One of my favorite quotes is from Frank Herbert in one of the books of the Dune Trilogy “Fear is the mind killer.” It is so true, fear traps us where we don’t do things, don’t face things and start thinking the worst many times. It sucks the positive, optimistic and can do right out of our minds. Fear is not sustainable, it stops us from truly embracing life, trying new things, or facing what is in front of us.
There’s always someone to tell you – you can’t do something. You can’t make xyz work, if you could people would be doing it instead of selling you the tips and tricks to make xyz work. I have had a few business ideas that also supports my sustainable mission and I have been hearing this with regards to them and I have almost let them stop me and get me down, quit believing in myself. It’s stopping me from moving forward in several areas, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of actually doing something? What is it? I can tell it is a real mind killer… Fear of picking the right thing, so picking nothing?
Be careful of those you hang around, they affect your outlook more than you think. I see how that has been working on me, so as I start something, even just working on this site I am letting the fear of failure go and putting myself out there. Fear is not sustainable, it can stop the best in their tracks if they let it get a hold of them. What happens if? Also, ask what happens if I do nothing? Is doing nothing actually something? What do you want to be known for doing?
I used to not go camping. I love to camp, but my husband doesn’t have the same love it as I do. Given a number of reasons finding someone to camp with was hard to do over the last twenty years and my husband and myself only went two or three times. However, about six years ago I decided to go camping by myself. I had a great time and amazing experiences. Nothing bad happened. I had camped all my life up until sometime in my twenties when college and work and life got in the way- and lack of someone to go with. Then I got married and we went a couple of times and that was it. I really missed camping.
In 2013, at 43 I decided the heck with it and went camping alone. I had a great time, yes it would have been nice to have someone to share the experience with but still I had a great time. Fear was no longer stopping me and holding me back, I was doing something I love! I went to the most amazing hot springs in New Mexico nestled at the top of a mountain- they are hard to find if you don’t know where they are or have help getting there the first time, so I am going to keep the location of this gem secret. Then I stopped off at Chaco Canyon, which I almost never found- the main road was flooded out, don’t ever think you know how deep a wash is and just drive through you might get swept away- that’s not fear being a mind killer, but common sense keeping you safe. I knew there was at least two other routes- one close and the other was a several hour drive to come in from the north. I couldn’t find the other turn and finally found somewhere to stop and ask and a sweet Navajo lady said to me “well, it is easy to find if you know where you are going…” and then drew me a map with bends in the road and trees. I drove straight to Chaco. Yes it’s much easier if you know where you are going. The only place to camp was at a maintained campground near Chaco. Turns out the camp ground host had a really high powered telescope, I saw a star be born that night! Chaco itself was also amazing. If I stayed in my fear, and didn’t camp by myself I would have missed that amazing experience. Then I would have never went on to camp at Mount Shasta, that was amazing even if I did get six inches of snow while camping ten miles up Mount Shasta alone, it was sooooo beautiful and amazing. No fear is definitely a mind killer.
Snakes, I don’t know if I will ever get over my fear of snakes. I am trying to move to healthy respect but I still feel the fear if I am honest. I have held a snake, a friend of mine helped there. She was totally unafraid of snakes and another neighbor had a bull snake in their chicken pen. She caught it and knew that I was trying to overcome my fear so brought the snake to me and let me hold it, it was amazing and intense for me, snakes don’t feel like what you think and they really feel very cold, it was the first time I had ever actually touched a snake and I was in my forties. Still I have that fear of them, though it no longer sends me panicked. I have used a homemade snake moving tool to relocate snakes a couple of times and I have been forced to either live with a couple snakes in my house or find a way to get them out. I had a cat that liked to bring snakes in and let them go. With my husband being sick the last few years or not around at the time I have had to suck it up and find a way to get them out of my house. I am not sure I could have done that if I hadn’t held that snake when my friend brought it. Workable fear… maybe just healthy respect? I was able to evaluate the situation or the fear enough to decide I feared having the snake in my house and not knowing where it was more than I feared getting the snake out.
My current fear sewing… I have done it a long time ago. There’s some things I want to make like shopping bags and eventually some toys and costumes and various upcycle projects yet I am afraid to sew. Mom did show me how to use the machine when she brought it to me but I am afraid to proceed why? It’s becoming a real drag as it’s stopping me from doing what I want. So, I am admitting it’s been a mind killer this last month when I think I want to make something but that means… sewing. I am going to commit to trying the machine this week even if I just work on learning it instead of making something. Maybe even later tonight- this morning? We will see as I seem to be in a blogging mood and there is still several days this week for me to come through there. I will post my success.
Sometimes, you just have to call a check mate on your fear and move through it to get the prize. There’s been a lot of fear mongering over the flesh eating bacteria and swimming in the gulf. Here’s the thing modern media has made it easy for these fears to spread rampant. Flesh eating bacteria has always existed and it exists in warm waters all over, but not only there it’s found in the soils as well of various places. Unless you have an open cut or wound or a compromised immune system (sick, auto-immune disease,…) you are unlikely to become infected with this. If you let your fear guide you, you will never get in the ocean and you will miss this amazing relaxing activity because of what might happen. The truth is we all will die one day, weird things sometimes step into our lives which is not exactly the right way to describe flesh eating bacteria but I am talking in a more general way as well. Also, we may simply have an amazing time and go away feeling better and healthier than before sometimes you have to take your chances and kick fear to the curb.
I also feel this way about moving back to civilization. I had a lot of fears associated with this and in a way felt like there was a certain failure to the sustainable goals I once had. However, I learned much and was empowered but much of the experience if I stayed where I was and lived in fear of returning to society my life would have lost it’s sustainability as I was suffering on many levels to keep the physical needs of our situation met after my husband became sick. Years of abuse on my body from the crazy things I decided to do from digging trenches, ditches, … moving hay, straw, wood doing whatever physical task I could that needed done (we’ll talk about those things later) along with having severe scoliosis and a couple of hernias has finally caught up with me. I also have felt very isolated and do to other issues in my life I am combating some PTSD after my nephew’s suicide in 2014, and my brother’s death of an opiate overdose not quite a year later I was losing my spirit as I was always in panicked state with my husband’s deteriorating health and that fear would have led me to an early grave had I not got us somewhere that medical needs can be more easily and quickly met as the quickest anyone could have got to us would have been 30 minutes and I would have to have left my husband alone to meet the ambulance. That fear was truly effecting my ability to be effective at living my life. Living so far out, became unsustainable- if we stayed in the fear of returning to society not only was I clearly going to lose my mind but possibly stroke out or drive myself to a heart attack. We got over the fear and have been blessed to find a beautiful home. Everything is not perfect or smooth yet, moving is expensive, it’s lonely if you move a long way- it takes time to get to know people. It involved me doing a lot of this on my own as my husband was in Arizona while I came to Florida to find our home. He’s legally blind and can’t drive so there was a lot of fears I had to conquer and just do to do this. I know it’s a good move, even though it has it’s challenges at the moment but if I stayed in fear I would be struggling to push my body past it’s limits and likely would not be able to walk if I continued so I am glad I decided not to let fear be the mind killer.
Fear is not sustainable. It stops the flow of life and puts you living in a box of limitations and destroys your being on too many levels. When at all possible, chose bravery and life not fear- it kills.
Do you see how fear holds you back in your life and is unsustainable?