Fear is not a problem, it is a choice. We do not need to solve, we need to dissolve it!! We began session on fear with kids. It began with a survey on fear with few questions.
Kids answered following questions
- What are the things you are afraid of?
- Recall one or two situations that have made you worried or nervous or afraid?
- How did you feel when you were experiencing? Do you remember what happened in your body and in your mind? (try and recollect and describe here)
- What did you do when you were afraid?
It looked simple but kids enjoyed and one of them shared “I worked on fear by answering some questions, I was happy that someone is taking care of our ‘fear’ needs”.
The survey set the stage for further discussion and PLAY with fear. How does one PLAY with fear?
One of the participants had fear of Lizards. We realised this was a fear of PAST (born when she had a harrowing experience as a little girl. So we thought we will put her into FUTURE (by using imagination)
We asked her to close her eyes, become a cloud and see a wonder-world below her and imagine a lizard there – give name to it, see it eating pizza, making friends with others, playing different games with his friends, doing different things – some real some fictitious.
After this we asked her to imagine playing with Lizard, shake hands, talk to it, interact with the Lizard, tell story, share jokes, chat about different things – all in her imagination.
If the fear is of future say “If I going by aeroplane and what if it crash and i die?” – we change the imagination of future by recalling past experience “how many times traveled in plane, how was the experience? What all did you see, feel, hear and so on.
In above Lizard example – we did the opposite.
What it does? It actually dissolve and change experience of past OR replace imagination with past experience. Empower the child to dissolve by self by giving different tools to dissolve, rather you solving them. The idea was not to remove her fear but to connect with her fear and dissolve it. Try this next time you feel fear – PLAY with it!