By Dina Aldabbagh

Anything you fear to the point of letting it change how you act controls you. If you do something to avoid a feeling, that’s not a choice, that’s a compulsion. If you’re really lucky in this life — and I mean one of the world’s favorites — you will go through a series of being let down and forced to face your fears over and over again. I say this because something paradigm-shifting happens when you are forced to face your fears: you realize it was never that scary anyways.

If you’re lucky enough to be pushed to the point of facing your fear, then you are freed. Because all that time you spend not facing that fear is just time you suffer inside your mind and your mind only. Facing fear right in the face, however, has the paradoxical effect of making you less scared.

In a conversation with a wise young woman, I heard it very eloquently said that “Everything is more underwhelming in real life when you actually get there than what you thought in your head — in the best way.” This applies to fear. If you never actually face the fear, then you never actually find out that it was so built-up in your mind this entire time. Everything is less severe than our minds make it seem, bar a handful of genuinely severe situations. However, I believe that the vast majority of people don’t ever really face those specific realities. 

Fear is this entirely double edged sword. For one, the real negative experience of fear is that of the mental build-up you create. However, fear convinces you that you absolutely do not want to face the consequences, so you end up avoiding facing it at all costs. You remain in the build-up. Which then leads to only more mental noise. Because fear only exists in the space between you and the actual thing you’re afraid will happen. Once you get to that thing, it’s underwhelming. There has not been one fear of mine in which I arrived at the “face it” moment and not thought to myself, “Oh…this is it. This is all I was afraid of this whole time? This is fine.”

Fear only exists in the gap between initial concern and reality. It festers in your imagination while you avoid experiencing the consequence you’re so afraid of. There is something very truthful, yet backwards in the way we think of it. Fear is so dangerous — not the actual thing you’re afraid of, but fear itself. Because it’s enough to get you to live small. To live with anxiety. To not follow the exact threads that will lead you to the best life possible.

Fear is not dangerous because of the momentary negative emotion you think you’ll experience if that thing happens, but rather because of all that happens to you while you avoid facing it. Our imaginations can be our best tool or the knife that carves wounds into us so gradually that we only notice once we look down and see that we are scarred. Fear is nothing more than the experience of imagining the worst case scenario — and thinking it’ll destroy you if you let it happen. 

But fear also tells you your path. It shows you the way — because if you’re afraid of something, then the only way out is through. You can’t go forward in life in a positive way unless you neutralize it. So it’s your fork in the road. Actually, it’s more like the constant branching paths that call out to you, saying, “There is another way forward.”

As Ryan Holiday says, the obstacle is the way. The thing that stands in your way becomes the way, because you are forced to deal with it. This then, as such, becomes a part of your story. Facing the giant becomes a locative point in your formation. Your story becomes inseparable from the obstacle. 

One thing I’ve learned is that anything you do to avoid fear is a compulsion. It feels like you must do it, or else. Or else…everyone hates you, they break up with you, they fire you, they realize you’re not supposed to be here, you get fat, you become weak, etc etc. All the worst things we fear are typically connected to the identity we fear becoming.

In this way, even the good things we do can be a compulsion to avoid fear as well. Two people may go to the gym every day, but could have wildly different emotional experiences doing so. Person A could go to the gym because maybe 5 years ago, they were 50 lbs heavier and now they’re deathly afraid that somehow they will slip and turn back into that version of them if they don’t stay hyper-disciplined. Person B, on the other hand, could be going to the gym because moving their body makes them feel strong and confident and releases energy from their system.

One person does it because they love themselves enough to do it, while the other does it to avoid feeling fat. Ultimately, they’re afraid of being that identity again — so they avoid it. Unfortunately, why we do things matters. Our intention affects us. It defines our entire emotional experience, even if the outcome is the same (i.e. going to the gym daily). 

What if…you let the worst happen? As in: what if you allow yourself to feel the consequence of the thing you fear so much. If Person B missed the gym a couple days, that may feel like a sort of death to them. It may feel like giving up, like letting themselves slip and turn into an identity they don’t want to. It’s my posture that this is the only way though. Facing the possibility is the only way to know you’re okay.

My prediction is that if Person B skipped the gym on a day they felt exhausted, they would actually be liberated. They would learn that…nothing goes wrong. Their identity hasn’t changed overnight. They would see that they naturally go to the gym the next day. 

But this only happens if you allow that door to open. If you say, “This thing may happen as a result of me making this choice, but I will deal with it then,” then I think you’ll see that once you open that door, no danger ends up rushing in. That, actually, the open door just allowed you to walk through, to be a little more free. 

Fear traps us. It keeps us rigid. It keeps us locked in a room, with very defined limitations. But you have the key, you just have to be willing to open the door. Is it possible that danger is waiting on the other side of that door? Sure. But my suggestion is that even if it were, you are strong enough to face it. And my wisdom is that there’s probably no danger on the other side of that door. Just liberation. 

Most of our worst fears, our most debilitating anxieties, never come true. They mostly just exist in our minds. And yet, they are strong enough of an experience to stop us from living life. They stop the boy from going up to the girl he likes. They stop the girl from speaking her feelings. They stop the kid from jumping into the pool. 

It’s curious how much the mind can control our behavior — and therefore our lives — when reality actually speaks to something much different than what we imagine from our fears. But the only way you know is by knowing. By experiencing it, that is. You must experience the consequence of the thing you’re afraid to do. My honest truth is that I think there will be none. Nothing other than your nervous system realizing it was so worried over an imaginary monster this entire time.

I once opened up to my friend about an anxious thought that sometimes comes to me, and he said to me, “So like, when you say that out loud, do you hear how crazy that sounds? Because I do.” It made me realize that the things that poke at us the most are often things that are totally out of line with reality. So much so to the point that another person hearing that fear says, “That sounds completely unrealistic.” But it feels real to us. Fear has that effect of convincing us. It’s just so persuasive. 

My best, and maybe only, piece of advice here is that while you are standing in front of the closed door with your fear in hand, you need to be willing to face the consequence. Because truly, you don’t know it’s not real until you face it. Until your eyes see it and your body feels it. But once you open that door, you will almost certainly realize one of two things: either that the consequence you feared doesn’t even happen or that you are very much strong enough that it doesn’t affect you as you thought it would.

But you don’t know until you try. You can never know anything for certain until you try it. So you just have to be willing to face whatever the potential result is. 

Joel Osteen once said, “No more living intimidated — ‘I can’t do it,’ ‘It’s too big.’ No. When you know who you are, you won’t run from the giant, you’ll run to the giant.”  (Joel Osteen – Your Time To Shine 4:05)

I promise, the giant is smaller than he looks.