FEAR As a Life Giving Friend!
Written by: Ojeme Isioma
Hi there! If you have decided to read this, then that shows you have decided to open your heart to the reception of the information I am about to pass to you, and I sincerely love you for this!
First, I must establish that fear is not an enemy unless you make it one to you. It is an emotion that springs up as a result of the fact that we are humans and though spirit, we exist in a body called the flesh. And when I talk about emotion, I mean nothing more than feelings like happiness, love, peace, hate, will power and so on. Secondly, I must also not fail to let you know that fear does not fall into the category of “the good emotions” just like hate and pride. But because we are very optimistic people, we must learn to turn everything negative to begin to work in our favour, and we can only do this by bringing or seeing them in the light of positivity. So that rather than those things stop us, they are made to begin to drive us even closer to achieving our goals and purposes in life. And that is exactly what I have done with fear. You are about to begin to see fear from a different light.
More so, fear should not be given any definition beyond what it actually is, but this is where most of us have missed it. If fear must be defined, it has to be defined in a way that would make it work for you and not against you. The truest definition of fear is nothing. But for the sake of optimism towards success, we must begin to see it as a life giving friend. Lisa Nichols (my role model) said; “turn your fears to your fuel”. A life giving friend is a friend that comes around regularly to remind you of who you are and who you were created to be. He or she is a friend that stirs and wakes you up to action again, when for a moment you have forgotten your life purposes. This friend brings you back to the reality of your life goals. I am almost certain that right now, you are wondering how that connects with fear. Just a moment dear.
Lisa said; fear is “False Evidence Appearing Real” and I say; “smartly use it to win the case”! Fear as a life giving friend; if you take even just a minute to reflect on the effects fear usually has on you, you would find out these three things;
- Fear comes when you have the desire to achieve something; big or small.
- Fear springs up when you begin to strategize on your life goals.
- Fear tries to stop you when you are about to take a risk to achieve something or do something different or new.
The beautiful thing is that your fears could come differently and for different reasons from the ones listed above and even for more reasons than just those three. But remember that a life giving friend is one that comes at the crucial moments of your life, so does fear. I really hope that by now, you would have begun to see the picture that I am trying to paint about fear as a life giving friend. But if you have not, no problem you will, soon enough. Normally, we see fear as an enemy because we have brought ourselves to believe that fear is that little chatter that begins to scream out the possibilities of your plans and goals not working out at the very moment you begin to think about them. It is that monster that gives you every reason not to quit your job and take up a new one that is in line with your passion, it simply presents to you, false evidences of why you would not be able to get a new one, thereby leaving you stuck right where you are! We see fear as that demon that tries to stop you from doing something new, investing that money or running that race because it continually rings the bell of failure in your head. I must say that this is true and it happens only because we have believed it and defined it as whatever it is to us. This is where my quest for optimism must come in.
What if we begin to see fear from a different light, a light or perspective that would work in our favour as we travel on our journey to the land of success! That could work right? Let us start by building a better relationship with fear (and I would start by no longer writing fear in bold), seeing fear as a positive emotion (even though it actually isn’t), and seeing fear as a friend because an enemy will certainly not set out to help you! Having done that, great! Let’s move on. Rather than see fear as an evil man that comes to strangle the neck of your mind whenever you want to achieve something great, try to start seeing it as a life giving friend that comes at every crucial moment of your life to let you know that if you do not read, you would not pass those exams, if you’re not yet well informed, you should not speak in public (but fear would actually tell you that you cannot), if you do not take good care of your health, you will break down sooner or later, if you never learn to begin to place your passion, dreams and goals as your priority, you will never be able to invest your money in anything, if you are not passionate enough about music, you would not be able to quit a well-paid job to pursue your dreams because pursuit is the proof of desire!
How about we begin to see fear as a reminder to the things we must and need to do to achieve the things we want to achieve? How about we begin to see fear as a bell that rings to let us know that we have not yet arrived the mountain top (because we can) so we must keep climbing, we must keep reading to stay informed and make an A in that course, we must awake to the reality of the needs of our priorities. How about we begin to understand that your fear can be turned to the fuel that would make your car drive at a higher speed to the land of success! How about we see fear as that friend that tells us that we cannot do something because we have not done that which we need to do to enable us achieve that which we want to achieve. Rather than see fear as a monster, how about we see it as an angel that comes to whisper truths into our ears, even though it comes in the statement of a lie. What I mean by this is; fear comes and whispers “you will fail Chemistry 101 exams because you do not even understand a single thing in it”. This must be immediately rejected for the sake of optimism and because currently, it remains a lie as you have neither written the exams nor seen your results that you actually failed. But you must bear in mind that the truthful part of it is this “you need to read and understand Chemistry 101 for you to be able to pass the exams”. This is a truth that any life giving friend will tell you, but was it stated that way by fear? No.
The message from fear was harsh and scary but its truth remains that you need to study to pass. Now, that is what I mean by fear being a friend that tells you some truths but states it in form of a lie. So in reality, what should you do when you hear a statement like that from fear? Pray? Yes you should pray, but against what? Against fear? Well to me, not really because remember that now, fear is seen as a life giving friend. Besides, it is almost impossible to eliminate it as long as we exist in this body, but there is something you can change. If you asked me I would say; “pray against not being able to understand when you read Chemistry 101 and that your God Himself should grant you understanding”. Going spiritual, God calls fear a spirit in the Bible and He says that He has not given us this spirit (remember that fear is not a good emotion but we want to make it work in our favour, and now God says it is even a Spirit!). He then gave us three weapons which we can use to silence and change the lying statement of fear to a believable truth as well as help us focus on the main thing(s), which is to pass Chemistry 101 exam (achieve your dreams and goals). These three weapons are Power, Love and a Sound mind but some versions call it Boldness. I hope you are getting my message? Please don’t get confused here. This this is how we can respond to the whispers of fear spiritually.
Nevertheless, another way to respond to fear is by taking radical actions and doing the exact opposite of what the fear statements says. Still using Chemistry 101 exam as an example, doing the exact opposite of what fear says is simply passing Chemistry 101 exam. But it doesn’t just happen like that, you must take radical actions. And what are these actions? Studying hard, getting as much information as you can on Chemistry 101, meeting a friend or the lecturer for further explanations, and then making the life giving friend to go away ( although not completely because it would come again when there is yet another goal to achieve) by having an A or at least a C in Chemistry 101! Did that clarify anything for you? I really hope so. But again, just in case that did not, what I mean is this; when fear comes to whisper while you are sitting, rather than collapse or lie down, stand up and stay strong. Fear should not stop you rather, it should push you from behind (your fuel now). Fear is not from God as earlier stated here and in the Bible, rather, it is from our negative humanly structured mind set towards the things unseen and unknown, it is a false evidence appearing real and now, we must see it as life giving friend so that when it comes, we are not scared and are able to handle it with power and sensibility. This is why we must not conform to the things of this world but be transformed by the renewing of our mind as the Book of Romans 12:2 has made us to understand.
In addition, I would love to leave an illustration with you before I conclude this write up, so that you would not forget this message. This is to summarize everything I have written so far as well as provide you with a formula that you can use to turn your fears to your fuel and begin to see it as a life giving friend. Do you know of an alarm that beeps or rings out loud when there is a fire outbreak in an organization or a company or where ever? If you do, then that is good. And if you don’t, please try to find out about it. Now, why does that alarm ring when there is a fire outbreak? It rings because, that is what it has been programmed or created to do. When does it ring? It rings when there is a fire outbreak. How does it ring? It rings loud enough to the hearing of at least everyone in the organization, especially the security agents so that they would be able to contact the fire service on time. We are about to learn something from this illustration. When the alarm rings what happens? Everyone immediately awakens and becomes alert! Those sleeping are woken up, those working on their computers stand up from where they have been seated, those walking pause a bit and then everyone begins to scream and try to find their way out of the organization or company as soon as possible so that they would not be caught up in the fire. The security agents immediately contacts the fire service so that the fire can be put out! (Take note of the words written in bold).
Now tell me, at this moment, do you think anyone ever thinks of going to stop the alarm from ringing out loud into their ears by maybe getting a stick to destroy it? I don’t think so because anyone who does that, certainly does not love his or her life. At that point the major focus is to get out of the organization and get the fire put out! And even after this experience, do you think anyone that comes back to the organization would suggest that the fire alarm be deactivated? Certainly not! Why? Because that was what alerted them of the fire, so they were able to escape and put it out on time. (Take note: your fear is an evidence of a big dream). I tell you, this is the same experience with fear. Fear is more like a fire alarm, although it screams out loud into our ears which is not so pleasant, that is what it has been programmed to do by our own minds, and it gives us an alert of what is likely to happen if certain things are not done by you. The mistake we make again is this; we pay attention to the fire alarm rather than the fire itself that is about to break out or must have even broken out. In other words; we focus our mind on fear rather than the things we have set out to achieve. This should not be so. My formula for you is this; G.E.T.E. In full this is; Get the message of fear (listen to the alarm and understand why it is ringing out so loud!), Embrace it (don’t panic or start fidgeting at fearful thoughts, rather, think of them as fire alarms and remember that a friend is to be embraced), Take radical and necessary actions and Explore your dreams and goals! If that sounds beautiful and soothing to you, then I advise that you adopt this formula of mine as you journey to the land of success and I wish you the safest journey ever!
In conclusion, I believe I have been writing to an optimistic person, yes, you reading this, and I hope that I have been able to make you even more optimistic about your life and your journey to the land of success. If so, then that is so beautiful! But if you are the one who has been pessimistic about your life and your journey to the land of success, I really and sincerely hope that I have been able to lift off this burden of fear from your shoulders, if so, then that makes it even more beautiful! I strongly believe that from now on, we would no longer have FEARS so to say, rather we would have what I call fire alarms or let me put it this way; life goals alarms that are life giving friends. You get the gist right? Beautiful! I love you reading this, and it is because I really do!
@WeWriteToTransform.
Inspired by the Syndicate Voice Project (Ojeme Isioma)
Inspired by Lisa Nichols (Role Model)
BY OJEME ISIOMA
ABOUT ME
I am a transformational writer, a public speaker and a poet who has a great passion for creating a better humanity.
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