Overcome Worry and Fear and Start Living

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Written by Jimmie Burroughs Email to a friend

Does this sound familiar? You get up in the morning and worry about what is going to happen at work. You come home, fix dinner, take care of the kids, and worry about having enough money to pay the bills. You worry a little about the kids as you get them ready for bed. You sit down and watch television until the news comes on at 10:00, and then you worry about the condition the world is in, and worry about the economy, and the national debt. When you go to bed, you find that you can’t sleep because you can’t get the distressing news off your mind that you just saw on the TV. After you do finally get a couple hours of sleep, you get up the next morning and start the whole process again, and this is a day after day occurrence 365 days a year. The truth is that you spend your whole life in fear, worrying about everything. Where is the joy and purpose in your life?

I have discovered in my experience as a counselor that the number of people whose life is controlled by fear and worry is astronomical. These two things are more responsible for robbing you of joy and purpose in your life than most anything else. First, in order to overcome fear and worry, you must understand what causes them, and then to take the appropriate steps to overcome each of them. The purpose of this paper is to help you to do that. It will be worth your time because fear and worry rob you of joy and distracts from your purpose inline.

What causes fear?

Unlike what I’ve read others say about fear, it isn’t something we create in our mind that we weren’t born with. In fact, fear is a drive that is one of many drives that we were created with. There is the hunger drive, the sex drive, the anger drive, the fear drive and many others. Drives have a God given purpose. For instance, if there was no sex drive, there would be less incentive for procreation which God purposes. The hunger drive assures us of having enough food to nourish the body. The fear drive also has an esential  purpose to keep us from harm.

Drives become problematic when we use them in an ungodly way. When the sex drive is used to satisfy lust outside marriage, it can cause havoc and even death. Overindulgence in food can cause serious health problems.  Likewise, fear when misused can become an negative event rather than a protective device as it was intended.

Fear is misused when it becomes an imaginary possibility and not a real threat. For example if someone breaks into your home and has a gun, that is a real and dangerous threat. On the other hand if you are fearful of someone breaking into your home and threatening you, that is an imaginary fear. Imaginary fears rarely ever happen. In fact, I’m not fearful of a home invasion because in all my life, I’ve never seen one, even though I know it is a possibility, but a rare possibility, so I’m not concerned about it other than making my home safe as possible, within reason, against an invasion.

We cause ourselves a lot of unneeded anxiety over the possibility of things that might happen that has less than a 5% chance of ever happening. Even if they do happen there is usually a solution to the problem.

Below is a list of the twelve most common fears starting with the greatest to the least, and the percentage of people who have this fear:

Fear of Public speaking———————–40%

Fear of height———————————–30%

Fear of insects and bugs———————–20%

Fear of financial problems——————–20%

Fear of deep water——————————20%

Fear of disease————————————20%

Fear of death—————————————20%

Fear of flying—————————————-20%

Fear of loneliness———————————15%

Fear of dogs—————————————–10%

Fear of driving or riding in a car—————10%

Fear of the dark————————————-10%

Fear is only legit when it is a caution to inform you of a real imminent threat. For example, fear will tell you that it isn’t wise to walk down a dark street in a high crime area in the middle of the night alone. There are times to exercise caution, but overwhelmingly it is those things that pose no harm at all that cause the most fear, for example, like public speaking, or standing next to the rail of a ship overlooking the ocean. The unneeded anxiety fear causes can also be harmful to health, peace of mind and happiness. It can keep you from taking advantage of opportunities that can bring you wealth and happiness.

What causes worry?

Unlike fear, worry isn’t a natural drive. Worry is imagined in mind, and concerns what could happen in a future event. There is not one positive thing about worry; it can and should be eliminated. We are able to control our thought patterns; therefore, we are also able to avoid worry quite. Worry is a negative thought that enters the mind which is then expanded into all types of scenarios that are quite unlikely ever to happen. One of the most helpful things I ever learned is that I can’t trust my mind and that I must master it and never let it control me.

Unabated worry can cause you plenty of misery. Below are just a few examples of how worry can affect you:

• Worry can make you sick; can give you ulcers; cause stress; and stress related disease such as heart disease, etc.
• Worry can keep you awake at night which makes you tired throughout the day.
• Worry can cause you to live in an imaginary world and become unable to distinguish the real from the unreal.
• Worry causes you to become powerless to confront and deal with everyday problems.
• Worry causes you to lose confidence in your own ability to deal with life.

Steps to control fear and worry

Worry and fear are closely related because, for the most part, they both center on those things which cause no harm nor have little chance of ever happening. Therefore, the steps that need to be taken to overcome fear and worry are remarkably similar. Here are some proven steps that will help you overcome them and regain control of your life:

Be realistic about fears and worry

I knew a person who was afraid of a pair of cowboy boots because they were made of snake skin. That is the truth though it may sound unbelievable. Most of our fears are perhaps not as ridiculous as that, but when you are realistic about them, you will discover how foolish most of them are. Trouble is that most people don’t take the time to examine their fears and worries; if they did they could eliminate a lot of them on the basis of reality alone. Have you ever heard of someone being bitten by a pair of snake skin cowboy boots? So it is with most of your fears and worries; they are just in your mind and pose no threat at all.

Learn to live in the present moment

A lot of research has been conducted on dogs, and one fascinating bit of information that has surfaced is that dogs don’t seem to worry or don’t anticipate fearful events because they live in the moment. They do of course experience fear when it is a real threat, and then fear, in turn, prepares them for fight or flight.

That is just one way that we need to be more like a dog. But just how hard is it to live in the moment and not be wondering off, in our mind, to what has already happened or to what may happen? It’s all a matter of controlling the mind. It does take practice and determination and a lot of consistency. It took me a while to learn, and I still must use  ongoing maintenance to keep it working effectively. When negative thoughts enter your mind, immediately replace them with positive thoughts; the mind can only entertain one thought at a time; therefore, by injecting positive thoughts you are driving the negative ones away that cause fear and worry.

Confront the things you fear

Here’s an example for confronting the things you fear: If you have a fear of height, stand next to a balcony rail that is a few stories off the ground. There is absolutely no chance you will fall even though your mind is trying to make you believe that you may; you must take control of your mind and make the move which overrides the fear.

When I was a child growing up, I was terribly shy and fearful of talking to anyone that I didn’t know. There was no way I would think about talking before a crowd. I carried this fear with me even until I was grown. I decided that I wanted to overcome it, so I enlisted in the Dale Carnegie course on public speaking.  I soon discovered that I could speak before a group and even won some awards for best speech. It didn’t remove the initial fear of public speaking, but what I learned was that the fear went away shortly after I began to speak. Later I went to college and prepared to become a minister which requires a lot of public speaking. I still had some fear of public speaking, but I learned not to let it stop me. Today I still haven’t entirely conquered the fear of public speaking, but I know that it is powerless to stop me when I’m asked to speak. It is natural for there to be a bit of tension before speaking, but that bit of tension is a good thing which prepares you to be alert and ready.

I heard of a person who decided to parachute from an airplane to overcome the fear of height. That, I think, is going a little to the extreme to overcome fear. Approach your fear in a way that creates less anxiety than jumping from an airplane, but at the same time enables you successfully to confront and conquer each fear.

Don’t fail to take action even if you are fearful

Soldiers who have seen combat will tell you that they were always fearful when going into battle, but they went forward anyway. Fear will always be present, but the answer is learning to confront it squarely and not letting it control you. It is easy to let your fear of doing things control you to the extent that you avoid anything which is fearful; therefore, you don’t truly live life because of your fear. The other extreme is to place yourself in danger by totally ignoring the fear drive.

There is a bit of danger in most all things, but it is so remote for the most part that it is unlikely ever to happen. People slip and fall in the bathtub, and some have died from their injuries, but you can’t afford to let that fact keep you from ever taking a bath.

Visualize a positive outcome instead of negative

For each fear and worry, visualize a positive outcome instead of the negative one that your mind wants you to believe. In time, you will automatically began to think this way. Understand that the natural mind is negative, so it is up to you to change the patterns of thinking and implement positive thoughts, which over-ride the negative ones.

Complete a list of things that you’re frightened of, or things you are likely to worry about

Take each thing on your list and work on conquering it using the steps above. This will take some time, but it will be worth it to free yourself and experience the joy you will feel, as a result.

Conclusion

These steps may seem simplified, but they work when they are engaged consistently. It is doing nothing that keeps you in the same old rut of constantly worrying and letting your fear rule your life. There is a better way to live; I’ve discovered it along with many others, and so can you. Overcoming fear and worry adds joy and purpose to life. You don’t have to settle for less!

About the author: Jimmie Burroughs is an motivational speaker and author who has been involved in teaching Christian Personal Development for more than 30 years. There are hundreds of articles to help you on this website (Website Contents ) in your personal growth. If I can help you personally, please send your concerns via Contact me.

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