Realizing Our Fears

I believe that when we want to do something and we don’t do it, it is because we are scared. We may find excuses as to why we don’t do something but we only find those excuses because of the fear. If we were not afraid of something we would do everything we wanted. At least, this is the case for me and now that I realize this, all I have to do is face my fears and I will be able to do anything I want. However, I have no idea how to face my fears but I do believe I know where to start.

I have been trying to face my fears for a while now because I know they hold me back in so many ways. I have not been too successful in this endeavor, mainly because I was never in the right state of mind; nevertheless I have recently made a realization. This came as a shock to me and I am sure it will to all of you: the first step to facing our fears is to recognize what they are. Ok maybe that is not too shocking but it is something that is easy to skip over; I know I certainly did. Although this step seems easy, it is harder than it appears. We have to dig deep and find the root of our fear if we really want to face it.

To give an example of how this can be tricky I will tell the story about how I got over my fear of heights or so I thought. It happened last year at 6 Flags Great Adventure. The entire time my friends were trying to get me to go on Nitro, one of the tallest and fastest rollercoasters in the world. After I gave myself a pep talked and told myself I needed to get over this fear (and after almost crying from the anxiety of waiting in line), I finally went on the ride. I screamed worse than the little girl in the row behind me and gave all my friends a good laugh with the picture afterwards but the point was I did it. I went on the ride and after that I went on Kingda Ka an even bigger and faster rollercoaster (I think I actually did cry waiting in that line). Following that day I thought that I had conquered my fear of heights, but I was wrong.

Soon after my day of rollercoaster riding, I returned to 6 Flags and tried to climb the rock wall. Being the slightly cocky fitness guru wannabe I was, I thought I was going to make it up the wall in record time and impress the whole crowd. This is where I learned I was wrong about my fear of heights. I got maybe 10 feet above the ground on the wall, looked down, and freak out. That is when I realized that I was not over my fear of heights but I was completely fine riding all the rollercoasters. The reality was that they were two different fears and if I looked inside myself to find the root of the fears, I would have known that and not embarrassed myself on the rock wall.

This is the message for today to dig deep and find what we are truly afraid of or it will be pretty hard to face our fears. Sometimes we may think we are conquering our fear when we are conquering a different fear, like my rollercoaster story. However, sometimes we do not actually know what we are afraid of; sometimes we just have the feeling of fear with no clear cause. This is often the case with me which is what led me to this shocking realization. These are the times when we really need to look inside ourselves for answers.

I have started to make a list of the roots of my fears. What are you afraid of?