Fear Limits Our Growth

How never to fear

Selective Focus Photography of Monk during MeditationPhoto by Prince Kumar

We all have different kinds of fears. For some, the future is fearful. For others, taxes are.

Regardless of the object of our fear however, fear functions in pretty much the same way.

Unconsciously, we all cling to the known, the familiar, our past. We need for things to remain as they’ve always been.

This attachment to the known makes us pray, wish, act passively or aggressively, in order for life as we know it to remain the same.

What this implies is that we’re all living in a field with a limited perimeter.

And here’s the fascinating part.

Fear is only triggered when we’re pushed out of our perimeter, or as it’s commonly, and very interestingly called — our comfort zone.

In general, we are conditioned to view fear as a life-threatening feeling.

Most people simply retract back within their perimeter whenever Life challenges them.

This is “normal life.” But what we don’t realize in living like this is that we give ourselves a small room to grow.

We can’t possibly grow as a person, and reach our highest heights in terms of potential, as long as we keep clinging to the known.

Growth, the “higher self,” our best version — it exists outside the known.

It’s new, it’s different, and it most certainly shatters the “sunshine and rainbows” box we’ve locked ourselves in, thereby creating discomfort.

In times of adversity, we’re conditioned to take things personally and feel sorry for ourselves. Things may or may not go in our favor, which again comes back to the idea of strengthening the “fences” of our perimeter.

Eventually, we are so bogged-down by our own fencing that we become mechanical, or “senile.” We think the same thoughts for eons. We barely grow as a person. We’re bored and boring to ourselves too.

But, what if there was another way?

The only reason we’re burdened with fears, worries and anxieties is because we keep clinging to the known in a reality of infinite possibilities.

What if, instead of retracting in times of adversity — we actually raced toward our challenges?

Embracing adversity, and accepting it as a fact of living — because it is, we weren’t meant to be passive, but active — creates a breach in our “perimeter.”

It may feel overwhelming at first, we may fall flat on our face. But as we keep embracing adversity as a fact of living, we keep moving outside the known.

This movement into uncharted territories — it happens within by the way — naturally creates newer patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving.

Eventually, fear decreases.

Contrary to popular belief, fear doesn’t vanish through sheer will, through “hypnosis” or through pep talk. Rather, in embracing adversity as a stepping stone to growth — fear is seen for what it is, an attachment to the known, a refusal to own our power as creators, and the acceptance to settle for a passive existence.

The biggest “job” of any spiritual seeker is to get out of the mud of conditioning. Our conditioning is thick.

We free ourselves of our conditioning by understanding how it operates our lives behind the curtains of identification.

One day, we’ll all see for ourselves just how much all of our fears have always been thoughts we believed in.

And once the thought vanishes, what remains is the smile of a winner, ready to take bold action, and grow as a person.