Emotions are neither good nor bad. They are not limiting rather they signal our inner state. How about embracing fear with an understanding.
Fear, like any other emotion, is neither good nor bad. It is just there. It can be as limiting as any other emotion. A child watching TV for 8 hours can turn around and say, “Why you want me to stop watching TV? I am happy! Ain’t happiness is what you want? Or do you want me to go out and start climbing walls and scare you and myself too :-)” So happiness can also be limiting.
But emotions are not limiting rather they are a signal of my inner state. Hence once the emotions are accepted, they need to be understood. People, advertisers, schools, governments and many others will make you believe that fear is bad and it has to be conquered. Maybe or Maybe not. Perhaps the most ubiquitous is the fear of failure. Almost everybody out there tells – “You have to be successful, you have to be confident, you have to have a strong personality ” and many other “have to”.
First they make a monster out of everything and then they want us to devour it. We all abhor adults scaring children with ‘policeman will come and eat your lunch, so hurry up’ story.
But isn’t our schools & colleges doing the same, scaring us to believe that we are worthy only when we pass or actually score more than others.
But what if I decide to be neither successful, nor unsuccessful, neither confident nor not-confident. What if I decide that I do not need to do anything about these fears too. It is like the cat who tries to catch its tail – just ends up going in circles. But when it goes about walking, the tail just follows. Then what I am I left with is – to do, to live, to understand, and to move on.
With this mindset how about – accepting the child with his or her fear, spending time and effort in understanding the fear and then hand it over to the kid and say, “Fear is all yours. Enjoy it, love it, embrace it, hug it, kiss it.