Fighting The Enemies of Marriage (Part Nine)

Overcoming The Fear of Commitment (Part Two): Face Your Fears

We need to engrave on our hearts the truth, “things done out of fear never really turn out right.” Fear is never the answer. Fear is never a good way to go. I know that is not intuitive, but it is the truth. Fear gives us the false illusion of being in control. We think if we are always on our toes things will turn out well. How so wrong it all turns out. How so on the edge it keeps us. How so out of tune and out of phase we turn out and make the significant people in our life. That is not life.

"Fear cannot be overcome unless confronted. It must be confronted with good judgment and ability." (Earl Nightingale)

That is not romantic. It creates an atmosphere of suspicion. You don't want to be reading meaning to things that have no meaning in themselves. You want to give room to being silly, taking, and enjoying the freshness of life.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage." (Anais Nin)

Unbeknownst to us, fear holds us captive, leading us in the path of destruction. Faith, the opposite of fear, is the answer. It is the way. It is the way to live. It is the way of life. It is our compass to the life of our dreams. And, it is our duty to lay hold of it. I love the way Tony Robbins puts it. He says,

"If you don’t trust, if you don’t have faith you instantly die internally. You might not die physically, but you die emotionally. Anything that is worth doing requires faith."

Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.
(German Proverb) 

Fear is ignorance. It thrives on our staying in the dark. It thrives on our not confronting it. For as long as it is not confronted, it only gets bigger, larger, and more difficult to overcome. To quote Marie Curie, “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” In the same token, commitment is not to be feared. It is only to be understood better, so we can see more and better into our spouse. Our fear originates from our ignorance or rather lack of understanding. Gaining a better understanding, and thereby overcoming this fear is our main thrust. It is the key to the life of our dreams.

"When you face your fear, most of the time you will discover that it was not really such a big threat after all. We all need some form of deeply rooted, powerful motivation—it empowers us to overcome obstacles so we can live our dreams." (Les Brown)

Fear is something we create in our minds based on the thought(s) we choose to dwell on and personalize. It is our interpretation of the world aided by our survival instinct. In the same way, we created it, it can also be uncreated or modified in a way that works for us, not against us. All we need is to change our interpretation and understanding of the stimulant event(s).

"Fear cannot be overcome unless confronted. It must be confronted with good judgment and ability." (Earl Nightingale)

The place to start is coming to terms with the truth, NOTHING IN LIFE EVER HAPPENS TO US. IT ALWAYS HAPPENS FOR US. Everything that we have ever experienced, or will ever experience is/are a tool(s) in our arsenal to use for our elevation - for entering into the life of our dreams. Nothing is ever wasted. EVERYTHING is for use - for us, not against us.

© 2017 Akin Akinbodunse

Links to Study Series:

Fighting The Enemies of Marriage (Part Eight)
Fighting The Enemies of Marriage (Part Ten)

Links to Other Resources:

The Yes Anxiety (M. Blaine Smith)

Stop Running from Love (Dusty Miller)

Ignorance is the Parent of Fear (Herman Melville)

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