“You’re never truly free until you confront your fears.” ~Adeniji Bisola
The topic of Fear is a long-existing one and I believe that if people can get a deeper knowledge of what fear is, they would be able to deal with it better.
Did you know that fear has a voice?
Unfortunately, it does. Just as you can hear a person speak to you, fear speaks to you as long as you’re listening. A lot of people face different kinds of fears such as;
• Fear of failure
• Fear of being judged
• Fear of rejection
• Fear of success
• Fear of being loved
• Fear of public speaking
• Fear of not being enough
• Fear of walking in public places, and so on.
All of these fears have voices some of which are discouragement, dissatisfaction, lack of fulfillment, unhappiness, depression and so many more and I’ve learned recently that to deal with a voice, you have to speak back to it. By speaking back to it, I mean you have to confront that thing that scares you and shut its voice.
As a child, I had a lot of fears but the most prominent one was the fear of speaking in public. I never voiced my opinions because I was scared of being judged. So I often ran away from situations that would require me speaking to people or interacting with people in a group discussion. In 2021, I joined a public speaking academy, and fortunately or unfortunately for me, I was given assignments where I had to speak in front of an audience consistently. It was a whole lot trust me. I was so scared that I could feel it in my chest. But over time, I noticed that when I consistently faced the audience I was so scared of, courage was built. And since then, I’ve faced different audiences regardless of how I feel inside. I couldn’t but wonder how many opportunities I’ve deprived myself of because I was scared of speaking out.
Being fearful has so many effects on a person and you may never realize it until you step out of the state of being fearful. Some of the things fear does to a person are:
• It makes you hold back your potential and abilities.
• It keeps you, hostage.
• It blinds you from seeing your value.
• It messes up with your brain and emotions.
Did you know that fear affects a person’s academic performance too?
Oh yes, it does. A lot of students have fear of failure which is why they eventually end up failing. Sometimes, this fear can be a motivation to work hard but in most cases, it only messes with people’s heads. What people don’t understand is that as much as fear is a psychological and spiritual thing, it’s also physical in the sense that it affects your behavior and response to things. I have a personal experience where I dropped French in school because I thought it was difficult to learn and was scared that it would affect my grades but over time, I realized I deprived myself of learning something beautiful. Just like me, a lot of people make decisions out of fear. But the truth is you never know until you try. Better results are produced when there is no pressure to be either wrong or right. A change in perspective towards this will help students deliver better in their academics.
We all have fears but trust me when I say fear is a scam. It’s designed to keep you caged. Scripture says in 2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and love and a sound mind.
“Fear is simply an emotion that can be overcome when you confront it. Valorie Burton asked the question “What would happen if you didn’t allow fear to make decisions for you?” My question for you, dear friend is “Will you still let fear hold you hostage?
This article is a guest post by Adeniji Bisola. She is a writer and blogger at Medium.
