Overcoming fear

All of us fear something, some of us are scared of public speaking, some to face the death, some of us are scared of losing our possessions and some of us are scared of water, some are afraid of facing tomorrow etc.,

A close look at these fears seem to have connection with our limited inputs in brain and our past experiences, for instance while you were a child if you had a bad experience with a dog there are all possibilities that you will be scared of dogs for most part of your life. There are few universal fears that most of us experience because of the information gathered over time. For instance most of us are afraid of snakes or some reptiles.

Can we overcome fear, if so how!

The only way to overcome fear is to face it, put yourself in the situations that make you face your fears.

Growing up in a school which didn't have much activity to do with talking to the class, I was always scared of public speaking, I always felt the audience sitting in front of me is present to judge and ridicule me. This feeling could be felt if you are/ were scared of public speaking. I used to feel jealous of the people who would do it so comfortably, my interactions with them lead to the answer. Yes, then there was no turning back. I prepared myself to go on stage to give a talk of maybe 5 or 10 minutes but this time I was mentally prepared to face the consequence, you might be ridiculed because you might not be best at your first attempt. That didn't stop me, though my first experience was not so pleasant it gave me enough courage to stand in front of the audience. I started volunteering to go to the board while most of them sat there to ridicule the person if they performed badly, after all they are your classmates. After my second experience I became more familiar with the feeling. Grabbing more opportunities I continuously attempted to learn the art of public speaking. Another learning here if you are really willing to learn, opportunities will fall on your plate and it's for you to grab it and make the most out of it.

Proudest accomplishment of doing this was to give a 20 minute talk about Bengaluru in an audience filled CHRIST auditorium. Today I can confidently say I am a decent Public speaker.

Very recently I had another encounter which forced me in believing " the only way to overcome your fear is to face it. Few days ago I saw my cat hitting something in the garden, I was curious to see what it was trying to hit, I saw it was a baby cobra that my cat was trying to kill, I admit that I have always been scared of snakes and an open encounter like this freaked me out. At that moment I had only one thought, I can't let the cat kill the cobra, so first I chased the cat and then closely tried to observe If the snake was too hurt, It didn't seem to be hurt and the next thing I wanted to do was to drive the cobra to safety. My little brain is acting against me telling you did what you could and there was no need to act further, the snake will slither itself to safety. I was not convinced as I was aware of the dogs and cats around my house and desperately wanted to rescue the cobra to a safer place. Looking at the snake I could figure out it was equally scared and it was breathing heavy, So, I requested my mother to get a stick and a polythene and waited to keep an eye on the baby cobra standing in-front of me with it's hood facing majestically at me. After a minute or two, I saw her coming with a stick and a polythene, I was not sure how I would be doing it but didn't want to take the risk leaving the baby cobra there. So slowly using the stick I tried to lift the snake, at first it resisted and tried to slither away, after a minute of continuous efforts finally I could see a part of cobra was on the stick, slowly and steadily I lifted it and the next difficult part was to put it in the polythene bag with the help of another stick, I held the bag close to the stick on which the snake was sitting comfortably now with little movement, it slowly moved inside the polythene without much hesitation.Finally after travelling for half a kilometre, I could see the bush around the lake and felt this will be a safe place for it to recover and to move around, with no cats or dogs around. With the help of the same stick I placed the polythene facing the lake and opened the bag with the help of the same stick, it slowly moved out and slithered away towards the bush. I returned home with satisfaction of rescuing a life.

I am attaching the pic of the baby cobra so that you can have a look at it!

So yes the only way to overcome your fear is to face it. A famous quote by Robin Sharma says "The fears we don't face become our limits", so next time go ahead and face it and even a small victory is reassuring to bring you out of it. If you have any such interesting encounters, you can write to me. I will be presenting the best story I receive as told by you, You can email me your story.