Danger of the Fear Story

The energy behind fear is very real. Not something to play around with. Or take lightly.

It reminds me of the time - years ago - when I was visiting some friends on the North Shore of Hawaii. They were born surfers. Who moved from Florida to enjoy the awesome waves.

Right before we got to the beach, a tourist was playing out in the water when a big wave came and washed him away. He just disappeared. His girl friend was screaming hysterically on the shore.

We left before they found his body. If they ever did.

That's what fear can do. One minute you're playing patty-cake with your fears. The next minute you're swallowed alive by those fears you've been avoiding.

Here's the problem:

You make up a story to explain your fear, and then forget you made it up.

You start out innocently enough. Dodging your fears. Hiding from them. Pretending they're no big deal. Rather than feeling the raw fears as they happen.

Instead of feeling the raw emotion, you create a personal explanation of what's wrong. Your own personal fear story.

Everybody loves stories. And everybody NEEDS explanations. Things have to make sense. Everything must be explained. So first, you create a story:

"They're out to get me. And I'm gonna get screwed. There's nothing I can do."

Then you rationalize it:

"Well, that makes sense."

Then you nobilize it:

"It's just something I have to go through..."

"I'm just too sensitive."

"Life is just too intense."

"I'm not powerful enough."

"I'm probably getting what I deserve."

And finally, you dramatize it. You come to believe it's real.

Whatever your particular statements are, you end up repeating them to yourself over and over.

The fear story captures your imagination. You can create elaborate scenarios in your head - visualizing them quite well - in great detail. But you have little imagination left over for other things. That's how fear 'captures' your imagination.

The story gets replayed over and over. It seems so logical! So easy to imagine. And it's hard to imagine anything else.

If you find yourself at this stage of 'captured imagination' - do you think it will end there?

The fear story takes a little bit of real fear and perverts it. Most of the real fear lies hidden away. Out of sight. So all you know is the story that keeps getting repeated as it seems to grow larger with each telling. It's like a huge underground root that keeps putting up more green shoots.

The danger of the fear story is that it can actually manifest. Your worst fears can happen, if you focus on them long enough and hard enough.

Are you aware of your fear story? Almost everybody has one. Usually, it plays in the background of your mind, like elevator music. You don't even realize it's playing. You don't even realize it's on. But it's constantly programming your subconscious mind:

"This is what's going to happen to me."

The very first thing to do is to bring it to conscious awareness. Recognize what it is. Place it in the light of day. Hold it up like an offending piece of rancid meat.

Study it; get to know it. Write it out, even. Then you can end it. Then you can stop being so scared.

It's just a story, after all.