fear itself
Amid lovely pampering products care of L’Occitane which D gifted me this Christmas, he managed to sneak in something practical: Changing Course: A Woman’s Guide to Choosing the Cruising Life, by Debra Ann Cantrell. While it’s a good book on cruising, it’s an even better book on making life-altering decisions that did not previously hold a reserved place at the table of your Grand Plans.
There’s a whole chapter on managing fear, and it was this admission by the author that has stuck with me since I turned the last page:
My fear of missing out on the cruising experience was stronger than my fear of the water–and so I made the choice to become a cruiser.
I have fears about cruising, the largest of which is bottoming out; ramming into a dead tree or rocky reef that lies just below the surface and punches a hole into the hull of the boat. It’s an uncommon occurrence if you’ve got good charts and are paying attention, but it’s a fear that haunts me every time I’ve spent a night on a boat. (What’s that noise? Is that water rushing in? Did that soft ping sound like a tree punching through fiberglass to you?) Because, of course, these things only happen at night.
Cantrell offers an exercise that I think would be fitting for every person to do, no matter whether they’re uprooting their home or looking for a career change or even just trying to cope with daily life. In a nutshell, it’s this:
Without giving it forethought, write down a list of your fears. Then go through the list and ask yourself what it is about each item that makes you feel afraid. Going with my bottoming out fear, water rushing in and me being trapped inside the boat is the part that scares me. Now, says Cantrell, “move to a deeper level.” What is it about your fear (water rushing in and feeling trapped) that frightens you? For me, it’s drowning. So while I initially thought I was pretty fearless about being on the water fulltime, deep down I have a fear of drowning, and quickly. I’m pretty sure this is due to the fact that I’m not a confident swimmer. I can tread water for a few minutes and get from A to B, as long as they are not too far away from one another. But I’m afraid I would panic and forget how to do those simple things in a time of crisis.
Cantrell suggests we “demystify” our fears and take solace in the fact that experience often assuages our fears to the point of nonexistence. In order to take mine by the reigns, I’m going to work on becoming a stronger swimmer.
What about you? Do you harbour a fear that holds you back from doing some pretty exciting things?
That’s a very good exercise. I’ll have to give it a try later. I like what you said about “experience often assuages our fears to the point of nonexistence.” That’s so true and something that is important to keep in mind when it comes to fear.
I remember crossing the Mackinac bridge when I was a kid. My dad, for some strange reason had earlier relayed a story about a woman who had driven too fast, in a tiny car, into the median on a windy day and she and her car flew off this five mile long suspension bridge. It was quite tragic, and has never happened again, but I still get that tightness in my stomach every time we drive across. I try and work out exactly what I would do–roll down the windows, brace for impact, unbuckle my seat belt and pray it’s not winter. Some how tackling the worst case scenario, and figuring out exactly what I would do helps.
What a cool book! i thought that it was a metaphor but then I realized that you really were worried about it. I have a serious fear of car accidents – sometimes when I’m driving I can literally FEEL my car going off the side of a cliff, my body being thrown around in the car, the impression of slow motion, how it would tumble, etc. At that point I usually stop driving for a few days.
Great post Amanda, I share your fear on this, and I don’t particularly like being on my husband’s boat nor having the little one there. But since the boat spends more time being fixed (I believe he likes that part more than actually taking the boat out to water…) than on water, it hasn’t been a big issue yet. I have come to the conclusion that you have to pick your fights and which fears are worth battling with. Sometimes I think that doing artwork is fearful enough and then showing it is even more. It takes so much out of me that I have decided that here is my battleground ,because the desire to paint is greater than the fear! And I agree with you the remedy is to educate yourself to become a better swimer and me to know as much as I can about the artworld. Good swims!
Annamariaxx
That’s such a good idea to list your fears! I guess staring them in the face on a piece of paper forces us to deal with them, and come up with ways to avoid them, or make them smaller.
It’s hard not to be fearful nowadays… there are so many scary things about! But recognizing your fears and facing them head-on is good therapy. Thanks for reminding me! I need to do this more often.
for the longest time i had a tremendous fear of heights… just standing at the top of a ladder makes me woozy.
but then i decided to conquer my fear and try skydiving! it was literally the biggest rush of my life… i wanted to go right back up and go again.
i really shouldn’t be so afraid to try new things… life is short. i should be out there living it!