Your Friendly, Neighborhood Fear Fairy

Dear Past Self,

A few years ago, I realized that Fear was holding me back from achieving my goals. Not because I’d had any particularly horrible experiences–I wasn’t traumatized by an attacked, or deathly afraid of spiders, or trapped on a reality t.v. show. But I realized that my average, everyday fears were preventing me fro doing some of the things I wanted in life. So I made a New Year’s Resolution to face my fears. I figured I would face my fears, conquer them, and then walk into the sunset of my happier, more fulfilling life.

Looking back, though, I think I was thinking about fear all wrong.

See, I used to think of fear as a giant monster, one standing in the way. Like most people, I thought that facing fear was a matter of standing up to this enormous monster and conquering it in order to get what I wanted.

The Fear Monster

*For those who don’t know, turtle farts smell really bad.

 

However, after spending some time facing my fears, I began to realize that fear wasn’t a gigantic, poorly-drawn monster terrorizing my brain. Fear doesn’t always strike is obvious ways. Usually, Fear is more subtle. Instead of terrible, horrific strikes, fear often presents itself as calm, rational, even friendly. It’s less like a raging monster and more like a friendly fairy.

Yes, a fairy.

The Fear Fairy

*Yes, the Fear Fairy is a little pudgy. He is big-boned and also a nervous eater.

 

Monsters try to eat you, or crush your bones for bread, or whatever. Fairies, on the other hand, are somewhat friendly and well-meaning (mostly). And I believe that the fear fairy is genuinely well-intentioned. He wants to protect you. But, like an overprotective parent, he sometimes goes a little overboard.

 

 

The fear fairy can be sneaky and hard to spot precisely because he’s genuinely trying to look out for you. He’s trying to spare you the pain of getting hurt or rejected. He can sound very reasonable.

 

 

The tough thing is, the Fear Fairy can’t just be ignored. And he’s not a monster to be slain, either. Fear is part of being human. So even when you don’t think he’s around, even when you’ve beaten him, the Fear Fairy slips back into your thoughts.

 

 

But the nice thing about the Fear Fairy is that he doesn’t have to be working against you. If you face the Fear Fairy–really honestly face him–he can actually be helpful. After all, fear is just a signal from your body. It’s just information you can use. And that information tells you something about yourself or about a situation that you might not have otherwise known.

Because when the Fear Fairy sends a message like this:

 

What he’s really saying is usually something like this:

 

Unlike a monster, The Fear Fairy can actually help you figure out what you care about. He can tell you when you’re out of your comfort zone and when you’re pushing myself.  Now that I’m not so busy trying to fight fear any more, I’m able to take this information and work with it

Fear is like a kind old uncle giving you advice.  It’s always worth it to listen, and then you can take the advice, or only part of the advice, or none of the advice as you see fit.

 

Once you get to know the Fear Fairy, it turns out that he’s really not such a bad guy. After all, you both have the same goals. You just sometimes have slightly different ideas about how to get there. Learning to take both those ideas and harness them into something positive is a skill I’m still working on, but something I think will help me reach more goals much more quickly than I would if I were ignoring fear altogether and pushing it away.

I hope this helps, Past Self! Good luck!

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