Aliki Vougiouklaki once said: “Keep the snakes in your yard so you can control them.” She was talking about her enemies. But when I hear it, I think of my own enemies: my fears.
Because fears are like snakes. If you ignore them, they slither in the dark and scare you when you least expect it. But if you keep them in front of you, “in your yard,” you see them, you recognize them… and then you can control them.
🎭 Fear as a Mask
I’ve come to realize that fear is never the truth. It’s a mask. A disguise for a desire so strong that it dares to appear only when hidden. Fear tells you: “You won’t make it.” And yet, if you think about it, that fear exists only because you want so badly to succeed. Fear whispers: “You’ll get lost if you take that road.” But behind that mask lies your deep need for safety. Even when you say: “What if my child fails?”, what hides underneath is your thirst to see them grow, succeed, and find their place in the world.
So here’s what I’ve understood: whatever I want deeply, almost desperately, automatically becomes fear. Fear is the shadow of desire.
🌱 The Trick to Reveal the Truth
There is a trick, though. Every time a fear shows up, you can pull off its mask. I do it often: first I say out loud, “My fear tells me…” and I describe it. Then I pause, take a deep breath, and ask: “What desire hides behind this? What is it that I want so much?”
So if I say: “My fear tells me I’ll get lost, I won’t know where to go, I won’t manage,” and then I look deeper, I uncover the truth: “I long for safety. I long to know that no matter what happens, I can handle it.” It’s exactly as Emerson once said: “Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain.” The moment you look fear in the eye, the mask falls.
✨ Safety Means…
How many times have we confused safety with absolute control? And yet, the truth is much sweeter. Safety doesn’t mean I know every single step. Safety means I know deep down that no matter what happens, I can handle it. That is my daily struggle. And every time I remember it, I feel free. Just like George Addair wrote: “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” Yes, because fear is always the threshold to your greatest desire.
🌕 In Closing…
In the end, fears are snakes. If you keep them in the light, they don’t grow into monsters in the dark. If you take off their mask, you see behind them your longing, your strength. And then you can whisper: “I see you. I recognize you. And now I take my power back.”
And in that moment, maybe you’ll feel what Aristotle once said: “He who has overcome his fears will truly be free.”
Why is it worth teaching this to children?
This story is not only for adults. For children, fear often feels unexplainable, like a monster in the dark. But when you show them- through a story, a mask, or a picture- that “fear hides something important,” then you are teaching them:
💛 To look with courage.
🧡 To listen to their heart behind the fear.
🩵 And to understand that being “truly free” is not the absence of fear, but the meeting of fear with kindness.
