How I came to know this truth

Have you ever chosen a topic to speak on and something that you read in preparing for that talk changed your life forever? Well that's what happened to me. I was in my junior year in high school and was asked to give a talk and to choose the topic to speak on. Speaking wasn't one of my strengths and I think I chose the topic of Fear because I had so much fear in giving this talk. I thought I was going to be scared out of my mind standing in front of that class.

The good thing about this class was that it was my high school seminary class. A religious class that students could elect to attend during school hours, just off of the school campus, to help them grow spiritually and emotionally. So this was the perfect place for me to overcome these fears that I had; public speaking being one of them.

As I studied for the talk I ran across a scripture in 2 Timothy that really seemed to sink in and make perfect sense to me. We were not created to have a spirit of fear. We are to have a spirit of love, and of joy, and of a sound mind. That is what we were created for.

Truth is I can't remember the other things that I studied for that talk and I can't even remember giving the talk but I know I did. This scripture has stayed with me since that time forward and has given me the courage to take action when I was faced with uncertainty. So once I had learned this I was more than eager to share this with my friends.

Maybe I went a little overboard with this but I wanted to help my friends overcome their fears that they had. One of the ones that they had was that the people that went to seminary were stuck up and had their own "clicks" that they wouldn't allow people into. Truth is they were afraid to get out of their comfort zone and go make new friends and they just used the "click" excuse to justify them being chicken. I never had a problem with talking with the different groups of friends at school. I don't remember even once having to show a membership card before I could smile and say hi or hello and get a smile or hello back.

I had to think of a way to get my friends to get over their fear; this is where I think I might have gone a little too far on. I had gone cliff jumping with my cousins off of some pretty high cliffs and really enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment when I landed correctly. One day I heard that a boy had died from getting stuck in the mud underwater after jumping off of the high bridge at Lucky Peak outside of Boise, ID where I was currently living. That's when the question hit me, "You can actually jump off of a bridge!" I knew my mom would be proud.

So I started taking groups of friends out to the bridge and would show them how to properly jump off of a bridge. Then I would get them to associate the feeling of fear of jumping off of the bridge to anything that they felt fear over then I would jump first to show them that it was safe if they did what I told them to. Pretty soon we had a pretty large group jumping off the lower pillar of that bridge. We even tried to pass a bill in the Idaho senate that would make bridge jumping legal. It was a project for our government class.

My techniques have changed a bit since then, but I still help people overcome their fears. I have learned a bit more about what fear is and what to do about it. I used to think that we weren't even supposed to feel fear so I would just cal it different names. Truth is that fear is something we all feel. We just need to learn something from it and take action. I love the acronym for FEAR =False Evidence Appearing Real.

If fear is something that you are struggling with right now then did you know that you can change that feeling right now? What would it take for you to feel power, love, and a sound mind right now? Your mind will answer. Listen. You got your answer, now do it.

If you didn't hear the answer and need help finding that voice that speaks to all of us then just know that you are in the right place creator.