Fear Not
by Sara Forrest, Commission Member
Fear Not
I’ve been told more than once that this is the most frequent saying of Jesus.
I once read a book called Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway. It helped me to think more deeply about what held me back from new experiences. There were different trend stories my fears, often embarrassment, sometimes rejection or failure. Thinking about the worst thing that could happen if someone did laugh, say no or I didn’t get the result I wanted helped me to find a bigger perspective and motivated me to Do It Anyway. I have made good friends and happy experiences when I have taken a more adventurous path.
However, in a world of quick thinking, reading and reacting to the next post we focus on the superficial and may not have the time, or inclination, to invest in thinking more deeply. But humans have evolved to learn through experience, we tend to repeat actions that lead us to feel good and algorithms can trigger rapid emotional responses that keep us on line (being advertised to) and do not engage our brain capacity.
I read an article about older people who had been book readers but had stopped in favour of screen time and then found that they couldn’t settle to relax and read books on their holidays. A psychologist had developed a programme of re-introducing the reading habit by recommending reading a book for 20 minutes per day for a couple of weeks and then gradually lengthening the reading period they were comfortable with.
It strikes me that too much screen time may also be reducing healthy spiritual habits, such as examining our conscience and praying. If we don’t take time to think about how our behaviour may be impacting the people around us we risk damaging relationships with them and if we don’t think about our actions and thoughts we can turn away from God.
Since hot weather tends to make us drowsy and holidays give us more free time why not invest in some deeper thinking about what we’re would do if we weren’t frightened of things like rejection, failure or embarrassment and a wider range of options for reducing our fear and doing what will make us a better person.
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