40 FEARS - IDENTIFY THEM SO YOU CAN DEFEAT THEM

Cancer actually can help in the universal human plight of dealing with fear by bringing many out in the open where they can be confronted and dealt with - but some stealthy ones will still remain. Most people have to drill down to see where fears have invaded the different arenas of their lives. Many people have been protected by a veneer of the good life, status, possessions or health such that they have been able to overlook the taunting of the Dragon or compensate for the wounds it inflicts. Fear is only something they read about or see in others; it is not real to them. Yet it can still be there manipulating their thoughts, decisions and actions. It just moves unrecognized in their lives beneath the veneer.

 Identify your big fears, and write them down. Seriously! Stop now, make a list and give each fear a name. Then go in search of every other little fear, even the ones that are so small that you hesitate to call them fear all. Write them down too. Go looking in every part of your life and don’t let any fear hide behind any euphemism like concerned about or troubled by or maybe.

Then start imagining about how each one can hurt you and how they can collectively box you in and start eroding your life. Think long and hard about how they influence your decisions, your expectations and your happiness. Ask yourself how you would feel and what you might do if you weren’t afraid of them. Write the answers down and mull them over. Drag the Dragon into the open and expose every tooth and claw. Then you are at least able to keep an eye on it and out run it whenever it tries to overtake you. If you see it coming you can out pace it and hold it off until you can defeat it later.

Find it, name it and keep your eye on it. After watching it for a while and seeing what it is doing to your life until you are so ticked off that you are ready to do something about it. While you’re doing that  learn some tricks of how to manage fear, to buy yourself enough time to figure out how to altogether defeat it. Those who are able to get fear off their backs lighten their load, run faster, better and often longer down the backstretch – and even enjoy the running.

Being good will not get the Dragon to leave you alone; there is nothing in it for him. But indifference, especially mocking indifference he cannot abide. Your task will be to figure out what you need to be able to ignore him. You do that and he becomes irrelevant, powerless and defeated and will recede into the darkness from whence he came. The Windrunners do it.