I normally write my blogs first thing in the morning at 6am, fresh with the new day but tonight I have stayed up into the wee hours purposefully, to write to you about a very dark and scary subject …

Fear!

Naturally, our fears are heightened at night, we don’t see well during the dark hours. The big predators tend to hunt at night and we are vulnerable creatures. If we still lived in the sticks, we would fear for our very lives, every night.

Our fear is primordial, normal and essential to keep us alive. If we weren’t scared, we would not be so aware of potential threats to our lives, we would make no provisions and take no precautions. In a natural environment, without fear, we would probably be someone else’s food by the weekend.

We are protected now though, by bricks and mortar. Our physical lives are no longer threatened on a daily basis. The night time predators have been replaced by stories of the Bogeyman, the only difference is that the Bogeyman isn’t real. Or is he?

Who or what is a Bogeyman? A bogy is an evil spirit that frightens and stresses humans, so a “Bogey-man” is a person that does the same thing.

Who or what collective seriously has the capability of frightening or stressing you in this civilised world on a day to day basis? Who or what are you truly scared of?

Is it your partner, your children, your parents or your neighbours? Is it your government, rulers or their authorities, that are charging you to fund decisions that you don’t condone and controlling your physical freedoms? Is it some far off idea of terrorists, religious fundamentalists or immigrants, that frighten you?

Anything that truly threatens our survival may be worth being fearful of, everything else is worry only. Because fear is a most tiring and disabling emotion, the wise will confirm that any potential threat is 100% genuine before adopting the rather harrowing attitude of “being scared” or “accepting fear” in their lives. Fear contracts us, costs energy and causes stress, which is still the biggest killer. No-one likes to lie down with the Bogeyman.

All the other stuff are just worries, or “bite-sized fear” as I like to call it. Worries are a bit of a waste of energy and with a little common sense and courage, they can always be either sublimated or the cause can simply be ousted from your life. We would all do well to heed rule two of the five rules for a joyful life;

1. Free yourself from hatred of the mind
2. Free yourself from worry
3. Be healthy
4. Give more
5. Expect less

Notice, “free yourself from worry”, no need for assistance. Just deliberation, decision and action. If this doesn’t work for you and you are still paralyzed by worrying about things, there is likely an underlying issue in your psychological make-up, usually self-confidence, that needs to be addressed in order for the worrying to turn to optimism.

For the rest of us, the old idea, “why worry about things you have no control over” serves us well, plus deliberation, decision, followed by action over the things that we do.

Free of worries, we now only have fear itself to address. Consider hard what you are truly frightened of and it all ends in death, our own fear of our own death. The fear of the dark. And yet each night we give ourselves up to the darkness, to sleep, which is a kind of death. Every night, we bravely face the Bogeyman, we sleep and it rejuvenates us.

Similarly, when we consider our mortality and face our own fear of death, we come out of the other side with a feeling of fearlessness. Rather than courage or bravery, which override fear, fear-less is free of fear. With this absence of fear, we become unrestricted and positivity overwhelms our psyche. In this state we naturally seek a higher role, walk a higher path and serve a higher purpose.

So for the good of yourself and the world, spend a few moments facing your own mortality this week, it will stop you getting sucked into an unnecessary state of fear by your local fearmongers or by those that profit from you being in this condition and with the extra attention available to you, you will start revealing a much more satisfying and fulfilling life for yourself.