The mind-killer pt2

But what about trained martial artists,warriors and soldiers? They train for years to know exactly what to do in practically any given situation. Surely they are not afraid of anything. Right?

Wrong. They are just as afraid in a given situation as you or I would be. But, they are confident that they have the tools and training to come out on top, to survive. Brave men are not men without fear. Brave men are men who are afraid and move ahead with what needs to be done anyways. Fear is a healthy thing until such point as it prevents you from acting. And then it must be defeated.

How does is this done you ask? The answer is somewhat cryptically given above in the Litany Against Fear. "I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me."

What does this mean? Well the first part is pretty simple. You face it. You do not conquer your fear by running from it, avoiding it or hiding from it. All that does is give the fear more power and make it harder to deal with next time. No. To conquer your fear you must first acknowledge it. Then you must pull the fear towards you, look at it from every angle and surround yourself with it. Immerse yourself fully in the thing that you fear.  Think about all of the possible outcomes you can see and come up with the rudiments of a plan about what you will do in each of those circumstances. Next you must accept the possibility that each one of those things may happen. And finally you set the fear aside and move on with whatever it is that needs doing.

Some of your fears once looked at in this manner will disappear entirely as you realize that the likelihood of the thing you feared coming to pass is so ridiculously low as to be nearly non-existent. Or you may realize that the thing that you were so afraid of might not be so bad after all. Other times your fear, once looked at with the full power of your logic and reasoning will simply instead become caution, a thing that is part of you but does not prevent you from acting.

And thus we have the last part of the Litany. "Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain". The Litany Against Fear was designed to allow those who might otherwise be paralyzed with fear to be able to act in some pretty difficult and scary circumstances.  The ending indicates that once dealt with the fear will disappear.

While it is a very empowering idea it is not completely accurate without a slight alteration in viewpoint. Sometimes the thing you fear is legitimate and real and dealing with it does not make it less so. Many fears do not and should not ever go away. You can minimize the chances of the thing you fear coming to pass but the possibility should still remain within your mind so that you do not get careless. I think it would be more correct to say that the ability that the fear has to control you disappears. The fear is no longer an enormous external entity looming in front of you. It becomes an internal thing that you control.

 And then "Only I will remain" becomes accurate.