Fear

The concept of fear is very intriguing to me. I have blogged a few times on what some of my fears are, but I keep coming back to why do we react the way we do when our "fears" are put in front of us? Last night I got home late from work (Nick Vujicic was great) and went to check on the boys. I wanted to make sure they were okay with the giant thunderstorm going on and I hadn't really seen them much this week. Well when I went into Trenton's room I could not find him. He was literally not in his room...or at least that's what I thought. I went over to his closet, and when I opened the door he was curled up inside with his blanket and penguin. Sleeping in the darkness of his closet which apparently was protecting him from the lighting. It was funny and sweet at the same time. It reminded me of when I was really little and my brothers and I use to go into my sister's room in our house in Mendota Heights because it was the room the thunder and lighting were the least scary in. From young ages it seems we are taught or learn on our own to run/hide from that which puts fear into our lives. We spend so much time hiding and running that when it comes time to actually face those things which make us afraid we have the most incredibly hard time doing so. How do you counteract that? I'm not going to make Trenton sleep in a sleeping bag on the driveway during the next storm...so how do I help him with his fears. Of course things like being afraid of thunderstorms, spiders, scorpions, clowns (completely rational), or stuff like that doesn't totally matter. But what about the fears that a person must overcome? How do I teach my boys, how do I teach myself, how do I teach those around me to face the fears when it goes completely against what they and myself have done since we were little? I don't know if I really have an answer on this, but I have just been spending a lot of time thinking about it.