This weekend I’ll be going to a baby shower. Whenever a friend has a baby, I like to gift a few of my favorite childhood books in addition to something from the registry.
One book that I have repeatedly gifted is “The Monster at the End of This Book: Staring Lovable, Furry Old Grover”, a picture book based on the TV series Sesame Street and originally published in 1971.
If you are unfamiliar with the story, the book opens with Grover telling the reader he heard that there’s a monster at the end of the book and that he's scared of monsters. He then proceeds to beg and plead with the reader not to turn another page to avoid encountering this monster.
With each page turn Grover becomes more desperate with his request and his attempts at keeping the reader from turnings pages get more elaborate (nailing down the pages, tying them together with rope, building a brick wall).
Until you get to the end of the story and discover, spoiler alert: the only monster at the end of the book is Grover.
It is a fun book because it gets the reader to be really expressive and because kids are usually on the edge of their seats in suspense the first time they hear the story.
But the reason I frequently gift it to friends is because it also contains a valuable message about fear and believing our thoughts without questioning them first. A message that is applicable to kids and adults alike.
Often our fears are not tangible or based in reality (as in facing imminent danger...like maybe a Monster) but rather grown from believing unfounded thoughts and making impossible assumptions about the unknown.
Thoughts like, "if I take a risk, I will fail", "if I allow myself to be vulnerable, I will get hurt", "if I follow my passion, I will look like a fool".
How often do we allow these thoughts to keep us from taking action? From fully living? From "turning the pages" in our life story?
How often do we stop to question these thoughts? How do we really know that the monster exists? And if it does, that it is something to be feared?
How often, if we were to really examine these beliefs, would we find that the only real monster we have to be afraid of is the one living within our own minds?
The one that tells us we aren't good enough, that it's too risky, that we'll be ridiculed.
A monster that will continue to hold power over us until we decide to “turn the pages” (by any means necessary) and face it.
So what can we use to face our fears and strip them of their control over us?
Courage?
Yes.
Strength?
Of course.
Curiosity?
Ah...here’s the secret weapon.
Take a cue from the children listening to “The Monster at the End of This Book” for the first time. They may be afraid of what awaits them at the end of the story, but their curiosity outweighs their fear. They continue on, not out of shear bravery, but from inquisitiveness. They don’t just take Grover’s word as truth, they want to see this monster for themselves.
Once we start to question the monster in our minds we can discern between the fears that are real and those that are perceived.
If we ask ourselves often enough, “Is this the truth?”, we’ll discover that most of these fears are actually make-believe. That they are limiting beliefs we’ve accepted without question.
Beliefs that belong to our families, to our coworkers, to society. But they don’t have to belong to us.
Through inquiry we can shine a light on these fears and find that in the end, we made most of them up...or that they were only lovable, furry old Grover all along.
So the next time a fear presents itself ask, "Is this the truth?".
Get curious and confront the monster.
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