DON'T LET FEAR HINDER YOU

And how easy it is to allow ourselves to become fearful! It usually starts with a tiny little niggling, nagging little inner voice that casts a doubt in our minds and this doubt grows and increases in size until it becomes a fear! Don't go there ladies - we, ourselves are our greatest adversarys. Lift your heads proudly and look at yourselves through gentler, more truthful eyes - there is no need for doubt and there is no need for fear - we can conquer both!

'Don't let fear hinder you'
Timothy Webster

05 October 2007 at 11h00

This column is not for the faint at heart. With every stroke of the key, I've become more determined to wrestle with the relentless foe who has tricked some of you into believing that you have the luxury of being average. This foe that I refer to is not crime, taxi drivers or even pseudo BEE, it's simply called "fear".

As women's month comes to an end, I'd like to dedicate this column to all women who are workplace warriors. This goes out to all of you who despite lazy, no-good, dead-beat men have persisted and become educated and educated your children (many, at the same time) and some who are educating their siblings. It's no secret that fear has began to grip our society and my goal is not to labour the causes. However, I want to equip you with a technique to help you conquer this enemy. Lady Nancy Astor said: "The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds. "It's time to use our minds to conquer the arch enemy of our emotional state and the best way to do it is to go into proactive mode or what I call the "attack mode".

It was Shakespeare who said: "things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear." If you are a male reading this I can't stop you, but my mission is clear - I want every woman who believes she can be the best to learn ''the Alexander Technique" and to employ this in your daily discipline to ensure that fear is no longer a part of your vocabulary.

The Alexander Technique comes from a Shakespearean actor called Alexander who ran up against limitations in his ability to perform well on stage. At the time there were no microphones, so he had to fill an entire auditorium with just the power of his own voice. He was very talented at his profession but he knew that there was room for improvement. In particular, he found that his voice gave out during a longer performance and that he had a tendency to gasp for breath on occasion. Neither his doctors nor his vocal coaches were able to help and so he set off on his own, using a system of mirrors to monitor his performance in order to see precisely what was causing his difficulties.

Alexander was an obsessive student of his performance and in the end his obsession paid off not only in providing a solution to his voice problem, but later in the discovery of a process that could be taught to others who wanted to improve the quality of their physical functioning. It's time to practice until fear eventually dissipates and then teach someone else to do the same.