Do you love the thrill of watching a scary movie? While horror flicks are a favorite for some, others can’t stand to watch.
However you feel about horror movies when they’re playing on the big screen, once the credits roll, you’re ready to leave the theater and get back to reality. But what if the horror movie was playing all the time, in your mind?
For those living with anxiety, fear and constant worry, it can feel like a film reel running out of control.
Below, Sadhguru answers a question on how to overcome this fear. He explains how fear arises because of excessive imagination. Instead of producing “horror movies” in our mind, produce a comedy, a love story or a suspense thriller, he says.
Questioner: Many times in my daily life, fear stops me from doing small things and bigger things. Fear from failure, fear maybe from rejection sometimes. How to overcome this fear?
Sadhguru: You cannot overcome something which does not exist. Right now, are you in fear? That I may say something damaging? Is it a fear? Every moment of your life you’re in fear? No. So, when you’re not in fear, just stay like that. Because, to create fear you have to use excessive imagination. To not be in fear, you don’t have to do anything.
Fear is happening because of excessive imagination; things that have not happened, you are creating. What may happen, in your mind happens in thousand different formats. And most probably it never happens. The things that you’ve feared, take hundred things that you have feared, probably 99 of them never happened, isn’t it?
So your fear is always about that which does not exist. You cannot fight, or you cannot overcome that which does not exist. We can overcome something that exists. You cannot overcome that which does not exist, you just have to give up that effort. Enjoy the fear, after all, it’s your making. You like horror movies. yes? You’re saying no, but you’re producing them. It’s just they’re not making money, that’s all.
Fear means you’re producing horror movies in your mind. Nobody else is willing to watch, that’s bad for the producer, but you’re producing them. So, you produce something else. Produce a comedy, a love story, suspense thriller. Try and see, today, just sit down and produce a love story, a suspense thriller, a comedy, 5 minutes movies you make in your mind. Really! Start using your mind differently. It has gotten into a pattern, just gotten into a pattern of just creating horror movies all the time.
You have watched enough horror movies; they’re boring. Create something else. It’s not that if you produce these movies. those things will happen in your life. Still they may not happen; at least you enjoyed the movie. In reality it may not happen, so what. At least you enjoy what’s happening in your mind if you cannot enjoy what’s happening in the world, isn’t it? That much privilege every human being deserves, isn’t it so? Even if the world is not kind to him, at least his own mind should be kind to him, should produce some nice movies.
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