REDEFINING MY RELATIONSHIP WITH FEAR
Written by Shanita Lyn. Images via Unsplash.
Photo by Bradley Ziffer.
Forget karma — I used to think fear was the biggest bitch of all.
Fear was what stood in the way of me having and being everything I ever wanted. Because of fear, I was unable to do simple things like drive, or talk to strangers, or exist peacefully within a ten-foot radius of a cockroach. It was to blame for everything that I wanted to be but was not — independent, brave, calm, happy, loved, fulfilled.
This was all back when I used to think of fears as individual, separate things, brought on by different triggers. To me, my fear of cockroaches was entirely different from my fear of driving. My fear of not doing well at school was nowhere near the same as my fear of losing a loved one. My fear of speaking to strangers wasn’t even in the same category as my fear of not living life to its fullest potential. And that’s not even taking into consideration all the other sneaky ways fear manifests itself in our emotional make-up — like my insecurity about the way I looked, or the doubts I had about whether I mattered to people, or the low self-esteem I had around anyone who wasn’t my immediate family. The list goes on and on.
Photo by Francisco J. Villena.
These days, though, I’m realising that all fears are really just different manifestations of one fear. Now I look at fear as this sort of thing that lives inside you — which then goes and finds things outside you to latch onto. It’s not the objects of your fear themselves that are scary. Someone else may be able to pick a cockroach up by the antenna without flinching, plenty of people love driving, and death is a natural part of life anyway, so why fear losing someone to it? None of these things are objectively fear-inducing. It’s just that something inside us seizes up when faced with them, for some reason or another, and it’s up to us to take a closer look at why we’re reacting the way we do to these specific things.
It was actually an experiment from the last issue of BRAZEN that helped me come to this realisation, which would redefine my relationship with fear completely. Since I was working on the fear issue, and needed a bit of inspiration to get the process going, I asked myself: What am I still afraid of — like, really afraid of? Was it still cockroaches? Was it losing people I cared about? Being rejected? Crashing my car? Making a fool of myself? Letting people down? Dying with regrets? Dying, period?
I’d felt, for the longest time, that these were my most pressing and valid fears. But upon asking myself the question directly, I realised they didn’t hold the same weight they used to back when I first identified them. And the common thread running through all those things was the fact that I had, at some point or another, confronted them and come out the other side safe and intact. Changed, sure, but always for the better.
The answer I arrived at, after working through these more obvious answers, surprised me.
I realised that I was afraid of my own success. I was afraid that I would achieve everything I’d ever wanted — that I would be independent, loved, happy, beautiful, wealthy, influential, well-travelled, intelligent, fulfilled beyond my wildest dreams. I was afraid, in short, of being absolutely, totally free.
Photo by Maddison Fantillo.
But why?
It took a bit more soul-searching to come to the conclusion that this could be, quite simply, a fear of the unknown. I’ve never known what it’s like to be one hundred percent free in the way I live my life and make my decisions. There’s always some factor or other that decides things for me, whether it’s not having enough resources, or having someone else involved in the decision and having to take their position into account, or other factors beyond my control. I’ve faced situations like losing loved ones, screwing up something that meant a lot to me and other situations that I had feared for the longest time, and inevitably, finally experiencing them and making it through them taught me that I could do it and would be able to do it again in the future, even if it wasn’t all that fun. I learned patience, resilience, compassion and forgiveness. I learned, as Elizabeth Gilbert so beautifully puts it, to have mercy — on myself and the people around me. But total freedom, independence and success is something I haven’t, in my 24 years of life, had the chance to experience yet, and perhaps it’s that aspect which makes it so daunting to me.
This time, though, my approach to it is a little different. It took a bit of journaling, but I’ve realised something very important about fear that I never noticed before. Fear is one of the best teachers you will ever encounter in your life. Fear shows you where you’re stuck, where you’re holding yourself back, and where you’re not yet free. Upon realising that I was scared of absolute freedom, I started to realise all the ways I’ve been sabotaging myself so that I wouldn’t achieve all the things I wanted to achieve. By acknowledging these fears, rather than dismissing them or being ashamed of them, I was then able to work through them. And I’ve learned, from having faced some of my biggest fears and made it out the other side unscathed, that I’m greater than these fears. These fears came from within me and manifested in the outside world — therefore, I and I alone have the power to uproot them and tell them their services will no longer be necessary.
And that in itself can be a scary process — letting go of long-held fears can sometimes feel like losing your identity, in a strange way. When you’ve carried a fear with you for a long time, it can start to feel like a part of you, a trait that makes you who you are. But with it comes unnecessary weight that prevents you from being all you could be. Also, do you really want to be defined by your fears rather than your voluntary choices?
It sounds a bit strange to say it, but I’ve learned to be grateful for my fears. I’ve learned to see them as signals and opportunities for self-questioning, rather than weaknesses. Kind of like a, “Hey, this bit needs some work!” rather than, “Hey, you suck!” You know? It’s a subtle difference, but a powerful one. How kind you are to yourself in your own head has a huge impact on the way you carry yourself and relate to others.
Edited by Shanita Lyn.
So, am I still scared of absolute success, fulfillment, happiness? As it turns out, science has proven that fear and excitement are actually the same emotion. The cocktail of chemicals produced in your body when you experience either of these feelings is the same — it’s your brain that decides whether to process it as something desirable or undesirable. This explains why some people are such adrenaline junkies, and are willing to do the most terrifying things for the sheer thrill of it. I’m starting to shift my perception of absolute success and look at it as something fun and exciting, rather than something daunting and beyond me. I’ve practically made it my job, to acknowledge and feel fear any time it comes up, and be like, “Well, isn’t this fun?” (Massive disclaimer here: I’m talking specifically about irrational fears. I’m not gonna be walking down dimly lit alleys or taking up rooftop parkour anytime soon.) Acknowledging that the fear is there, and then acknowledging that it’s unfounded, allows me to be kind to myself and work things out, rather than hold myself back. If I catch myself making an excuse, procrastinating, getting caught up in unimportant details or harming myself in any way, I recognise the fear behind it. I get down on its level, look it in the eye, and tell it kindly, but firmly, “Thank you for looking out for me. But it’s okay, I want this. And I’ll take it from here.”
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Shanita Lyn is a designer, artist and writer, and the founder/editor-in-chief of BRAZEN.
