Halloween is interesting because it’s the one night out of the entire year in which being afraid is celebrated. For 364 days, we’re taught to brush our fears away, to be fearless, to act like nothing can spook us. This is of course a terrible mental health strategy, as to be fearless is impossible, and the more we try to get there the more inadequate we feel and the more we hide our true feelings and selves.
Then comes Halloween. One night only. Be afraid, get validated! Enter the haunted house, leave with candy. What if we approached every day of our lives with the same level of respect for the full spectrum of feelings available to us as humans? Instead of brushing aside fear, celebrating it?
This Halloween let’s bravely celebrate and welcome our fears–whether they’re witches and werewolves, or the fear of failure, of success, of commitment, of being our true authentic selves. By facing our fears with curiosity, we can learn where the fear comes from, and heal the underlying wounds. This Halloween, let’s face the ghosts of our pasts. Let’s welcome them the way we do all ghosts on Halloween, instead of viewing them as something to be feared, forgotten, avoided.
We clear out the skeletons in our closets by facing them and accepting them for what they are: a part of us, that shouldn’t be hidden away. What makes us perfect is recognizing that we are one in seven billion (and counting). We are each one of a kind. The sooner we embrace ourselves fully, including the skeletons we seek to hide away, the sooner we can make the contribution to the world that only we can.
