The doors kept on opening and each one was connected to the other. I hurried through until the sweat trickled down my brow and I stood close to what sensed as the last one. The heart dreaded opening that door. The mind worked relentlessly indicating bad news. And then suddenly, with a jerk, I woke up with a shudder in the air.
I am a dreamer. I sleep less and travel the endless avenues of my brain more where all my thoughts reside. Once a palmist told me, “You use the brain as a video player. It will exhaust your energies. Switch off when you close your eyes!”
Dreams often reflect the events of the days gone by or anticipated occasions that are yet to arrive. The positivity or negative impact depends much upon our disposition. This is what experts say when you try to interpret your thoughts. I don’t rely much upon their literal matter but always try to extract the emotion attached to be able to analyse the working of my own sound box.
Dreams that have left an impact on my senses have always been connected to the emotion of fear and anxiety. The dread of the unknown, of being wrong or the inability to understand the relevance of what matters most.
Fear can almost suffocate you with its dark shadow if you let it grow and prosper in your heart and mind. It has the power to cripple your strengths and abandon your reasoning space. It is fear that stops you from taking a chance or living your dreams. You watch other people moving ahead in life and wonder what gives them that courage to do so. They share stories of courage with you and leave a strong impression. Little do you realise that they make a conscious decision to keep their fears to themselves.
It’s important to point out here that we don’t always have to believe what we think. The mind can play many games with our vulnerable existence. It can instigate us with lies when our hearts are lonely, trigger our imagination when there is no light and build upon nothing when the heart is racing to find a cause. It is at such times that we tend to engage ourselves with unwanted and ugly situations. We argue on trivial matters in a manner that they become the determining factors to our relationships. Therefore, the key to change is to let go of your fears.
There is a famous quote, “Replace fear of the unknown with curiosity”. If we are able to sustain our fears through investigation and the determination to find out, we definitely hold a better chance to conquer the mystery of the unknown.
I squeeze my palms each time I enter a bank with absolutely no knowledge of which counter to deposit the cheque to or simply extract some money. I stand like a frozen statue completely drained with the fear to make a fool out of myself. I just can’t seem to warm up to the formalities of its environment. And whenever I have been pushed into the situation, I have had to go through the entire episode with a singular expression of fright.
Therefore, everything in life needs to be understood and not feared. The shame of failure, the revenge in rejection and the disappointment in self are all negative energies that we need to disconnect with in order to move forward. It is indeed sad that we allow our fears to intercept our joys and burden our future with many apologies and regrets. Things we could have done, thoughts we could have shared, relationships we could have built!
Expectations also play a primal role in glorifying the fear factor. We stretch ourselves in the desire to please the ones that we love in order to gain their acceptance. People fear failing fitting into the moulds created for each other. So, who is it that you fear really? Is it the person that you are or the person that you aren’t? The only way to discover the truth would be to break the mould and free yourself from this prison. Be the person that you are without an apology or an expectation to please all with your existence.
Everything that we fear will end in the face of death. What shall remain is what matters. Therefore, have the courage to realize your dreams. Open every door that comes your way knowing that it connects to another to lead you to the truth, however frightening that might be! Don’t waste your time standing at the door, anticipating bad news and losing every opportunity to find out what might have been.
The only thing to fear is to not exist.
I was so like what you have beautifully expressed above, my complexes plus shortcomings always made me feel inferior even infront of my younger siblings, (which has a connection to my childhood time spent in Pakistan) till one day when I realised that I am no different to others. Why wasting the precious time and resources that My lord Almighty has blessed with..... It is not at all easy to grow out of your fears, Alhamdolilah i was able to defeat them to the point where I went ahead and worked for big names like Standard chartered Bank, First Gulf Bank and Barclays... And now working with one of the most racist people one could ever encounter and still getting things done the way I want them e.g. wear HIJAB and not eating or drinking what my religion forbids me from.... Alhamdolilah. In my opinion one only trots into trouble when they lose faith in Allah SWT.
ReplyDeleteI think its important to think but not to the extent that it begins to stop us from taking the plunge... in an odd way, fear compels our courage to take charge!
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