Fear and Self-Absorption

“If we have fear, we are too focused on ourselves”

On this spooky Halloween day I thought it only appropriate to write about fear.  Hopefully all of us will experience some “good” fear today that causes our blood to flow, our juices to run, and our adrenaline to kick in just a little giving us an added boost to be our best today. 

Unfortunatley, much of the fear we possess in our lives is negative.  In fact, fear can become or has become completely crippling for many people.  We become stuck in the fear rut.  Sadly, most of us view fear as something that happens to us rather than something that we can control.  I believe in many instances, fear is self-induced and is completely under our control.   

Fear is often a result of our own narcissistic nature.  When we fear, we often are too focused on ourselves.  We worry about our own self-image or well-being. And in many regards, we consciously or subconsciously hold on to fear and use it as an acceptable excuse of why we don’t do what we know we should do, behave the way we know we ought to behave, or make changes we know we must make.  Instead of doing what we can, could, and should do, we use fear as a nice security blanket that ends up gradually suffocating us throughout life. 

So to combat fear we need to stop being so self-absorbed, so selfish!   I’ve learned it is very difficult to hang on to fear when I am focused on the well-being of others.  There is something that happens to our fear when our care and concern for ourselves is swallowed up by our care and concern for others.  Rather than fearing what will happen to us, we need to think about others.  When we shift our focus, our fear will wash away…almost magically.    

So this Halloween, let us eliminate fear from our lives by focusing on others.  When we do feel fear, let’s analyze it, be honest about it, and then change our focus.  In a lot of ways we truly do have “nothing more to fear than fear itself” because fear keeps us from reaching our potential and experiencing joy in life.  Don’t let fear get in the way of becoming the best you! 

Happy and Safe Halloween to all!