The Chains of Fear

What is your deepest fear? There are many to choose from. I am not really talking about phobias here, fear of heights, bugs, small spaces, etc. I am referring to things like the fear of death, the unknown and the highest on most lists… public speaking! That is very interesting when you think about it. Most of us have a deeper fear of being viewed negatively in the public eye than of facing death! So the fear of not fitting in, being rejected, or at least not accepted by others is deeper and closer to our core than anything else.

What does that tell you? It tells me that our first fear, the one that occurred immediately after we “fell from grace” was and is that we are separate somehow from “all that is”. This illusion is so powerful that we feel an intense need to belong to something bigger than ourselves. We seek acceptance and approval through a group. Many of us have more than one group to fall back on just in case we do get ostracized from one of them.

Of course, this fear of rejection does not pertain only to public speaking. It grips us anytime we see something from a different perspective than our group. The moment we begin to show our individuality by not accepting certain principles of the group’s reality, we make ourselves vulnerable because we may no longer “fit in”.

Our egos want to keep that from happening at all costs. After all, what will become of us if we have no groups to belong to? I have seen this fear grip people so many times throughout life in various circumstances. Some examples include:·  A man too afraid to defend a gay friend of his around a group of so-called “tough guys” or “men’s men”·  Women who act like best friends in a group then attack the character of one of the group the moment she walks away – no matter which one walks away·  A mistreated employee afraid to tell management the truth about their working conditions or their immediate supervisor and/or afraid to just quit·  Family and so-called friends distancing themselves from someone they have known for years because he or she has shown courage to risk everything for an ideal which is something they don’t have

The hero within you doesn’t let that kind of fear stop you from expressing your truth. Almost everyone says, “I don’t care what people think! I do what I think is right.” Yet very few people act in accordance with that concept. Your hero walks that talk and lives those statements as a personal motto!