For most part of my life I have lived with my head in the clouds - I still do.
So, it was the best advice that I could ever receive as a 10 year old - the nun's soft, ethereal sounding voice said, "Why do you fear? Fear is just an illusion."
"It is easy for you to say Sr. You are not the one getting nightmares about snakes and demons and of course the horrible English teacher (the latter I did not express)"
If I allow myself, I can still feel the warmth of the nun's smile when she said, "Okay, I'll teach you how to deal with your fears. This is what you should do. And knowing you it should come easy, since you spend most of your time in a fantasy land."
I pretended not to hear the last bit, since I was guilty. I had spent the maximum time in my fantasy land in her history class - it was so much fun to actually be there with Genghis Khan and Akbar in the war front (which is where I was at least in my head) than to actually study the history lesson.
Anyways, the nun continued, "Turn your fears into fantasies. Take what you fear or what you don't like and turn it into something that you would like. Put it in an environment that you love the best, color it, embellish it and do all that you could to make it look pretty and nice. Till it looks and feels like the fantasy that you would love to dive into. And soon you will laugh at yourself for having those fears. Because fear is an illusion –it is all in your mind. Your mind is a powerful tool. Remember that."
And I have.
That piece of advice has helped me deal with many fears.
Till date if there is something that I don’t like or fear, I turn it into a fantasy and let it remain there till I get comfortable with what I don’t like or fear and then deal with it.
So, when I saw this ant hill it reminded me of how I hated them once. It gave me the heebe- jeebes . Till I turned it into a fantasy and dealt with it. Those days I was not into photography –so fantasy-making happened in the head. This image is a remembrance of sort of those old days. My fantasies
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