
negative attention we give them.
When I was a small child, my home life was very
unstable. As a result, it helped set a pattern of expected defeat in my young
mind. My father was an alcoholic and very abusive. My mother was extremely
young and naïve; she really wasn’t capable of guiding me through the hurdles of
life that terrified me.
To a child, the
uncertainties often hide the truth in a situation. We fear the unknown because
our past experiences have often proven to be everything we feared. In reality,
the fear we exhibited magnetically drew the devastation to us.
Most parents of
fearful children are living in a realm of fear themselves. This situation
causes the cycle of fear to be repeated from one generation to the next.
If I could pass
a bill in Congress, it would be one that requires all school systems to add a
program to their curriculum that teaches children how to overcome adversity.
The program would teach them how to “look at a glass as half full rather than
half empty” or even “how to turn negative thoughts into incredible avenues of
growth” -- in other words, a “NO FEAR” class.
The only thing
you have to fear is fear itself –the belief in False Evidence Appearing Real.
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