The Little Box of Fear

Fear sits in a small little box. Much like the black box they have in airplanes, which experts dissect after a crash. Our box of fear is something similar- sits tucked away in a small little recess in our body. But it’s not ugly or scary at first. It’s a pretty little box, much like the ones you find in a gift shop- coloured and tied with pretty little bows. At first it looks nothing like fear- it holds promise of a present- one that is sure to bring you joy and excitement. Heck, we don’t even know it’s fear. So we handle it with care, saving it for the right moment when that present will bring us most joy. And we open it. And bam! Before we know it, we see our life being shredded by the creepy crawlies, crawling out and taking over our mind, our brain, our heart, our limbs, like a parasitic vine, only darker and uglier than we have ever seen.

But what does this necessarily mean? That we should never acknowledge its presence and let it stay where it is, tucked away forever? But you know what happens when you don’t touch a spot in your house for a while. It gathers dust and cobwebs and dirt and before you know, it builds an ecosystem of its own, which starts taking over the corner, then the room and then the rest of the house, slowly but surely. So then the answer is to clean the space and throw that box out with the garbage. But that’s not perhaps the best solution.

Fear creeps up on us when we expect it the least. While there are many fears that we deal with on an everyday basis, it is perhaps the fear of loss that really paralyses us in a way- the loss of people we love, the loss of a relationship, the loss of a job, the loss of stable income, the loss of dignity and pride, the loss of trust…and the list is endless. The thing with fear is, it sits quietly in a corner and doesn’t require our permission to enter. It’s like it almost knows when we are our happiest and at our most vulnerable and rears its ugly head right then. And what we do instinctively is to let it take over all the good things and let the creeper paralyse our systems in a way to shut down the good and make it all look dark and bleary. The other thing we might do is the reverse- ignore it- close our eyes to it and instead hold the good even more tight, hoping the fear will die down by itself. But we know what happens when we hold something too tight- we squeeze the life out of it in an attempt to protect it.

So what do we do?

We look fear in the eye. We acknowledge it and the place and role it has in our lives. Fear is not always a bad thing. Fear prevents us from walking into fire, fear prevents us from holding the sharp blade of a knife too close. Fear has it’s share of good too and fear has a place it needs to hold. And because it is something that we can’t walk away from, we need to make it our friend, not our enemy. Fear is just like that friend you have, who gets cranky when she misses a meal on time. So talk to your fears. Ask them their role and what they intend to serve in your present situation. Ask why they have appeared and what is it they want you to see. Maybe they have a solution. Maybe they need to be left alone for a while and check back with in a few days. But don’t leave it alone. Don’t let it acquire so much space that later it becomes impossible to clean . Fear is here to stay. Make it your friend, not your foe.

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