Last update: 14 September, 2018
Fear itself is not a negative feeling. It protects us from possible threats and sometimes helps us to be more thorough and focused on what we do. However, it is a reality that can invade every corner of our existence, without us realizing it. We simply suddenly find that fear dominates our life.
To be honest, not everyone realizes this. Maybe fear dominates your life, but you haven't noticed yet. Fear is one of those realities that we very often tend to mask to make it go unnoticed, thus deluding ourselves that we have everything under control. For this reason it is sometimes difficult to identify this feeling.
The timid are afraid before they are in danger; the cowards before it; the brave, only later.
-Jean Paul-
When fear dominates a person's life, it can happen to feel stuck or to have the feeling that nothing is going right.. Achieving your goals seems impossible and you are dominated by a general state of unease. The signals we are about to describe will help you understand if your life is strongly influenced by fear or not. Are you ready?
Signs to understand if fear dominates your life
Perfectionism
Excess perfectionism is not a virtue, especially when accompanied by intolerance or anxiety. Instead of making us better or helping us get better results, many times it just leads us to enjoy nothing.
When perfectionism haunts us, it can be seen as a sign that fear dominates our life. È It is possible that basically we do not want to improve things perfectly, but that we are only afraid of not being up to it or, worse, of feeling rejected from others. Maybe, you are also afraid of making a mistake.
Don't take any risks
Unequivocal sign that fear dominates one's life. Avoiding risk at any cost is tantamount to stopping living. It is an attitude that blocks and makes one perceive, sooner or later, one's life as boring or dull.
If you want to be on the safe side, you will limit the number of your experiences to a minimum. The absence of risk is pure fantasy, because it is inherent in our existence. Fear of falling short risks keeping you trapped in a comfort zone forever.
Postpone
Fear is one of the reasons we tend to postpone things indefinitely. We postpone it because we fear that the time has come to move on to facts. Fear prevents you from moving forward by realizing your goals and fulfilling your duties.
Courage is not a feeling that is revealed before doing something that requires a certain amount of courage. Rather, it is a reality that is built to the extent that we dare and act in order to advance towards our goal. Postponing often increases the fear, more and more until it is impossible to defeat it.
You need to have everything under control
The desire to have everything under control is a clear symptom of insecurity. And insecurity is nothing more than the fear of being themselves, to express themselves fully, to accept themselves with all the strengths and weaknesses that distinguish us. Trying to always have everything under control, paradoxically, means letting fear control our life.
Uncertainty is a constant in human life. There is actually nothing in the world that we can really keep under control. There are too many forces that escape our will, our desire. Being flexible and adaptable is a sign of strength and means being realistic. This also applies to humility. The desire to control everything is the surest path to anguish.
Avoid expressing yourself in public
We are not referring to the difficulty of making public speeches or giving lectures. Some people refrain from saying what they think or feel. And they do it out of fear. Fear of someone else's reaction, fear of saying something compromising or of affirming oneself.
Not saying what you think or what you feel is tantamount to canceling yourself. Whoever renounces to express his opinion renounces himself. And renounce his freedom too, of thought and expression. The fear of speaking leads to invisibility, to symbolic death.
There is no other way to overcome fears than by facing it. It is not a question of fearlessly exposing ourselves to something that distresses us. Means that it is worthwhile to undertake a process that induces us to recover that strength that is hidden in us. If fear dominates your life, it is time to do something to make you dominate your fear.
