He Who Must Not Be Named, or Calling out your Fears.

In addition to my big To Do list that became my-life-as-a-job, I made another list recently.  A list of things I’m scared of.

It’s a huge range of things, from physical fears (still scared of roller coasters) to emotional or psychological fears (I’m still afraid to have the wrong answer, to not be right, to not know something).

And one by one, I’m going through and facing them.  I’m gonna ride a roller coaster.

One of my favorite stories is from when I was about 6 or 7.  I was terrified of the dark.  And one week my brother Dave was visiting.  And I forget how this happened but long story longer he found out I was scared and he decided to do something. 

So he locked me in a closet and turned off the light.

And he sat on the other side of the door and he talked to me.  Eventually I stopped flipping out, and just talked with him.  We sat there on either side of the door for about 30 minutes, me in the dark, just talking.

And after that I was never afraid of the dark again.

If you can name your fears, and face them head on, I think you can overcome pretty much anything.