Youth Power
Abhinav Gupta
Facing the Fears
Fear is like a speed breaker in our path which makes us stumble and even fall hard. When I was 8years old, our family shifted to a new home. I liked my new home but there were certain bizzare things in it. The rooms of my home were usually filled with darkness as there were many homes and buildings around it which obstructed sunlight. Even I was small, I had a separate room for studies but I did not cherish that room ever. The room was filled with some odious energy which used to haunt me. Also, I felt uncomfortable in that room due to some moaning sounds, I used to hear at night. The darkness accompanied by bad vibrations and moaning sound was a terrible combo and sent chills down my spine. The room even affected my studies. Whenever I tried to study, my mind got accumulated with spooky thoughts. I did not fear ghosts but believed on bad souls. Almost one month had passed and I had scored poor marks in unit tests. So, I decided to end this fear and started exploring sources of my fears. After exploring for two days, I found that the source of moaning sounds was a little insect under my bed. To omit bad thoughts from my mind, I started playing soothing sounds in my background. I asked my father to install one more led light in my room to illuminate it. These measures helped me a lot to Fight Against my fear. From this incident, I learnt that fear can only terrify us when we will allow it.
Shreshtha Saini
Incapacitating the Fear of Failure
Every child, teenager and adult has experienced anxiety, fear or worry at some time in their lives. Everyone has their own phobias . I had mine too – fear of failing . Growing up in an Indian family obsessed with good grades can be a nightmare for many kids. Life allows everyone to experience challenges in their own way and when these challenges become impossible to complete, they become long term problems . Back in 2016 something similar happened to me. By this stage , I would have persistent nightmares of failing in examination which lingered and haunted me. I never really tasted failure until grade 6 when I failed in my unit exams. I disappointed everyone and above all , my own self. After this I started to devalue myself, I started setting the bar lower for myself. No-one was aware of what I was secretly going through . At the time , I never really discerned to the fact that I was in trouble. One day, I sat down and asked myself a question, “Do I really want to live this way?”. My inner self whispered, “no”. I instantly realized that fear of failure has messed with my mind. The only way to get out of this mundane cycle was to have faith in myself. I worked hard , very hard and as a result I was amongst the top rankers. This is one part of my life that I vividly recall. I am quite grateful that I learnt this lesson early in my life and came out of this loop in the early stages. A lot has changed since then. I feel way more stronger, determined and empowered . The fear of failing is still there but now it cannot overpower my self-confidence.
Ishpreet Kaur
Fear
"In time we hate that which we often fear". It is a quote by Willian Shakespeare and it is quite relatable to my life. I also have fear and I really hate that thing. J am GLOBOPHOBIC. J am even afraid of telling about it to someone as it is an 'extreme fear of balloons'.I hate balloons. "What? Fear of balloons are u serious?" , "yes I am serious". And the laughing starts. Ugh! I am used to it now. I cannot attend birthday parties as you know birthdays are incomplete without balloons. I went to a birthday party thankfully there were no balloons but I think that thought was enough for me to gain courage and smile before the drop of bombshell as now I am standing still and speechless.I saw a room filled with balloons and the children calling me inside to play. That was too much fear for a twelve year old girl. My fear was growing with me.Now I am sixteen, and tomorrow is my dearest friend's birthday. I am excited and relieved as she is grown up now so no balloons in the party. But, that was a silly thought. As I entered the house, the balloons were welcoming me from the railing of the 1st floor. I was really shocked and terrified. I was climbing the stairs with thrill and anxiety. Ohhh! This will be really very embarrassing. The time I stepped on the last stair, my heart missed a beat. The floor was filled with balloons, I was still like a statue.I was facing my hardest time. There was only one thought in my mind that if I moved back, I will definitely die with embarrassment and if I moved forward then I will die with fear, What to do now? Suddenly, something popped in my mind and after that I enjoyed the party. After 2 years, when I thought about my friend's birthday party, a chill went down my spine.That day, I took the step forward with a thought that my fear is killing me more when I am thinking about it and not doing anything to overcome it and now I have to step on it. Troubles and struggles never end and the same was happening with me. The balloons were troubling me and I was struggling to ignore them. I always follow that thinking is the strongest power in the world.Our thoughts can make us stronger as well as weaker. Thinking, following positivity, gaining courage and moving forward is a key to success. With this key I am trying to open the lock of my fear. We all have to feel the fear and overcome it before it completely conquers our mind.
Khushi Sharma
Fear
There is an infinite pool of fears an individual comes across in his life and I unequivocally believe that it is absolutely fine as fear is the quintessential human emotion experienced by every being of human species making it an utterly unavoidable feeling. And being one of the 7.8 billion Homo sapiens spread unevenly across the world I also possess certain fears but I often come across the fear of criticism as I am quite sensitive to it. I am that kind of personality who can become really defensive in the face of criticism and conflict, particularly when it comes to issues near to my heart or when someone challenges my principles or values. Citing an example of it, a few weeks back I was prattling with one of my friends over a phone call discussing about our future plans. He apprised me that he had tons of ideas and plans to build up his career but I said that I was still quite uncertain about the same. He, then in an opprobious manner criticised me for the uncertainties I had and stated that I am worth nothing. Therefore, I started acting very defensive about it because criticism, and the fear of it, robs me of my self-esteem, minimalizes my personal growth of sensability and sometimes even takes away self-reliance. And the worst affect of it not to forget is, the danger of creating a false image of oneself and not realising self-worth. But looking at the positive side of it, I have started taking criticism as a scope of improvement on one plane and thereby avoiding the issues unwanted on the other side which has now led me to a credible status in my own eyes. Also by analysing the sitches I encounter daily and deeply connecting to them I have realised that first of all I need to silence that self-critic that lives only inside my head, replace critical self talk with positive self affirmations. What I all need to work upon is to develop realistic self image and positive beliefs about the qualities within myself to heal from criticism's damaging psychological effects.
Bharat Bhatt
Facing the Fears
As we know, everyone is fear of various things like someone is fear of height, fear of deep water, fear of darkness, fear of loneliness etc. But, Today the most of the fear for the children /students is the fear of exams. They feel more stress and fear during the days of examination till result. They have nothing to do instead of reading books like a parrot. Some students also feel very depressed at that time. I want to share my experience on the fear of exams. It all was also happened with me when I was in class 10th. These were my board exams. I feel stress about that how could I prepared for it. I watched so many videos related to exams, called my friends for notes, rushed to market to purchase expensive books and guides but, no results. As soon as the date of exams was coming near, my fear and stress was increasing higher and higher. I was feeling helpless and loneliness. Then, I come to my father and he suggested me that if I really want to achieve something in life, then, I should leave the fear and stress and work hard from today. After that I gained the little confidence and from that day I work so hard and hit my target. So, I wish to tell you that fear is nothing. It is the state of mind that one create in his/her own mind. One should focus on the thing that he /she want to achieve in life, leave the fear, set the target, concentrate on it, work hard and it is sure that he /she will get the success. So please never leave confidence, focus on your target, work hard to achieve the goals an leave the fear alone.
Krishna Goel
Fear
One year back when I had just passed my class 10th board exams , some great fears of life came in front of me. Fear of class 10th result , fear of losing my friends but the biggest fear to me and my parents was to choose the NON-MEDICAL stream for my career. Everyone around {being the ex commerce students} told me that non medical is very tough. Sounds funny right? Means at that time I was getting tons of advice from the non experienced , the experienced ones , the relatives and almost from everywhere. But the thing was that though the decisions were truly in our hands , many things started revolving our heads like will I be compatible with the subjects? Are the decisions taken by us wrong? Will there be a need to change the subjects in the future? etc etc. Besides all these we finally decided to take a strong step and I finally got admission in my previous school and I opted for non medical as the stream. We started with our syllabus and to my surprise I found the subjects really very easy. Now, was that a miracle? Was I too intelligent? The answer is NO!!! The real struggles were there to come forward. As soon as we reached the half session of class 11th, the things got worst. I became so depressed as I was getting nothing out of my syllabus. I just kept sitting alone for longer hours and the words of people kept revolving in my head. But this was not enough . Due to the Covid situation our classes were also made to be conducted online which gave a big back thrust. Thinking and thinking I wasted my one month. But sitting idle was not the solution. One day I finally decided to study ,took my books , sat on my study table and stared reading the concepts . I continued studying for a month and surprisingly the concepts started going into my mind .Well that's a great situation. The support from my parents , mentors and self dedication helped me get out of the pit. I just want to say that through my life experiences that,'' fears would be many, many people will demotivate you but the person who has his/her own strategies to deal with is the unbeatable" because the fear like this was a very small part , the world has much more to give.
Medha Sharma
Fear
Like everybody has some kind of fear I also had a fear of height which is also known as acrophobia. Earlier, even if I tried to look down the aeroplane I used to get nervous but I remember in 2018 we went to mysore for the vacations. And my siblings decided to do skydiving, I also wanted to do it and I even took up the challenge to do so though I knew that I had acrophobia. Everybody asked me whether I was sure or not but my answer was a "big yes". Then we walked into the room filled with lots of skydiving gear. People there made us ready for the same. Then we boarded the helicopter and I felt extremely sick in my stomach. Then they gave us the instructions. When we reached our jumping point we got all our things ready and were ready to jump. My siblings first jumped and all of them were not at all afraid. Then came my turn. I was so nervous. The person who was helping me to do skydiving asked me to jump and then we both jumped out of the helicopter. That free fall was terrifying. There was a feeling of relief as I sprung up into the air. I landed softly to the ground. I was feeling shaky but other than that I was alright. Everybody out there were surprised. So one thing I learnt from this incident was that if you are willing to do something that is your weakness and muster up the courage to do so without thinking about the weakness, you can definitely do it. So we should try to overcome our fears and do challenging tasks in our life
Dhairya Sood
Fear
*"The only thing that you need to fear, is fear itself"* Speaking of fear, I wanna tell you about my journey and victory over my fear: Stage freight. Who doesn't like to express their views and opinions in the best way possible? Everyone. Right? I do too, but it was not the case always, I've had my fair share of turbulences with speaking on stage. I always assessed myself from what other's would think of my opinion, will they agree with me? So, let me tell you my little secret: *confidence.* Confidence is what led me from my mere comfort zone to be a speaker with the Youth Power Group, USA, where I get to hear and share various views and ideas on mental health. And yes, it will take time and practice to stand by what you say on stage but that's the beauty of your struggle and dedication, you start to believe in yourself and have strength in your inner vitality. So, start today write what you feel and speak what you believe and that's the beginning of a whole new story.
Tamanna Pal
Fear
Every child ,teenager and adult has experienced fear in their lives. No matter how big we are,we all have fears. I have fears of heights,darkness,being alone. My first fear is height. Whenever I go to a higher place I feel dizzy and uncomfortable and an idea of falling from an extreme height come to my mind . So I avoid to go too near so the idea of falling should not come to my mind and I can also enjoy the view. My second fear is darkness . I feel very uncomfortable and weird. In the dark you can't see anything around you. You don't know where are you going. It can be very dangerous situation. Your mind creates all type of scary images and the things around you start to look scary . I always feel uncomfortable in darkness . My third fear is being alone. I call my friends or I do many things like drawing to overcome this fear
Aditya Jain
Common Fears
I had one of the most common fears and that was of public speaking. As a child I used to watch children of my age performing on the stage and I always thought that how could be they so good and why am I not able to speak a single word on the stage. As I eventually grew up I realised that I lack confidence and I started talking to myself to gain confidence and it turned it to be a good move. My first stage appearance was in 8th class and it was a speech competition. I just completely messed up everything that day and I felt that I am not a stage person. My big breakthrough was when I was asked to do a speech for the morning assembly. I initially wasn't interested for the assembly but I had no choice other than to express myself. So I took the challenge and went on. That assembly was the best of my life because I reached the peak of my confidence and after that there was no turning back. I went on to perform on the stage for other competitions and the nervousness I had before was now turned into my resilience. Now I had enough confidence that I was just ready to outperform others. And for me becoming the best speaker is still a journey and I am sure that I someday will reach my destination.