1. Let's say that Mary has a personal dread of public speaking. This is a pretty common dread, but some people experience it more intensely than others. Public speaking for these people doesn't mean something extraordinary like delivering a sermon or the eulogy at a funeral. Rather, public speaking very narrowly means speaking in public at all. Public speaking, then, is Mary's fear box. It what sense is it a "box," that is, something that restricts her, keeps her locked up? Well, say Mary works for a small business. She's dedicated and honest, and her employers value her. What they don't know is that Mary has some ideas that might very well change their small business into a big business. The reason they don't know is that Mary is in a fear box-she's afraid to speak up; her fear box is so menacing that she'll sacrifice the possibility of a larger income and more personal freedom to avoid confronting it directly.

2. Let's say that John is in a marriage that for the most part brings him happiness, but the fact is that his wife habitually criticizes him in subtle but pointed ways and he's often hurt by her though he doesn't show it. John's fear box could be any number of things, but let's get specific and say that he's afraid that a husband simply saying "please stop doing this" to a wife amounts to abuse. If this is indeed John's fear box, it is likely that John was raised in a home where the husband was abusive, so abusive in fact that John now shrinks from all emotionally difficult interaction with his wife. Our first example of a fear box was pretty basic, but this example just teems with complexities. John might be afraid that vocalizing his hurt and frustration will actually lead to the sort of abuses his father engaged in. And, as we said, he might be afraid that vocalizing his hurt at all will hurt his wife, and that he'll therefore be guilty of abusing her. John's fear box doesn't allow him to see the difference between the everyday struggles of marriage and abuse.

These two examples are probably paradigmatic of fear boxes in general. Someone's afraid to do a certain thing, and this fear keeps them from achieving the sort of lifestyle they want, professional, social, familial, and so forth. What, then, is the best way of climbing out of a fear box, when one can't even manage to see where it ends, and when, so to speak, its walls seem so horribly slippery?

One thing to consider is talking to a psychologist about your fear box. Usually this a better, sounder move than grabbing a self-help book from your local bookstore. For one thing, a self-help book is lifeless because there's no actual human interaction involved. For another, for every decent self-help book there's an indecent one, that is, one that advises you to perform all sorts of trendy, fleeting experiments that ultimately harm rather than help. A living, breathing psychologist, on the other hand, can listen to you specifically and address your specific fear box. Even with a living, breathing psychologist, though, you may have to do a little hunting around before you discover the right one. That's okay, because fear boxes are serious and should be taken seriously, and taking something seriously entails devotion and struggle.

In Mary's case, a good psychologist certainly could help, but her fear box is of the kind that admits to less expensive and time-consuming escape routes. For example, Mary might try writing a letter to her employees, explaining (briefly or at length) the nature of her fear box, and then zeroing in on those solid gold ideas. In other words, she says, "Look, I've got a little complex about speaking publicly, but I have some ideas for the company that I feel you should be familiar with," etc. That way, she doesn't have to approach her employers (a HUGE factor in Mary's private fear box), but they can find a sensitive way to approach her, maybe starting with some one-on-one conversation in the privacy of an office and going from there.

In John's case, he might find the courage and wisdom he needs for escaping his fear box in a book, but a frank chat with a psychologist or trusted religious leader or even a close friend is probably his best choice. He not only needs personal assurance, he needs directions on how to best travel a highly complicated route. Also, a fear box like John's often benefits when a mediator is present to create a sense of calm, trust, know-how, etc. That is, after John talks it out one-on-one he can then bring his wife in and speak to her with his advisor's assistance rather than going it alone. And, because the whole concept of a mediator is based on neutrality, John's wife can respond (if she chooses) with the assistance of the advisor, knowing that he or she hasn't taken sides.

Escaping fear boxes, like escaping prison camps, is a tricky business, and fraught, as they say, with peril. The good news is you're not dealing with machine guns and starvation and electric fences and frenzied German Shepherds and miasmic B.O. You can get out of your fear box, but it will take courage to begin. Try to concentrate on the rewards that follow escape: a bigger income, better relationships, less nervousness, and so forth. Concentrating on the rewards of escaping the fear box rather than on the fear box itself will be crucial to your success.