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DECEMBER 23, 2021 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
Self-Mastery Academy
How to Overcome Fear By Rabbi Shmuel Reichman
I
remember when I was still a college student, and I was undergoing a tremendous inner struggle. On the one hand, I wanted to go out into the world and teach, write, and inspire. On the other hand, I had several fears holding me back. I didn’t think I was good enough or worthy of succeeding. I hadn’t yet finished semicha, completed my degrees, or positioned myself as a professional. A large part of me feared that without the credentials and professional positioning, I would fail miserably. Not only wouldn’t my skills and talent be good enough to achieve my desired results, but no one would take me seriously. Perhaps it would be better to wait several years until I finished all my degrees and successfully positioned myself, and then begin the journey of teaching and impacting others. However, another part of me knew that even before achieving any of those things, I had the ability and responsibility to start sharing what I had learned and help inspire others to achieve their greatness. But I realized that what was holding me back was fear; I decided that the only way I would be able take the leap into the unknown and strive after my dream
would be to study the topic of fear and determine the best strategies I could use to overcome my fears.
1. Develop an Empowering “Why” While fear is a powerful and debilitating force, it has its limits. The best way to overcome the force of fear is to have an even more powerful force: the existential power of an empowering “why.” A “why” is an underlying drive, an all-compassing vision that motivates everything else in your life. Your “why” can be centered around providing for your family, proving to yourself how great you can be, or the contribution you want to make to the world. But the greatest “why” a person can have is living their G-d-given purpose and achieving their ultimate greatness. When you know why you are striving for greatness, when you have a crystal-clear vision and purpose, you can harness your willpower to overcome anything, even your greatest fears. When fueled by the strength and passion of meaning and purpose, you can push forward and withstand – even embrace – the pain, doubt, and sacrifices that come with the journey.
As we discussed previously, suffering is meaningless pain, and therefore unbearable. But when our pain takes on meaning – when we understand why we are undergoing this painful process and the sweetness of the fruits it will produce – it becomes bearable, even enjoyable. When someone at the gym lifts weights, they are ripping their muscles, a painful and strenuous experience. But they know that this pain is the source of their growth, the source of their progress, so it becomes a meaningful pain. The same applies to existential growth: when we rip ourselves out of our comfort zones and push ourselves to the limit, the pain becomes the source of our growth and progress, and therefore becomes a meaningful pain that we can not only bear, but even embrace.
2. Break it Down Much of fear’s impact, especially its ability to paralyze us and cause us to shrink away from tackling our goals, is due to our tendency to turn things into something disproportionately larger than it truly is. Fear causes us to turn things into infinitely expansive and unconquerable obstacles; our fears distort and
magnify our challenges, making them too large and overwhelming to even think about approaching. As a result, we avoid taking even the first step on the journey towards greatness. For example, while we know that we are physically capable of spending an hour exercising or speaking up in front of a group at work, our fear of exercising or public speaking can make it seem literally impossible. Even a simple step towards our goal, like exercising for ten minutes or saying one sentence in public, can be so overwhelming that we avoid it completely. The first step to overcoming this aspect of fear is to acknowledge what the obstacle actually is and break the obstacle down into tangible parts. When we allow fear to live in our head unchecked, it expands infinitely. When we acknowledge our fears for what they are, we bring the challenge into the finite, from the unspeakable to the spoken, from the theoretical to the real. Is this actually dangerous, or is this only self-doubt? Am I risking my life or my comfort? Am I scared of slipping off a cliff and falling to my death, or am I scared of failing or looking unprepared and foolish
