Booboo

Posted on April 12, 2018

Who said clowns are scary? Booboo the clown is here to try to convince us otherwise. With her smile, albeit timid and shy, she wants to encourage us to “face our fears”. But what does facing our fears actually mean? After all, fear has a very important role to play in our lives by keeping us out of harm’s way! To put it simply I believe that facing our fears is really just about doing things that are out of our comfort zone and realising that most of our fears, if not all, are in fact only in the mind!

”
You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind.

– Dale Carnegie

Have you seen the film Groundhog Day, where every day is the same and the same again? I imagine some of you, just like me, have felt at some point in your life that you are stuck and are just not getting or going anywhere. That happens when we live our life from our comfort zone only. Routine takes over. We do the same things day in day out in exactly in the same way. And when we get used to this way of living, even the simplest of things, that are out of our comfort zone, may seem daunting.

The sad thing is that fear, fear of failure, fear of what people will think, fear of disaster, stops us from doing things we want to do; taking that trip to Japan, making that public speech, applying for that position.

As said by Emily Triplett Lentz, in her article The Value of Doing Things That Scare You: “The most effective, scientific approach to eliminating fear is to systematically expose yourself to the thing that scares you, starting small and building tolerance as you work your way up.”

I remember the first time I went to a coffee shop to work on my laptop I felt so self conscious and uncomfortable. But now I do it without a second thought. The same for the first time I went to a yoga lesson. And then, sending a submission to be published in a prestigious art doll magazine? Let’s do this. Doing even the simplest things can help build confidence and then doing things out of your comfort zone doesn’t seem so uncomfortable anymore. Seriously. Videoing my first on line lesson? Bring it on!

There’s so much to achieve and enjoy and experience in our lives if we just “face our fears” and get out there.