Hold Your Breath and Face Your Fears

Hold Your Breath and Face Your Fears

I just did something that scared me.  I don’t want to say what it was because it really doesn’t matter. We all have our fears, logical or not (usually not!).

This was something that has been keeping me up at night.  Now that I’ve done it, I feel so much better!  And I feel really proud of myself and really good that I did it and successfully took care of it.  You know, we learn in this week’s parsha about how important it is to thank Hashem for everything and not to take excessive pride in our accomplishments because everything is from Hashem.  But the decision to do the right thing we can take credit for because we have free will.  How this turned out was not up to me (and it turned out fine) but deciding to take the step to deal with it WAS up to me and I do feel good about it!

So here are some ways I dealt with facing this challenge:

• Don’t think about it when you can’t do anything about it.  At night when I needed to sleep and couldn’t fix it, I tried deep breathing techniques and make myself think of other things. I wasn’t going to solve the problem in the middle of the night!
• Empower yourself.  I repeated to myself over and over that nobody was forcing me to do this – I was deciding for myself to do it.
• Know that everything is for the best.  One night, I calmed myself by reciting “gam zu le tova,” “everything is for the good” over and over.  This is EMUNAH and it has incredible power to change our lives.  I just knew that even if I couldn’t see it now, Hashem would make this all work out for the best.
• Take it one step at a time.  I tried not to think about all the many, many things I needed to do to accomplish it. I just looked at one tiny task at a time and they added up.
• Hold your breath, close your eyes, and just jump in! (This also works very well when you need to get in a cold swimming pool.) When it comes to that crucial moment, just push yourself to do it, even when you are internally resisting it.  Once you’ve hit that button or made that leap, there is no turning back. You just have to force yourself to do it – and it helps if you look away.

I hope these tips help you to face your own fears and move forward with the challenges in your own life!