Tell Fear To Fuck Off

I was controlled by fear and anxiety. It gripped me by the heart, squeezed tight, and didn’t let go until it had hijacked my days, ruined my nights, and plagued my dreams. I felt like half of my lungs didn’t work, because I could never fully breathe properly. Even when I wasn’t stressed, I would walk down the street and get sharp pangs of pain in my chest, as if my anxiety was saying: “HAHA! You thought I was gone? THINK AGAIN!”

I see people wearing their busyness like a badge of honour. They squeeze you in reluctantly between sweaty, high-intensity gym sessions, brunches and coffees, between drive-throughs and drop-bys, drinks and dates. They’re not busy. They’re running from themselves.

I know what this is like, because I’ve been there, too. I never wanted to stop, because stopping would mean thinking, and thinking meant feeling, and feeling meant a pain in my chest and everything spiraling out of control.

Even now, some days everything scares me. I’m scared of being judged. I’m scared of the future. I’m scared of cancer. I’m scared of death. The next day and the next hour and the next second are gaping chasms of dark possibilities, chaos waiting to leap out of the darkness and creep its lonely hand around my shoulder.

If you ever start feeling like this, tell fear to fuck off.

Fear doesn’t control us.

We control our fears. But first we have to accept them.

It’s ok to be scared. It’s ok to have NO IDEA what you’re doing with your life. You just have to accept that you don’t know.

Accept the fact that even though now is not your time, you will learn, you will search, you will listen and you will find yourself.

You’re not alone. Half of us are muddling our way through our lives, just concentrating on placing one foot after the other, not really knowing where to go, or what to do.

Fear can paralyse you. But if you’re constantly searching and seeking and thinking and questioning and MOVING, even if you’re scared, you will find your way.

There have been so many times in my life where I was paralysed by fear. Paralysed in a job that I hated, or a relationship that was well past its use-by-date, or a situation I knew wasn’t good for me. But sometimes you just need to take a leap of faith, even though you don’t know where you’ll end up.

I once read that I should think of my fear as an opportunity. Because once you have lived through your fears, you’ll have become who you were meant to be. Slowly, you will become less afraid, and you will have more time for living life.

Fear is a choice.

You can either tell fear to fuck off, or you can let it live within your heart and slowly grow its slippery tendrils through your body. The sooner we accept that, the sooner we can live our lives freely.

I can’t get rid of my fears completely. But every now and then when I’m feeling brave, I can kick it in the balls to keep it at bay.

It’s not that brave, happy people have no fears. It’s just that they have found a way to overcome them. Don’t tell fear you’re busy. Tell it to fuck off.