Overcoming Fear

Practice What You Preach

Fear and anxiety have always plagued me through out my life. As a child, I remember the day I fell from a fire escape in The Bronx after retrieving my slipper. I fell possibly a story down alongside the fire escape (or so it seemed to me). From that point forward I feared both heights and falling. I became risk averse.

Anxiety can cripple your personal growth. It can overwhelm. Medication alone can't remedy the underlying issues. Replacing that anxiety with knowledge can help you move forward. Understanding the consequences of failure and thinking through those consequences helps. Learning again to trust yourself and to deal with facts also helps. You are in charge.

Capuchin (White Faced Monkey)

Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica

We recently took a well deserved vacation to Costa Rica. Kim, my wife, was set on zip lining with our friends. I on the other hand was hoping everyone would forget and that we would choose some other adventure. Before I knew it, I was being harnessed and fitted for my zip line adventure over the jungle tree tops like a senior Tarzan. All this courtesy of my spouse who issues a Silver Alert if I am late from either the store or work.

My fate rested on two things and two things only: my harness and the team assisting us. Our leader Diego was a wiry small statured man with a broad smile, great sense of humor, and also the man who help built this zip line net work. He had Rasputin eyes and I am convinced that it made me trust him enough to take my first dangling leap held up only by a harness and a steel cable. I did it over and over one tree stand to the next hanging dearly to my handles while enjoying the view atop the rain forest.

The capstone was the very last stand. Again Diego looked at me with his intense eyes and smile. Now you are going to repel 100 feet to the waterfall below. You will place your hands here (left hand above you on the rope and right hand below you to control your descent you can choose your speed.  There was only one way down. I could hang there forever or take the leap of faith and trust.

Obviously I made it. I had the experience of a lifetime and I got a tremendous boost of self confidence. Fear is not a bad thing. It simply means we are uncomfortable and are challenged to do something about the situation. I got to experience life from the tree tops as seen by the monkeys and macaws who inhabit them. Find your inner Diego.