Analyzing Fear

We are fearful because we are not living life; we are living in our mind. Our fear is always about what’s going to happen next. This implies that our fear is about that which does not exist. From this we can imply, that if our fear is about something that is non-existent, it must be imaginary. Unfortunately, for many people even imaginary situations are real and difficult to cope with.

Many people are concerned with either what has happened yesterday or what may happen tomorrow. So our suffering is always about that which does not exist, simply because we’re not rooted in reality, we are living in our mind instead. Mind and memory are one part; another part of it is imagination. If we were rooted in reality, there would be no fear.

Fear creates boundaries around us. If we place boundaries and restrict the arena of our life, we may feel safe, but the problem is that we are not living freely, we are protecting life from freely expressing.

We have to decide whether we exist to experience life fully, or to avoid it. If we have come to experience life fully, we need to live it with courage. If we do not possess courage we will experience a meager life. The moment we use fear as a tool to protect ourselves, our intensity of life will diminish and our ability to experience life at its fullest is gone. When we live our life primarily with a fearful mind, we will never experience anything fantastic and ecstatic nor live with a sense of abundance because we lack the freedom of free expression. We find it hard to enjoy life as it is meant to be. In extreme cases we can only sit and grieve about life and all its troubles.

If we examine our circumstances fear is never about what has happened, it is always about what may happen. It is always about the future. The future is yet to happen. It has not yet happened. That means, it is not in existence. So, being fearful means our suffering is about something that does not exist. Unfortunately we are surrounded by fear and we tell ourselves that since the majority is suffering from fear, our fear is justifiable.

How to Overcome Fear

Irrational fear is a product of imagination it is not rooted in reality. Often we think of situations of the past and apply to what happened then to the future.

In summary, we can plan for our tomorrow but we cannot live in our tomorrow. But many people are living in the tomorrow and that is why there is fear. We need instead respond to what is happening right now, at this very moment. The worst that can happen is that we may die. This is not what we wish upon ourselves, but it can happen. There is really no security, no guarantee in life. It is just a question of how gracefully and with how much freedom we choose to live.