The Monster Under the Bed

What frightens you most? Death? Living? Being incapacitated? Being penniless? The list could go on ad infinitum. But deep down in your being what frightens you most?

Until we can name what frightens us the most we are a slave to avoiding it. We will do whatever we can to avoid confronting our greatest fear. Somewhere I once read that half of the battle in killing a dragon is naming it. The unknown, unnamed, is far more fearsome than that to which we can attach a name. One of the most horrible parts of being seriously ill is not having a diagnosis, a name, for the illness. Without a name our imagination runs wild.  Knowing the name takes away the mystery, the foreboding.

There is not a person alive, who is not frightened by something. It might be the boogie man or the monster under the bed. One ploy to help children when they are frightened by the unseen, the unknown, the projected, is to give it a name. If the monster under the bed is named Harry. Harry becomes a lot less frightening. Then we can address the monster under the bed directly. We can read to Harry the children’s book written for frustrated parents by Adam Mansbach. Naming the monster under the bed gives us a level of power over that which frightens us.

To say nothing frightens us is to be less than honest with ourself, at best. Those who proclaim that nothing frightens them are most vulnerable to be taken totally unaware at the worst possible time, frozen in place and having wet their pants. They have no name for that which frightens them and are easy prey.

This is the season for graduation from academic, professional, military, religious  and other institutions designed to prepare us for the “real world.” The graduates, all spit shined and full of themselves, confidently set out to make a place for themselves and to conquer the world. Oh, if they only had some idea of the ravenous wolves and lurking dragons which await just around  the corner. Some may be a little scared, but most do not know enough, have not experienced enough, to be truly frightened. Have we failed them in not being brutally honest with them about that which awaits them and which frightens us?

The best thing we can do is to acknowledge what frightens us and sharing the name we have given it. Life is not all Disneyland. If we (those who are to be mentors, coaches, and leaders of these newly minted graduates) constantly act like we have our stuff together and that nothing frightens us are we not passing on our dishonestly to those who will one day take our place?

Let’s quit kidding ourselves. We all have a monster or dragon which frightens us in our deepest being. Let us have the courage to name it and to take a modicum of control over it. Let us model an authentic life rather than hiding our fears only to be enslaved to the monster under the bed.