Be Inspired Every Day

Fear is the anti-inspiration. Inspiration is perpetuated by love: love of life, ourselves, each other, God, etc. And, fear is the opposite of love. If we find that inspiration is fleeting in our lives it may be that fear is robbing it from us.

To face and eliminate fear is to give rise to inspiration. It is inevitable that when fear is gone, inspiration will take its place.

Fear, however, presents us with an immense challenge. First, it is elusive. It masks itself as anger, arrogance, apathy and many other things. Secondly, it is irrational. No amount of reasoning can make fear go away.

How Fear is Irrational

Many of us have the same reactions to public speaking, airplane flights, insects and dental tools that we would have standing face to face with the grim reaper. At the same time, we may be willing to risk life and limb to drive home faster after work.

Clearly, fear does not always correlate with real risk. It is irrational.

If we are afraid to fly on an airplane, we might attempt to reassure ourselves with facts and statistics that flying is safe. But, fear does not care about facts and statistics. It defies reasoning.

Additionally, we know intellectually that getting close to another person can be painful if things don’t go well. But it is much more painful be lonely. Drifting away from someone you love, or being married for years and feeling as though you live with a stranger is much riskier than working to strengthen your relationship. Still, fear persists.

Fear is conditioned subconsciously and can not be conquered with conscious rationale.

Conquering Fear

To conquer fear and experience pure inspiration, we must first face these two challenges: uncover fear’s mask (see 5 Faces of Fear), then re-condition ourselves by facing those fears. These two major steps will be the focus of the this series on fear and relationships.

When fear is uncovered and faced, it’s power disappears, life is transformed and the impossible becomes possible.