I have known various kinds of fear throughout my life. Some are not so bad and do not take very much effort to confront and move past, but some are paralyzing. The fear that paralyzes you is most likely different for each of us. I mean, I am sure there are some we can all agree on that would be bad, but other kinds of fear have some people laughing. I have always found it humorous when you see someone react badly to something like a spider or insect, but for that person, they may feel their life is in danger.

Dr. Karl Albrecht wrote an article in Psychology Today titled, “The (Only) 5 Fears We All Share.” I would like to comment on #4 and #5 of his article. I have had ideas for articles, blogs, etc., to convey information we have learned over the years of practice in our professions, but I never finished them, nor did I publish them. Something always stops me, and I have been trying to figure out what it is. After reading many articles about procrastination, finding this article on fear, and a video clip I saw featuring Will Smith, I think I can sum it all up finally.

Number four on Dr. Albrecht’s list is, “Separation—the fear of abandonment, rejection, and loss of connectedness; of becoming a non-person—not wanted, respected, or valued by anyone else.” And number five on his list is, “Ego-death—the fear of humiliation, shame, or any other mechanism of profound self-disapproval that threatens the loss of integrity of the Self; the fear of the shattering or disintegration of one’s constructed sense of lovability, capability, and worthiness.” Both fears are present whenever I am writing something that other people may read, or being interviewed on video, or even when I am writing some as innocuous as a comment on social media. We see it every day on site such as Facebook. Someone posts a thought, or relays a story they heard, and people seem to come out of the proverbial woodwork to flame them about how stupid and ignorant they are.

We have seen the effects of a CEO of a company making a comment, and the public boycotting the company or restaurant. These things enter my mind since I have been a business owner, and I have used these what ifs in my mind as reasons to not post anything at all. How am I supposed to convey my experiences that have helped numerous clients alleviate their pain and suffering if I do not type it out for the world to read?

I talk to my daughters a lot about their own fears. My oldest is in Ohio at this very moment, being presented with her National Young Women of Distinction award that she won. She is having to give talks and speeches in front of thousands of people, and she was terrified. I have never talked in front of that many people, but I told her she is strong, and that she can do it. My wife and friend both sent me videos of her, and the other winners, on stage dancing and singing in front of all of these people. I sent her a text that if she can do that, just standing up there and talking should be a breeze. Before she left on this trip, I showed her this video clip I found of Will Smith talking about confronting fear. Now, this clip is not his entire talk, but just deals with one of the funny moment in his life, so please do not take what he says out of context.

I have watched the video several times, and it does help me, but not as much as seeing my daughter today on that stage dancing and having an enjoyable time. With all that being said, I am finishing this little post on fear, and taking the first step toward publishing my other articles and information. Clients continually tell me how much help this information would be, so I am not going to let the fear of saying something wrong stop me. I am not a medical doctor, and I am not offering medical diagnoses to your issues, but I am relaying stretches and other things you can modify at work, in your work-outs, and other aspects of your life that have helped my clients with their actual pain over the last five years of my practice. If you take offense to anything we write, please feel free to not read anything else. Please understand that what we do here is not your only course of action to relieve your pain, but we hope to present you with alternatives to medication, injections, and surgeries where possible.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post.

Photo used as the featured image for this post by Colton Jones.