Challenging Your Fears

Fear is one of the basic human emotions that drive us. Whether it's a fear of starvation, of dying, or simply of the unknown, we fear what we can not expect as well as the things we have come to expect in our lives. Too often, this fear is crippling, even damaging. Thus, many people have turned to medications to help soothe their basic fears or they ignore them completely, to their eventual downfall - mentally and physically. Fear can be a healthy thing and it is meant to be helpful - but only if you stop to learn from your fears.

What are You Afraid of?

For most of us, listing our fears is a daily routine we do in our heads when we wake up. We fear getting to work late, heading into too heavy of traffic, etc. Right now, start a journal which you will carry around with you for one day, listing all of the fears you have as you go through your life. These can be silly fears (to you) as well as bigger fears. What you will notice at the end of this day is that your list is very, very long. Our lives are driven by fears and thus we tend to continuously come up with new ones in order to feel normal and sane.

Naming your fears is the first step to attacking them and turning them into allies instead of enemies.

Taking on Your Fears

Once you have this list of fears, you need to begin look at them from a practical and non-judgmental viewpoint. First of all, ask yourself if any of these fears came true. If so, circle the fear. If not, don't circle them. If you have a lot of circles, you're probably in the minority. Going to the circled entries, think about new ways that you can avoid these fears and make them less of a likelihood. This might mean that you avoid certain situations or that you learn how to adjust your life in order to stop them from coming true. For example, if you fear getting to work late, but you perpetually leave your house late too, you need to change the way you live in order to arrive at work on time.

After considering the fears which have come true, you can then move onto the fears which have not come to pass. These fears are the ones that need to be challenged. Ask yourself with each fear how this fear is either unlikely or if it is something you can control. For example, if you fear for the lives of your family, is there anything that indicates this might be reasonable right now? Ask yourself if there is anything you can do to help protect them? If you can not answer these questions, it's probably best that you begin to see the faults in your fearful thinking. These may be fears which are unreasonable for you to worry about - and you can begin to let them go or at least see their weakness.

Whenever you have a new fear, take a moment to follow this process in your head. Ask yourself if the fear is reasonable and if there is anything you can do. Once your mind begins to recognize that you are rationally looking at your fears, you will begin to see fewer fears popping up.