A very wise friend of mine recently told me about an old African story he learned as a child raised in Ghana.  It is called, “The Lion’s Roar.” He told it much more eloquently than this, but the executive summary is basically that when you hear a lion’s roar in the wilderness, you should always go toward the roar, rather than following your first reaction of running away from it.  The reason is that it is a trap!  Lions have the oldest, slowest, toothless lion roar loudly to scare their prey away from the roar and toward the stronger lions that lay hiding nearby in the opposite direction, ready to pounce and attack the prey as it runs right into their trap.

This is a wonderful metaphor for people facing their fears.  When we feel fear around an issue, situation, or change in our life, we need to recognize that fear for what it is, and then embrace it and push through it.  Most often, that fear is based on an old rule or way of thinking that no longer has a place in our life and is holding us back.  If we confront that fear and face it head on, we will often realize it as old and having no teeth to harm us, just like that old lion.  But, if we don’t face our fears and instead run away from them, they’ll just be the source of more, and often bigger, problems for us, similar to the more dangerous, ferocious lions waiting to pounce and attack in “The Lion’s Roar.”