Here is me – Friday night climbing session at the climbing wall – facing one of my fears …….heights……….and doing some adventuring instead of my housework. Absolutely loved it, my return to climbing since before the pandemic.
Now, two of the lessons I took from my travels this summer were the importance of adventure and the fact that fear is good, it’s ok to be scared. What is important is that you do the thing you fear, yes in small steps at a time if you have to, be brave and the fear will subside. The only thing you have to fear is fear itself as it will stop you doing things you want to do. People look at me and think I’m fearless, I’m not, there are a lot of things I’m fearful of and became much more fearful of after having children which happens to 1 in 10 of us mums. I would say I am brave, not fearless (my mother might say irresponsible) as I face my fears, because the things I want to do and achieve are more important than the fear itself.
I said in my introduction to the blog that Nelson Mandela said that ‘Courage was not the absence of fear but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid but he who conquers that fear’.
The important thing is to rationalise that fear and work out exactly what it is you are scared of, convince yourself it’s not rational, as quite often it isn’t, and to ask yourself what is the worst thing that can happen, because I bet it’s not half as bad as the worst consequence you have going on in your head, believe me I’ve been there. I’ve been in that cable car going up the side of Mount Etna, quite merrily chugging along, whilst in my head is playing a scene akin to a James Bond movie with a broken cable car and me clinging onto the cable with one finger dangling from a great height!
I faced quite a few fears on a long walk through France and Spain this summer. They’ll seem quite small and irrational to some but if you are the one that’s scared it’s a big deal. The dark! Now I’ve been scared of being out alone outside in the dark since I was small and I know where this comes from and it is the most irrational fear. Often when you say you are scared of something you are not scared of what you say you are scared of but of a consequence of that thing, what will happen. I am not scared of the dark, I am scared of being abducted in the dark not the dark itself. When I was small in Yorkshire 1975 to 1980 to be precise when I was 4 to 9 years old there was a prolific serial killer on the loose, the Yorkshire Ripper. He murdered 13 women and attempted to murder 7 more in this 5 year period, all within a 25 mile radius of my home, usually in the evening and in the dark. I can remember the adult hysteria as he eluded capture every time and more importantly I can remember not being allowed out on my own in the dark throughout that period. When you are that age, between 4 and 9 years old, you are quite impressionable and ever since then I’ve been a little scared of the dark, but apparently so are almost 10% of the adult population. I’ve overcome this now as I understand where that fear comes from and why it is irrational, the night is no different to the day, it’s just there’s no light. So when I had to set off walking early in the morning a couple of times on my own in the dark this summer on my walk, sometimes though wooded areas I’m not going to say I enjoyed it, I was slightly nervous, but I rationalised that fear and the more I did it, it gradually became normal.
So my adventure this weekend, climbing! I say I’m scared of heights, I’m not, I’m scared of falling, and those walls at 15 metres are pretty high. But I can rationalise it. I have a harness on. The carabiner that attaches to my harness I put on and then double check. Yes, I’m reliant on the mechanical auto belay which is checked regularly or the person belaying me not to give me too much slack but why would they? Now you might look at the photos and think I went straight up there. I didn’t. I haven’t been for a while so I went up gradually, throwing myself off a little higher each time until the fear subsides and it becomes normal, then that’s another fear conquered.
So if you are scared of something, don’t fear the fear. Ask yourself what is it exactly you are scared of, is it rational, what’s the worst that can happen, is the thing that you desire more important and approach it slowly one step at a time. Trust me, you’ll feel so proud of yourself when you’ve done it.
