Fearful: Let it be normal to be

“You have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Franklin Roosevelt made this statement in his inaugural speech in 1933, when elected President.

The global economy had just undergone the great depression in 1929. Banks were losing depositors as people were scared. He was appealing to the population to stop being afraid.

But isn’t it an oxymoron to be afraid of fear?

We are all fearful. Some more than others. You about one thing, me about another.

But because we portray fear as this unwanted, undesirable emotion, we suppress our feelings.

Recently, I watched a young girl sitting in a sling. The sling would propel her into the air, some eighty feet, and then bring her back to earth.

As it did, her face contorted with fear, as she was constantly being mocked by her taunting younger brother.

She stepped down after the assault on her senses, ashamed that she was not fearless.

But isn’t everyone sitting on the proverbial sling? All the time?

Aren’t we all desperately masking our fears and anxieties. Fearful of being fearful?

What if we could normalise fear instead?

What if the world could acknowledge that human beings are not the all powerful, conquering superior lifeforms that can do anything?

That it is fine to be afraid. In fact that all living species experience it at some point. That in fact, by normalizing fear, we improve our ability to deal with it.

No, I am not asking you to accept being fearful. On the contrary, I am asking you to deal with it. Just deal with it by first accepting that it is fine to be so.

Your ability to do so will improve.

We live in a world where schema’s are imposed onto us. Be this. Be that. Dont be this. But occasionally, we need to ask ourselves - are these schema’s mine?

Is this schema helping or hurting me?

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