Take a look at the photo of this cute little bunny.  Bunnies ARE cute right?  They’re tiny, furry little things with big floppy ears.  We buy little plush versions of bunnies for our kids to cuddle with, and we’ve even centered a lot of our Easter holiday festivities around them, so what could possibly be not appealing about these little guys?

Well, for me, this particular bunny scared the hell out of me!  Surprised?  Me too.  Now, when I look back I laugh to myself about how I reacted to this little bunny.  The funny thing is, this isn’t even a real bunny.  It’s a bunny bank.  Yep, it looks so real, but it’s just a well designed coin bank.  How hilarious is that?  Not only was I afraid of what most people perceive as cute and cuddly, but this thing wasn’t even alive.

Why would an inanimate object bring me such fear?   To answer that, we have to examine fear on a deeper level.  Without getting into too much detail on the nervous system, let’s focus on how we develop fears.  Why are some people afraid of snakes while others cockroaches?  Why are some people afraid of heights and others afraid to swim?  It comes down to a couple of different factors.  It may start with the people around you such as your parents, family, or friends.  What they say and how they interact with things in your environment will tend to and probably already have altered your perceptions of people places and things.  For instance, if your mom screeches out whenever she sees a cockroach and talks about how she is freaked out by how creepy, crawly they are when you’re growing up, you may find yourself suddenly fearful of the same thing.  If a friend talks about how they went swimming and almost drowned or how they worry about how everyone is looking at them or judging them (this is called social phobia), this could also affect how you approach water or public places.  Over time, through repeated exposure, your beliefs become altered.  When once you had no fear of something, now, you’re thinking differently.  Now, you’ve adopted a fear instilled in your mind by those interactions.  The other most important factor to consider when understanding fear is our own personal experiences.  This applies to not just what others have done to influence our fear but actual first-hand engagements.  Think about having a snake attempt to bite you, being attacked by a dog, being trapped in a dark room, or stuck in an elevator.  Pick whatever you can out of your own mind and think about how your own fears have developed.

Some things we are supposed to be afraid of instinctually.  Our autonomic nervous system exists to help us escape things like sabretooth tigers that will cause us harm or to fight back against malevolent attackers in the back alley.  However, many of the things we grow accustomed to fear develop over time by the thoughts in our own mind.  We apply our own judgments to them based on all the things discussed above which may alter your personal beliefs about things so much so that a tiny little insignificant bunny bank may strike fear in you so deeply that you cry out in panic and run away screaming.

It got so bad that the bunny bank had to be put away in a cabinet or hidden somewhere because anytime I would see it, I would react in this over the top extreme panic.  It would take some time to calm despite my parents’ attempts to console me and convince me that there was “nothing to fear”.  You might think well maybe I must have had some scary encounter with a bunny attack or watched a horror movie about killer rabbits or maybe my parents just had pet rabbits when they were younger and told me horror stories.  While all of these could have been true, this particular situation is just a little bit different.  Can you guess?  I had created the fear in my own mind.  Just as much as it was an inanimate coin bank with no actual ability to harm me in any way, I had created scenarios in my mind quite the contrary.  When I saw that bunny the first few times, I just saw the bank.  I didn’t react and pretty much dismissed it, but I remember one day staring at it.  I stared at it long enough that I began to examine its intricate details.  It’s a beautiful lifelike bunny bank.  It was too lifelike.  I found myself examining its fur.  It looked and felt real, but then, what pushed me over the edge was the eyes.  I was staring at its glassy staring right back at me eye!  I was looking at it, and it was looking at me.  He saw me looking at him.  He could tell I was examining him.  At any moment, he can come to life and start moving.  At any moment, he could get upset that I was staring at him and come after me.  It was then that I felt it was a living being and could choose to take on true life form whenever it wanted or just remain inanimate if it so desired.  This made me even more afraid because in my mind, only I had this connection with the bunny and could see its true form, so when my family or parents came around it would just pretend to be a bank while I believed it was just waiting for its moment to strike!  Of course, this was all irrational thinking but it felt true in those moments and made me react in extreme ways.

These days the bunny bank sits on my desk at home.  He serves as a gentle reminder of how I once let fear affect me in negative ways.  When I see bunnies now, I’m not afraid.  I don’t flinch or panic or even freeze.  I see them as little furry animals that typically are scared of me and will run away just by noticing my presence.  I changed my thoughts about them and reality based thoughts have taken their place.  Fear has the ability to control us and deter us from our goals.  When it’s unfounded, it can be detrimental to our lives.  Don’t let fear stop you from achieving your goals.  Take time to reflect on it.  After all, you may find out that what is holding you back is nothing more than a harmless little bunny bank.