Custom Search

Black Check

by Ishita Shukla
(Hyderabad, India)



A BLACK CHECK IN OUR EMOTIONAL CHESSBOARD


Anger, anxiety, disgust, fear, horror, envy are some of the black squares of our emotional chessboard. Among them, fear is the most enigmatic emotion I ever experienced. American Psychological Association defines fear as " An emotion involving immediate alarm reaction that mobilizes the organism by triggering a set of physiological changes including rapid heartbeat, redirection of blood flow away from the periphery toward the gut, tensing of the muscles and general mobilization of the organism to take action."

Let's change the direction of the kaleidoscope and see beyond logic. Fear is the sharpest weapon of our subconsciousness to make us see the worst in all and give up. Fear is the society of the 90s that will judge you, make you self-doubt yourself, and make you give up every unconventional dream you had. Fear is the overthinking demon inside you. But if trepidation is all up in our heads, then why does it keep us at night? We get so caught up in our own worst-case scenarios of low grades, social humiliation, losing a seat at the popular table, it gets harder to wake up from those hallucinations as we grow up.

Groundbreaking technological innovations are always welcomed, but I am waiting for the day when we make a genuine change in our approach towards mental health when we finally find a safe place to talk about our own delusional world we made by overthinking.

But those steps are for the bigger picture but, what can we do ourselves to keep the jitters in control? One way is to chant 'All is Well' thrice and get some relief temporarily, and the other is to accept the fact that fears are make-believe and are just holding us back. But even if we are successful in making ourselves mentally stronger, is it possible for us to be completely fearless? Will it be possible to remove the black check of fear from our emotional chessboard?

***

Click here to post comments

Return to Perspective.