The Fallacy of Fear

Many of us carry along a variety of fears. Some fears are more severe than others and some fear are more legitimately understandable the others. All fears, however, carry at least one similar trait; the fear is only eliminated by facing whatever you are afraid of. I cannot tell you how many women I know that are afraid of spiders…? Spiders??? Okay, I can see how they are a little creepy to the fragile mind, but to run away from something relatively harmless and then proceed to scream at the top of your lungs is frankly ridiculous. Many people are afraid of dogs. Many people feel that all dogs are inherently vicious and will bite you if they "smell" fear, which in turn, makes some people even more afraid of dogs. I can confidently say that whatever odor secretes from your body when you are afraid is not enough to turn a tame dog into a ravenous bloodthirsty villain. No one truly enjoys their fear. Some of us might unconsciously want to hold on to them for a backward sense of identity, but that is a different story. If you do have an underlining fear here is my advice:

When you are calm, approach whatever you are afraid of (make sure if it is an animal that it is calm too) and study it for as long as possible. Find a spider in a cage. Play with a big hulky dog at the human society. Pull out a box of matches in the parking lot and light them all up (I recently encountered someone afraid of fire). When you experience the fearful object under conditions of your control, I can guarantee the fear will be eliminated.