Illustration: A cute girl sitting on a rock gazing at the moon in the night!
3 Most Popular Types of Fear and Their Antidotes
Fear of the Revelation of Past
Mistakes
Wake up if you have been carrying the baggage of a mistake, blaming yourself again and again. The reason behind this wake-up call is your ignorance of what you are. Aren't you a human and no human is perfect? Are you the one-and-only who has committed that mistake?
If you have mistaken in the past and it torments you to get revealed in the future, then understand that it is happening because you haven't fixed your mistake yet.
Antidote: Face, fix, and finish!
If a wound is not fixed with an ointment, it gets worst. It is better to take the one-time pain of applying the solution and leave the matter in the hands of the time. Face your mistakes and give your 100% effort to correct the things so that 100% of your life doesn't carry the weight of that mistake. If despite your efforts the traces remain, pick the lessons from the incident and leave the bitterness behind. Take peace considering the honesty in your efforts.
Sinful Deeds
The memories of the sin such as stealing, killing, destroying, or performing adulterous activities turn to guilt after its realization. The moment you come into the light, you understand how black was that mud, the filthy mud of your sins. Until and unless you realize what is sin, you enjoy doing it. When you encounter the truth, all your sins start to roll around you. People feel fear either of Lord or about the revelation of their sins.
Antidote: Repent and set yourself free.
Ask for forgiveness from the related person and the Almighty God. Let your sins die by letting your wrong practices come to halt. Let your resurrection witness a new person, a new "you". Once you conquer yourself, set yourself free from your sins' weight too.
Bad Memories
If a bad memory incorporates your mistakes or sins, one can at least give an effort to fix them. But what to do about the bitterness that is stirred and stored by the others? Although it is a custom of this world that a person hurts another person. And that another person hurts the other one. However, when knowingly or unknowingly, a close one hurts you, the pain rests on your deeper grounds.
The memory of a bad experience overpowers hundreds of other good memories. It eats them up and consumes all your joy and spark. You keep thinking about them and live in the fear of the repetition of the same incident. What to do in such a case?
Antidote: Repaint your memory with happy colors.
If it happens unknowingly because a person, forgive and recolor the old bitter memory. If it happens knowingly, then also forgive. Take a new canvas and fill it with the hues of peace and pleasure with your other beloved ones. Just remember, don't hold the old ones, and don't forget to collect new ones to cherish.
Uncontrollable Forces
There are situations when neither we nor people cause a bad memory to sustain in your heart. It is about the life that makes you taste sour. Such incidents build up the fear of an unsecured future.
Antidote: Let go and have faith that the seasons do change.
It is the law of nature and all the life-stages don't offer the same kind of emotion and feeling. Remove the old clutter so that when your good season comes, you should have enough space to restore yourself.
The Fear with Future Insecurities
Fear of Failure
Failures go hand-in-hand in life. No successful person can say that he or she never tasted failure. Still, we get afraid of getting successful. You choose any stream for exams or any profession to succeed, no one can guarantee a favorable result. Despite knowing this truth, the fear of failure and associated insecurities keeps you on your toes and your brain in stress.
Antidote: Make short and long-term plans.
Make logical and achievable goals of 2 types:
- Short-term goals such as daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals
- Long-term goals such as 5-years-plan, the ultimate destination, etc.
If you fail to achieve your short-term goals, make amendments to them time-to-time so that ultimately you can meet your final long-term plan. When you will see that you are aligned with your little plans, you will be able to proceed ahead happily and peacefully. This will boost the sense of assurance that as you are matching with the little goals, you will also reach your bigger goals by maintaining the same pace. It will remove the space for future insecurities.
Some insecurities and fears exist because of unorganized personal life such as fear in the night about not waking up on time, fear in the morning about the unprepared meeting, fear of missing an important date or event, and so on. Making a to-do list, properly broken schedules with reminders and alarms for events and special dates, flagging your priorities, and following the timetable without getting lazy or tired are some easiest yet effective tricks and tips to deal with your fears.
Messed Personal Life
Handling relationships is not a piece of cake in this era of complex generation. Envy, hatred, jealousy, unhealthy competitiveness, and agony are some issues that sometimes play with you, and other times with other people around you. It always keeps one in fear of losing the closed ones because of our or others' behavior or temperament.
Antidote: Stay humble and moving!
Friends, family members, or strangers, learn to keep yourself humble and your heart bigger. Humbleness preserves relations, keeping the atmosphere light in tougher situations. Even when it is your mistake, a soft and polite nature compensates your iniquities and makes the paths of patch-up smoother. On the other hand, a bigger heart guides one to forgive and move ahead.
Maturity doesn't come with growing age. It expands with the circumference of one's heart. The more you make it bigger, you grow in wider spaces. When this maturity increases, the insecurities and fears diminish because you also grow the confidence that you will deal with every situation and manage every relationship no matter how tougher and critical the issue is.
Inflicted or Broken Relationships
An unpleasant or broken relationship not only brings irritation, insecurities, and fear of repeated heartbreak but also dries your spirit and spark. Keep yourself updated with the reality-check of the state of any relationship so that before it reaches the critical condition to scare, you remain alert and prepare to face and fix.
Simultaneously, don't forget that the loopholes can be from your side too. The prolonged fear or insecurities can also create an issue without any real and logical issue. If you have faced broken relationships in the past, don't let them affect your present and potential bonds. After having such an experience:
- Avoid being skeptical in vain
- Live a practical life
- Build faith and trust with a positive attitude and approach
- Become a strong individual who can manage himself/herself.
Antidote: Nurture yourself as a strong and optimistic person!
Fear of No End of Waiting Period
The following situations bind you in the loop of pessimism and hopelessness:
- Pending break from a boring life
- Unfulfilled dreams or desires
- Jobless state from a long
- Status of being single
- Delayed life-event
- Wait for success or breakthrough
- Prolong disease, illness, or sickness
- Living a lonely life for a long
Antidote: Spread positivity, prayers, love, hope, care, and blessings around!
Prolong situations, status, or challenges dry up your strength and spirit which keeps you moving. No motion or action makes a loop of sluggishness and slowness. It doesn't just stop you, it also stops your growth and indeed life making you stuck in an everlasting loop. When you get tired of your waiting period, it affects your productivity and power of working effectively and efficiently. Gradually you become pessimistic, hopeless, and reluctant to proceed. Ultimately it becomes a part of your life, lifestyle, and attitude.
When you can't see any ray of hope, light up someone else's life. It will give you healing joy. This happiness is the oil to keep the spirits high.
Become a disciplined prayerful person and get aligned and one-accord with the Word of God to remain hopeful. Hope is the fuel to keep you and the best remedy to rely on while waiting time.
Fear of Death
Birth, death, coincidences, and luck are those complex mysteries of this world that can't be explained or understood, or dealt with without becoming a spiritual person. When you dwell in the scriptures, you fell in love with the Almighty God. When you realize your love, you get the wisdom to understand the truth of life. We come to this life to give a test. The test is to know the syllabus. You encounter many questions while this journey such as who is God, why we take birth, what is the purpose of our life, and so on.
The scripture doesn't leave you unanswered and suggests that we take birth to search for our creator. We get apart from Him because of our sins, iniquities, and unrighteousness. Else we were supposed to live with God in heaven where there is no pain. There is only happiness, pleasures, contentment, and sheer bliss. No worries, tensions, diseases, inflictions, persecutions, oppression, negativity, or anything that you might think of disliking!
The reality is that death just removes that curtain from God and we get to meet Him and that much-awaited state of perfect happiness and contentment. The one who gets this Word of Wisdom, Knowledge, and Understanding, that one never fears of death and the related insecurities. The person indeed starts to feel excited about the afterlife joys.
Antidote: Dwell in the Word of God to realize the truth and come into the light.
Insecurities about After-Life Events
If someone knows that he or she is going to heaven, the one might start to pray for death. But unfortunately, no one knows about what is written in their judgment. When one knows the wages of his or her sins, it becomes a fearful matter.
Do you know what is the most exciting thing about going to heaven? It is the togetherness of God because His love is perfect the way He also is. He loves those who worship Him, keep His commandments, and live a righteous life. He loves so much that even if one repents after committing the sins, the Almighty not only forgives but also forgets.
Antidote: If you want to get rid of the After-life thoughts, know and follow the commandments of God. Once you start to practice wholeheartedly, the fear and insecurities will bid farewell themselves.
Fear of Supernatural Uncontrollable Forces: Unreal Yet Real
Too much flow of thoughts about haunting places, movies, write-ups, and stories mounts the fear of unseen forces. As you can't see them or know them, the thought of encountering them becomes more fearful and mysterious. Sometimes the fear increases at a level that one starts to fear from keeping the feet on the ground and doesn't leave the bed even to take nature's call. If the doorbell rings, the person becomes skeptical about opening the door. The dark of night becomes the most horrifying duration of a day.
If you are also one of them, face reality. If there exists good, there is evil too in this world. If there is God, there are supernatural forces too. But can evil spirits overpower the angels of God ever? God's one angel is enough to protect you from thousands of your enemies. The one who loves you abundantly, that power is the supreme power. God is ever victorious over any force and is able, loyal, ad faithful to keep you. Also, no supernatural force can break the law of nature and come in reality to harm you.
Antidote: Grow in faith.
Remember some key verses for the times of fear. Overcome fears by believing in the grace of God and the power of His Words. Walk on His commandments to build your confidence.
What Is the Solution? How to Get Rid of Baseless Thoughts that Boost Fears?
Now the question arises, how to clean your brain from this unwanted web? Let’s know a practice to apply as a solution!
You must have heard a saying, “Diamond cuts diamond”. You have to apply the same strategy. ‘Think’, for getting rid of your thoughts. For example, many people do not go to the washroom alone at night. They need someone to escort them. They do it because of don’t know what. Sit, relax, take a sigh, and think deeper. Is it a fear of some thief? Or are you afraid of a ghost? Do you think someone will kidnap you in the dark of night?
First of all, find the reason why you fear? Once you get the reason, think about the consequences.
If it is a fear of a thief, can’t that thief come in the afternoon? Can’t someone kidnap you when you are walking on the street? If you are afraid of a ghost because you think it has some supernatural powers which can cause you some harm, can’t those powers harm you while you are sleeping as they are too powerful? It is regardless of where you are and what is time.
Now start digging for the consequences. What worst can happen? Think step by step. In such fears, we just think “A thief will come!” … “A thief will come!” Think beyond! Think he has come. What next? Face that fearful situation. If it is an attacking situation, you can fight. If he steals your money and jewelry, you can earn that back. Whatever bad might happen, your fears can not change the consequences. Then why so much attention to what is not real. Let that day come. Have a spirit of facing, not fearing. Be strong and courageous from the inside. Be firm! Have confidence in yourself.
If you fear to dye because of a ghost; first, realize the reality that we all have to die one day which causes and time are decided by God only. Second, have faith in that God who is the creator. Creating us was also in his hand and destroying us too. So the fear of any person or ghost must not bother you at all because your thread is in God’s hand.
Don’t Drop Hopes, Drop Fears!
Have faith in the creator. If God has sent us to this world, he himself is the protector too. And even if something bad will happen, there will be a bright morning hidden in that dark. So don’t drop hopes and faith. Drop fears and insecurities. Live strong, bold, and brave in the name of your creator!
