Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. Luke 8:30
Yesterday I talked about the effects of stress on our bodies, and I pictured President Abraham Lincoln in side-by-side pictures dated 1860 and 1865. The change was dramatic. Stress does some horrible things to our body as well as to our mind.
In talking to a client recently, I told him that carrying stress in an undermine cave somewhere in our mind does not get rid of it- it merely hides it. Underlying fears that play in the background of our mind are insidious and damaging. Bringing those fears to light, and naming them, takes the power away from them. Sometimes we do not like to look at our fears because it is…scary.
Just as Jesus named the demons that he cast out, we need to name our own fears. By naming our demons we can take power over them. Fears derive their power over us by secrecy. We can take control of our fears by naming them.
It can be anything. Lingering fears over being accepted; fear of losing a job; fear of losing a love or relationship; fear of the future. There is no end of things that we can be afraid of. However, by honestly naming our fears, we can take the power of secrecy away. Then we can begin to share those fears with trusted others, and ultimately, seeing that often the fears are not as big or as imminent as they might appear, we can begin to deal with them.
Prayer: Lord, give us the courage and the wisdom to be able to name our fears, Amen
Reflections of a Counselor 