What happens when we let fear rule our life? What does it take to overcome fear?
What does a mouse have to do with co-workers? You’ll see. I was afraid of mice. Since I was four years old and my father stored his seed corn in the bedroom closet, I was afraid of mice. I could hear them scurry across the linoleum floor and scratch their way down the inside of my walls. My routine nightmare was of a giant mouse was chasing me and going to eat me.
When I was 9 years old, my job was to feed the chickens and gather eggs. I climbed the stack of chicken nests gathering eggs when I reached in the top next and touched a rat. I dropped my egg basket and climbed down one side of the stack as the rat raced down the other.
I broke all the eggs so I was reassigned to filling feed buckets. The feed was stored in a mow above the corn crib. One day as I opened the shoot to fill the buckets, a mouse was sucked down along with the feed. The mouse flew out of the bucket and ran up my pant leg! I was so busy trying to stop the mouse and get my pants off, I forgot to close the shoot. You can guess the rest of that story.
“Mice occurrences” continued to happen to me throughout my childhood. By the time I was an adult, it was a full blown irrational fear I could not shake. The interesting thing was, the more afraid I became of mice, the more they were attracted to me. Even my husband and sons agreed that the mice seemed to seek me out. It was as if they could sense my fear.
Isn’t that the way life is? The more we concentrate on our fears the more they seem to find us. They can grow out of control just like my fear of mice. All of our thoughts are filtered through these fears until everything or everyone can look like a threat. I knew it was irrational but I felt helpless.
One day, my husband got a new industrial sized lawn mower with a large deck and a seat that sat high above the ground. As I was mowing, a little mouse showed up in the grass. Before I knew it, I gunned that mower and chased that mouse erratically across the yard. I was going to get him! My husband watched me race at top speed zigzagging leaving a peculiar pattern in the lawn.
I did not get my mouse but a funny thing happened. I am no longer afraid of mice. For the first time I felt bigger and more powerful than the mouse. That was all it took and I was no longer afraid.
So what if we could do this with the rest of our fears in our lives? How could we feel bigger and more powerful than the things or people we fear?
If you are afraid of someone at work, our natural response is to try to avoid them. Do the opposite and walk right up to them and say hi to them. You’ll be surprised how flustered they can get because they are not expecting you to come to them – just like the mouse. You don’t have to confront them but don’t let them intimidate you either.
I confirmed this theory in my own work life. I deliberately set out to find a former co-worker who had made my work life so miserable I finally left that employment. I was terrified of her and even had nightmares. I worried about what more damage she was doing even after I was gone.
Then I finally got tired of being afraid and feeling like I needed to hide. So I decided I set out to find her. I even had a gift I was going to give her. The first time she saw me in the lounge talking to another former co-worker, she buried her head so she would not have to look at me and she sneaked out the back door.
The next two times, I was volunteering for a half day in a room across the hall from her office. When she saw me in the parking lot both days, she drove on through so she would not have to speak to me. I don’t know where she went but she did not come back while I was in the building.
Just like the mouse, I am no longer afraid of her. In fact, it was comical to see her run from me just like that little mouse running from me on the lawnmower. And here I was going to give her a present. It’s her loss!
