PULL BACK THE CURTAIN ON FEAR


 

One of the key scenes in the famous movie The Wizard of Oz happens when the great and powerful wizard is revealed to be nothing more than a feeble old man hiding behind a curtain. He'd been utilizing an elaborate system of smoke and mirrors to keep his true identity from being revealed. When that curtain got pulled back, Dorothy and her friends saw the truth. What seemed so scary was just an illusion.

 
 
 

That’s a great analogy for the challenge each of us face in the important pursuits of life. The truth is, fear plays an important part in any meaningful experience. It may be the fear of failure, the fear of looking bad, the fear of letting someone down, or the fear of the unknown. Whatever it is, fear keeps a lot of people from going after their dream. It’ll pull out all the stops to keep you from going after yours.

Just like that blustering, bullying Wizard of Oz, though, the fear we create in our minds is often just an illusion. That means becoming our best in any area of life requires us to do what Dorothy and her friends did. We have to stand our ground and face our fears. When we do that, we recognize that fear isn’t usually what we thought. We can pull back the curtain and reveal the truth about what it is and what place it deserves to have in our pursuit. Doing that work isn’t easy, but it is important. Here are three things it takes from us…

1) Pulling back the curtain takes some curiosity. In the midst of the Wizard’s frightening production, it was Dorothy’s dog Toto who first noticed the small curtain standing in the corner of the room. What was behind that curtain? He didn’t know, but he wanted to find out. This is a mindset each of us should model. Fear counts on its ability to intimidate us up front, but the more we examine our fear, the more we explore why it exists and what part we want it to play in our experience, the less intimidating it becomes. When fear starts in with all the smoke and mirrors, we’ve got a decision to make. We can cower away at a distance and allow its power to expand, or we can lean in, get curious, and in doing so diminish the power it possesses.

2) Pulling back the curtain takes some conviction. Dorothy’s decision to face her fear was driven in large part by her conviction. Going home wasn’t something she just kind of wanted to do or something she hoped might possibly happen. She wanted it more than anything, and that’s what drove her commitment to making it happen. That same principle applies to each of us. Is this big, meaningful thing you say you’re after just something you kind of want? Is it something you hope might possibly happen? Or is there a unique level of conviction in your pursuit, one that drives your commitment to making it happen? We all have things we can commit to, but conviction clarifies those things we can’t not commit to, because they are just too important. If your conviction is weak and fragile, you very well might turn and run at the first sign of fear. But if what you’re doing is really important, you’ll stick around long enough to see that fear for what it really is.

3) Pulling back the curtain takes some courage. Standing up to your fear, not allowing it to bully or intimidate you, and ultimately putting it in its place takes a unique level of courage. It’s not for the faint of heart. The good news is that courage is like a muscle. The more often we put it to use, the stronger it becomes. Developing our courage is important because fear doesn’t ever go away. If we’re committed to doing things in life that matter, it will exist in some form or fashion for all of us. But choosing to live and act with courage, again and again over time, clarifies for us the reality of what fear usually is. It’s an illusion. A farce. A lie. It doesn’t eliminate fear from our experience, but it does move us beyond the smoke and mirrors of this great and powerful force and reveal that it isn’t all we often make it out to be. 

I don’t know what big, meaningful thing it is you really want to do, but I do know that just like Dorothy and her friends did in The Wizard of Oz, you’ll have some frightening moments to endure. The voice of your inner loser - that voice of fear - can be powerful and intimidating. You can bet it’ll pull out all the stops trying to keep you from going after your dream. It can put on quite a show.

In those challenging moments, don’t cower away. Don’t turn and run. Instead, get curious about why you feel the way you do and what your options are from here. Clarify your convictions. Determine what’s really important to you and who it is you really want to be. And exhibit your courage. Challenge that fear, pull back the curtain, and reveal its true nature. You might find it's not as powerful as it appears.

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