FearJuly2010 <click on link to the left> Share it. Give it away. Read it. Post it on your own blog.

The question I get most from people, other than - “What should I do with my life?” is, “Aren’t you afraid?” I thought about it and the two really are more related than you’d think at first glance. Of course I’m afraid. We all are. That’s how we’re designed. Fear keeps us alive. Without fear how would we be able to associate love, abandonment and being turned out of our tribe to die for not driving the right car or using the right mouthwash? Seriously. Fear is part of our lives.

We’re afraid to be different. We’re afraid to be the same. We’re afraid to stand out. We’re afraid we’re not remarkable. We’re afraid of spiders, snakes, heights, death, being homeless, public speaking and clowns. We’re afraid we’re too young, too old, too fat, too skinny, too ugly, too smart, too dumb, too pretty, too plain, too black, too white, too ethnic, too out of it, too up-tight, too uncool.

We are afraid our partners will leave us, or afraid they won’t. Face it. We’re a fearful creation. We may push fear away with alcohol, drugs, the promise of sex or money, but it doesn’t disappear. It just shape shifts. A fear of being fat is really a fear of being shunned or outcast or not loved. A fear of being poor - same thing - a fear of loss of the things we do have that we fear are not enough.

Trace fear back to its origins and you find the same thing - the “lizard brain” those organs in our brain that used to warn us that tigers or dinosaurs or weather or threats were approaching in order to prepare us for “fight or fight.” Now it prepares us for the boss criticizing us, or our parents disagreeing with the way we live our lives, or our best friend’s comments about our wardrobe. That’s not what fear was intended to do.

Advertisers and marketers have twisted fear so that what used to look like a saber tooth tiger now looks like driving the wrong car, or wearing the wrong brand, or shaving with the wrong razor.

But back to the question. Am I afraid? You bet I am. But not so much of not fitting in, or looking silly, or challenging the status quo. I am afraid I will not be able to defend my boundaries, or that in a moment of weakness I will choose what is easy over what is right. I’m afraid that I will stop caring when I should care more. I am afraid that one day evil will triumph over good and I will be in its path when it does its dark, celebratory dance and it will crush me.

I do not hate fear. But I respect it. And I think we should. I also think we should listen to it and learn to tell when it is telling us a Chicken Little story, or when it’s pointing out that that friendly neighbor has a lot in common with the serial killer in that documentary we just watched.

Be aware of fear. Know where it comes from and how to stop it, or at least how to live with it in such a way that you can enjoy life around you. Fear is finite. We control it with our thoughts. We can, in time, learn to talk to it and reason with it rather than run screaming from whatever boogie man in whatever shadow it points to. That’s why I wrote this book on fear. It’s for writers with writers block, but the principles are true for anyone. And it’s free. I’m not selling it. I’m just sharing it. I just want you to think about fear and it keeps you from doing. See it as something you can control - because for a lot of us - with the right training, diet, practice and insights - we can control a lot of our fears. Consider this the first step into self-exploration. Because - that’s what it is.

Download it and enjoy. And thank you. If the link isn’t working - email me. Thanks!