Feal the fear

"Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain." - Mark Twain

I don't think I believed in this statement entirely until recently - my mother however, was a staunch believer. It was the time when those scary movies for kids (how politically incorrect is that?) were quite common; the ones - where toys would turn into ghosts at night and teddy bears would come to life. My sister and I would watch those movies covering our faces with our hands; we would obviously, leave a tiny hole to peek through. We would sit through the entire movie, and of course being just 7-9 years olds, we'd be awfully scared at night! Tears were involved. 

We were suffering from Lygophobia. This was when our cruel mother would take us out in the dark - one by one - with our 'scary' teddy bears and leave us there until we stopped weeping and were almost comfortable. Thanks to that, both my sister and I managed numerous night camps, walks through the jungle, cycling at night and were never again afraid of the dark or of teddy bears for that matter. Turns out mom wasn't so horrible after all.  

That was Lygophobia - fear of the dark. 

Let me move on to Acrophobia. Most people suffer from a certain degree of acrophobia - it might not be enough to dissuade someone from buying a ridiculously gorgeous penthouse on the 25th storey; but it might not be the topmost preference for all. I fall in the latter category. I was about 8 (yes I had a tough childhood!) when my dad ordered me to jump from 3 m high plank; into the swimming pool of course! Being an army officer - he's quite fierce by nature, but I would rather risk being in his whom-to-scold-today list than make the jump. Over the years - my this fear subsided, yet I wanted to go a step beyond to prove this to myself. Last year I did a Bungee Jump! Yes, it was scary but I'm proud to have tried it. Two more bungee jumps and then I shifted to sky diving. Why try it thrice? I believe that all new things must be done thrice - once, to get over the fear, twice to learn how to do it, and the third time to figure our whether you like it or not.

Thalassophobia - fear of deep sea. This was a big one especially right after watching Deep Blue Sea where Sharks would come out of nowhere and rip the actors apart. I was always fond of playing in open waters - but fear of being pulled down by a blue whale or getting caught by an octopus always was at the back of my head. I managed to put a brave face though. So, this year - since I had some money to invest - I decided to try deep sea diving. I panicked for the first couple of minutes (or maybe more than a couple of minutes) but in the end, I loved it. The simple fact that I'd be exploring the rest of the 70% of the planet that was under water was more appealing to me than the fear of being ripped apart. Alright, that's not entirely true... I still keep a lookout for those sharks!

What I realized from my experiences over the years is - Fear is a part of everyone's life that we experience on a daily basis! In our culture, fear is experienced as negative and is seen as a shortcoming. However, in my case, it has been quite the opposite and I feel a lot better by simply allowing myself to embrace the fear fully. I have decided to always face my fear and let is pass over and through me. Because once the fear has gone, there will be nothing... only I will remain.