Giving Your Fears Time Off

Facing your fears can make you stronger. What about this statement is true for you? When you have faced a fear, how did you feel? Looking deeper into what you fear and working passed that fear may bring about tremendous shifts in you.

We have a tendency to let fear grip us and sometimes overtake us. We give fear energy. We give fear life by not standing up to it. What happens when you look at your fears from your heart and not your head? Does your energy change?

When I was young, I used to have a dream that made me scared to go to bed. Frankenstein and Dracula (you know the ones from the old movies) used to chase me in my dreams. Then one day I heard a guy talking on TV about a way to face the things that scare you in your dreams and stand up to them. It was worth a try. One night when I was having this bad dream (I was 12 or 13 years old and remember telling myself to try this), Dracula and Frankenstein were chasing me though a huge, cold, damp and scary castle. This castle was made of huge stone with dungeons and secret passageways. I could feel the incredible fear in me - I actually felt my heart pounding. The monsters were chasing me, closing in and I couldn't run fast enough. Within my dream I remembered the voice of the man saying "stand up to the monsters". In my dream I stopped and turned around. Dracula and Frankenstein where right there behind me. With the man's voice in my head, I faced the monsters and told them to stop chasing nme and said that they didn't scare me anymore. Dracula and Frankenstein both turned to me and smiled. They were no longer scary, they were funny. They started laughing and playing with me and they even showed me around the castle. It was a wacky dream, but it showed me that I did have power over what I was afraid of.

After all these years that dream is still so vivid. I stood up to my fear of those monsters and I ended up friends with them. They weren't so big and scary after all. What if we dealt with all our fears this way? Look at your fears as if they were a dream. You are outside the dream looking in and advising your dream-self how to handle the situation. You tell your dream- self that these fears have no control over you. You are the one in control and you are the one that calls the shots. How do you think this can help you handle your fears?

My head just told me those monsters were supposed to be scary. When my heart took over in my dream, and I trusted myself, there was really nothing to be afraid of because I knew I could stand up to whatever the fear was.

Talk about confronting fear! What are your going to say to stop those monsters running after you?