While the quote I used for this blog is a quote from a film, '13th Warrior' released in 1999 based on Michael Crichton's book 'The Eaters of the Dead', it still echoes in my mind frequently as I go through this life. It resonated with me the first moment I heard it spoken to Anthony Banderas who played the role of the Arab emissary, Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, by his Viking buddy when they were about to be attacked by a horde of bloodthirsty seemingly supernatural and indefeatable killers who were cannibals predating on the Viking people. I immediately grasped the meaning of 'fear profits a man nothing' and it has stuck with me all these years.
The full line in the film verbatim is, "Go and hide in a hole if you wish, but you won't live one instant longer. Your fate is fixed. Fear profits a man nothing," and it says a LOT in my personal opinion. When we think about all of the times that fear of failure, fear of what may lie ahead, fear of what we may lose and fear of defeat has dictated our next step in life we need to be cognizant of the power of our fears and how they may have limited or saved us. Of course whenever we chose a new or different path or choose to play it safe on our path in this life we can only ever know the outcome from that specific choice and can never know what outcome may have been had we chosen differently. But we can at least acknowledge when fear has dictated our choices and how we may have ended up in a different place with a different outcome had we chosen to face our fear rather than be ruled by it.
Facing our fears. For some, and perhaps many, facing our fears is tantamount to jumping off a hundred story building knowing that certain death is the only possible outcome. Fear is a very powerful emotion. We all have instinctual fear that has evolved over the millennia of our evolution as human beings that has kept us safe and has ensured the continuation of our specie. Those fears such as fear of fire, fear of heights, fear of wild animals and maybe even fear of the unknown all are there for a reason and should always be heeded to a point but not allowed to overcome our common sense of what is truly dangerous to us or what is a real and present threat to our very lives. If humankind had allowed all of these instinctual fears to govern us exploration would never happen, innovation would never happen; there would be no airplanes, no rockets, no tall buildings and we would have killed off all the wild animals that we live among long ago and all completely out of fear. Fear is a powerful emotion that can drive us or can simply guide us through this life.
Sadly some among us have learned to be driven by our fears and not all of those fears are reasonable in nature but are fears encouraged in us by those who would profit from our fear and by those who seek to control us through our fear. Unfortunately around the world today, but most especially here in the United States, fear is being used as a control mechanism for the masses. Just turn on the television and watch a few minutes of any news report or watch a political candidate's speech or see a commercial for some drug that will help us avoid any pain and/or suffering or see a commercial telling us we should be afraid not to fit in/not to be accepted based on our appearance or watch a sermon instilling the fear of eternal damnation in us if we do not worship a certain deity and you will see how the attempt to instill fear in us is being used to make a profit for those at the top by controlling how we view the world around us and what fears we 'should' have about the present and/or our future.
Today there is an entire political campaign being run for the highest office in the land based on people's fears; not all of which are reasonable fears or are fears of things that are likely to ever happen. But for some among us just the idea that there is something, that we can't control, that may happen or that there are people, that we can't control, that may want to harm us is enough to cause us to put our trust in someone who is literally controlling us through our fears and often enough is instructing us on exactly what we should be afraid of. I don't believe however, because I have a basic faith in humanity, that enough of these easily influenced fearful people among us exist to elect this candidate into office but that doesn't mean that we can't look at how this candidate's supporters are being controlled and the power of suggestion that controls them. Therefore it is incumbent upon all of us who are aware and awake not to allow ourselves to become fearful ourselves of what these fearful masses might help someone accomplish in our country, which also has an effect on what happens in the world. We must adhere to the belief that common sense will prevail.
I have found in my personal life that had been controlled by truly limiting and daunting phobias since childhood that the ONLY way to overcome the intense fears that fueled my phobias was to force myself to face them. I suppose one could say that courage is involved and I suppose it is, but I would never view myself as any more courageous of a human than the rest of humanity. When one holds a fear deep within themselves the fear itself seems to be the driving force. I realized long ago that the object(s) of our fears isn't what causes the fear but it is our chosen way of seeing that object and the danger we attribute to it that is the true basis of our fears. In other words it's really all in our heads, those fears that drive our phobias. Our interpretation of what 'might' happen or 'might' be true in association with the object of our fear is what keeps us from dealing with it. The fear itself is the phobia while the object of our fear is innocuous and although it may actually be dangerous in some ways isn't what really truly drives that phobia. So in the end as former president Franklin D. Roosevelt said so long ago, "The only thing to fear, is fear itself," which seems to turn out to be quite true and quite relevant to everyone.
How I overcame the phobias I'd had since childhood was to force myself to gather up the courage to face each fear. It started with my phobia of snakes when I decided when my son was born that I didn't want to limit him as my mother had limited us kids due to her snake phobia so I started to learn about them. Funny thing was that the more I learned about snakes, the role they play in the environment and their nature as creatures the less I feared them and the more I admired them. It took a while but after forcing myself to learn about these amazing reptiles I found them to incredibly beautiful, useful and truly amazing creatures. To date I have overcome my fear, a fear that in my younger years wouldn't even allow me to 'look' at a photo of a snake on the printed page or watch one on television, to the point where earlier this year on a vacation in Mexico I held my very first snake. The feeling of accomplishment and of being free from this lifelong phobia was transformative. I don't recall feeling more proud of myself before nor of feeling better about being alive than the moment I held that beautiful creature in my hand and embraced the beauty of this animal that years ago I would quite literally have left the area to avoid being near.
My phobia of the dark I also overcame by forcing myself to be in the dark and reminding myself that there is nothing in the dark that wasn't there in the light. Today I walk through the darkened halls and rooms in our home smiling to myself as the pride of what I have overcome, on my own, wells up inside of me.
I don't share to brag but only to demonstrate that as powerful as our fears can be and as much as they can control our lives and the decisions we make in life that we have the power to overcome those fears. All it takes is a bit of courage and the determination to do it; to overcome that which instilled extreme fear within ourselves but that which does not bring us joy or success or pleasure or evolution of our own selves as human beings.
As with all other things it begins with an idea, an idea in our head that we no longer want to be controlled by fear but that we want to explore the world around us and our inner selves beyond the limits that our fears create for us. So coming around full circle perhaps it is necessary for us all to learn the ease with which we can overcome our fears and that when we allow our fears to govern our thoughts, our emotions, our decisions and our actions we are not meeting our full potential as human beings. In essence we need to accept and embrace that 'fear profits a man, or a woman, nothing'!
While those who now blindly choose fear to govern their emotions, their prejudices, their hatreds, who they associate with and their daily lives may live among us it is absolutely our responsibility to NOT allow our fears to govern us in similar ways. It's up to us to be stronger than that and to come together in an agreement that we will NOT allow fear to govern us but will go forth together in exploration of this world, and The Universe, we live in so that humanity can grow and evolve into what we who are awake and aware faithfully and passionately believe it can be; a place of equality for all, justice for all, prosperity for all and freedom for all.
Namaste and remember to face your fears; we all have the courage to do so, we simply must trust ourselves because we are all much stronger than we believe we are.
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