A four letter word. Yet so many of us if asked which 4 letter word beginning with F is the one they consider inappropriate would chose a different work that sounds like 'Buck'.
So why is FEAR so acceptable. Why do most people find it completely natural to have FEAR and to accept it both for themselves and for others?
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Because apart from needing to breathe and a few other commonalities in humankind, we all feel FEAR at some stage in our lives - yet it isnt something we are born with.
FEAR is a feeling. Its created when we believe that something is going to be painful or damaging to us or someone we care for and we learn this feeling over time. Yet how often has that FEAR actually become a reality? I'll wager not that often.
Many times in my 41 years have I felt fear. With hindsight and experience, some I would say are entirely natural. Others are completely irrational and being brutally honest, a load of bullshit I told myself.
Here's a few examples I can reel off:
- 1st time travelling on the train unaccompanied as a 14yo heading to my army interview.
- Crashing my Mum's car at age 17 and having to face my Dad.
- Multiple occasions whilst serving in HM Army (facing the fitness assessment over most other things!).
- Flying.
- Becoming a Father.
- Losing my job and being able to provide for my family when the banking crisis hit in 2009.
- What people think of me.
- My first iron distance duathlon.....putting my £400 bike up against £3000+ bikes and suddenly thinking I was out of my depth and going to come last.
- Talking to people and being judged.
- Undiagnosed illness in 2014 that left me weak and lethargic and with serious concerns about my health.
- My Daughters going to high school.
- One of the Scouts in my care being hurt.
- Being alone.
- Not being the man my Father expected me to be once he had passed and not keeping a promise to him.
I'm sure many of you can find as many and perhaps more.
Some are physical threats whilst others are emotional or mental ones. And there can be a place for FEAR within our lives. It can be a driving force, something that creates the 'fight' instinct for us to push further than we thought ourselves capable.
And then there are those situations where FEAR causes us to shut down, to hide away, to become less than we actually are because we are frightened.
So why do some people, in fact why do we sometimes find it within ourselves to overcome some of our FEARS and yet at others times be completely paralysed and introverted as a result of them?
Can you think of a time you felt fear but went ahead and did whatever it was anyway and felt such an exhilarating rush when you overcame it?
I can. That iron distance duathlon when I was ready to pull out because I was FEARful of coming last and being embarrassed.
What made me overcome that FEAR? Actually it was a greater FEAR of having to face my wife who was 'persuasive' in her encouragement that I enter based on the fact I had been a complete pain in the arse in the run up to the event and if I didn't see this thing through then I wasn't allowed home.
She jested of course..........at least I hope she did..............but the impact was made. The fact that the consequence of not doing something was greater than that I was FEARful of happening when I did do something. I chose the lesser of the two pains and the reality is that my FEAR never came true.
The other major FEAR that I have experienced in the last 2 years is that of falling short of being the man my Father expected me to be...........at least the man I expected to be in order to live up to the role model my Father was.
Its a responsibility that has been heavy for just short of two years. And one that with it has brought me suffering, misery, pain and heartache, not just to myself but to those around me.
As time has progressed, my self confidence eroded and my self identity dissolved gradually and systemically.
Superficially putting on a brave exterior but deep down feeling hollow, empty, like a shell of a man without any filling or substance - just grinding out a living and surviving.
So what changed? The recognition that the very thing I was afraid of was coming true because I was focussed on it, attracting it like a magnet attracts metal, so that the story was becoming the facts.
Shifting my mind towards what I had, not what I had lost or did not have, enabled me to shift into appreciation. Up until then I hadn't really understood what gratitude truly meant. Now I do.
No longer do I mourn the loss of my Dad, but I celebrate the time I had with him and the gifts of knowledge, courage, wisdom and experience he bestowed upon me in order that I look out for my family.
I am no longer lost without his direction because I know that he gave me the skills to set my own direction, to respond and react to my environment as he did with his.
So let me ask you again. What are you AFRAID of? And how much of your day do you spend thinking about it and trying to avoid?
If you're not focussed on what you have and can enjoy then you will leave this life unlived.
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| 2010: The Fat Lad out jogging |
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| 2016: The ultramarathoner finishing a 53miler |
Of all the things I was afraid of, I have experienced each of them and am still here, in one piece, healthy and happy with a fantastic family around me who are also healthy and happy.
I would also never have attempted to run. Certainly not in public and also not in lycra!!
FEAR - Fuck Everything And Run
Or
FEAR - Face Everything And Rise
Don't let a feeling that more often than not wont come true become your future or your reality!
There is so much more you can become if you just stop holding yourself back. And that's all it is.......ou holding yourself back because you are frightened of what you might become!
