Afraid of Fears? Want to overcome it? In fact, every person has experienced fear in his life and   faced a situation which made him afraid or apprehensive. Some people are afraid of the dark, some have Goosebumps before the flight takes off, some people even prefer stairs than a lift because they are afraid of enclosed spaces, which are called claustrophobia. Unless it is a phobia, we can easily overcome our fear. Let’s take help from ancient philosophers.

According to Greek philosopher Epictetus there is only one way to be happy; that is to stop worrying over things beyond our control. We must follow some simple steps to overcome our fear.

We must question ourselves how to win over this fear.

How to control our negative thoughts before they overwhelm us?

The answer to the above two questions, is only one: not to be afraid of the unknown. Once we accept our life as it is, we will find that we are no longer afraid and try to cope up with the situation as best as we can.

We must try to take one step at a time, so that we can reach our destination. Only we have to ascertain that we are taking the right path. Again, we must try to know our fear: what is in that which makes us afraid? Suppose, a person is afraid of spiders, he should be acquainted with the characteristics of a spider through the Internet or books. Then only he will know that a spider is nothing but another member of the animal kingdom.

Another way of overcoming fear is to imagine the best way to act, in case it comes true, i.e. visualizing the situation in your mind and strategize to overcome it. There was an ancient mental exercise called "Premeditation Malorum”, which consists of thinking about someone’s fear or problem, which may occur in future. Thus, visualizing the worst fear come true helps one to make strategies beforehand, so that we can fight the situation.

We must bear in mind that it is useless to worry over subjects, which we are unable to control. However, it is also an effective way to try to familiarize ourselves slowly with our object of fear; if not directly, then indirectly through reading about them or looking at their pictures in internet. These small steps will finally make us winners.