Fear Not

by Kami Cornwall

Fear, Anxiety and Depression. I have been learning about it and hearing from so many people who are facing those three monsters on a daily basis. In the course of a semester I have learned three very important ways to combat it. Ready for it? This is going to blow your mind. Faith, Hope and Charity.

Now at first you are thinking I'm getting all preachy and you're going to skim down to the end of this and mark it as "read." This isn't something coming from a religious leader. These are three separate answers that have been made clear by various professors this semester.

The thing that helps people overcome fear is having faith. Have faith that you are being guided, that things are going to work out, that you can come through this alive and relatively unscathed, that things will get better. Having faith in whatever supreme being you have faith in will help overcome fear. Also have faith in yourself.

In various therapy sessions the first and most important thing a therapist needs to instill is hope. People need to see a light at the end of the tunnel. They have to have some hope for the future, that it will be brighter. Hope shines bright in a world filled with anxiety. Things can change if you are willing to work on them.

Charity helps combat depression because it not only gets people outside of themselves and takes the focus away from their own problems, but it gives them a sense of altruism - that they have done something good for someone else - and the reward in that does wonders for the soul. It boosts self-esteem. Powerful.

I know, this is way too "fluffy" and "feel-goody" for me, right? But I thought this information was so amazingly useful and easy to remember that it HAD to be shared. I'll let you go as deep into this concept as you want and I'll leave it at that. Fear, Anxiety, Depression vs. Faith, Hope and Charity. Spread the love!