..conquering small fears…

I sometimes get very very frustrated with myself, being afraid of doing things resulting in me putting them off and never doing them.

Fear is a funny beast; the unquantifiable unknown, it stops us in our tracks, it takes away our freedom. So it’s a particularly unhelpful emotion. You could say so but how do we use it to our advantage.

If you chose something you thought you could never do, something you fear greatly, there is nothing so satisfying as achieving it. Conquering fear is to opt for the difficult path rather than the easy but on every count is worth it. Can we say therefore that fear helps us? It makes us identify the things that are challenges for us, makes us realise our self imposed limits and how we can extend these and ultimately be more satisfied and feel less restricted.

We can, quite unbelievably so, convince ourselves of anything. If you tell yourself you’re not afraid; if you run ahead of yourself and do the thing you feared in spite of it, you realise you are free to start doing everything you believed you once couldn’t. So in this way, when we realise we’re afraid, we use fear positively, getting the better of it and its potential to remove our freedom.

So it’s become a bit of a life motto to conquer the small fears.

It’s safe to say white water kayaking was one of those. To roll a kayak, to be underwater and fighting to get upright again was one of those. I went, I did and I conquered! The adrenalin was fun. I understand now.

Descending the river my heart started racing as we approached the first set of rapids, small in comparison to the week before when I’d been rafting, but significant in comparison to the size of my kayak. My biggest concern was not turning over and the concentration needed was intense. My kayak instructor said he would always go kayaking before exams to empty his mind of other things. He’s right. It’s impossible to think about other things when you are concentrating so hard. We descend the river further and with ever set of rapids comes the fear but with now way of getting round it, I enter, negotiate, battle the current and exit with a delirious whoop!

I would say Ecuador tends to do this to me, makes me feel like I can conquer the fears. Cross bridges with no sides, go down whitewater rivers. Most things we are more than capable of doing, we just allow fear to stop us.

SUBTEXT

Really it was the shorts that did it.. how could you not have confidence with shorts like these!!