It’s been a walk-the-talk sort of week. Sometimes what we wish for arrives and, with it, the complications, excitement, and anxiety of something new. Although better, my knee-jerk reaction can be: Really? Do we really want it? My frightened inner 5-year-old arrives to stomp his feet at any change. Adulting, however, comes with decades of experience to inform us that, in general, when change comes, we can handle it, in spite of whatever doubts we may hold around our capacity. As the saying goes, bravery is walking forward in fear, not the absence of fear. I once read an interview with extreme surfer Laird Hamilton who was saying that he was constantly afraid, every day. No matter what he was doing, he was filled with fear; he just learned to make it his friend.
Fear is information; its arrival is a message saying: “I am here to protect you.” Fear is also kooky. Science says we actually put as much weight on social fear — say, public speaking — as we do on cliff diving. One will have zero effect on our mortality, whereas the other may very well. One thing I have been trying, with small success, is to inoculate myself against it with small, intentional moves into the face of it. This may sound like what one of the bros-of-podcasting would recommend, and maybe they do, but it seems to work for me. When I am scared, I don’t think as well and my body tenses up — neither one of which feels good. How can I reduce the threshold at which fear affects me? Do more scary things. For instance, I make the shower cold and then just go in. This is scary, as I know the first 30 seconds will not be fun. Same for swimming. I don’t gently walk into the pool anymore; I jump directly into the deep end. I also make it a point to intentionally speak to people in power: police; TSA; big, scary famous people.
This anti-fear challenge started a few months ago with the idea of helping me with the paralysis I experienced when I was staring down the starting gate of a Super G ski race, anticipating the truly consequential velocity about to enter my reality. It has since become part of my daily practice; in the same way I meditate every morning, exercise, and call my friends, I try to scare myself at least once a day. Small scary is best, as big scary over-amps my system and I, shamefully, just lock up. One other odd trick I learned, this one from behaviorist BJ Fogg, is I pat myself on the shoulder after a fear-facing achievement and tell myself, “Good job.” (I keep this one quiet, as I really don’t want others seeing me self-congratulating. Too weird.) As we get older, one of the things we need to be careful of is being too comfortable. If we avoid all scary things, pretty soon the threshold for scary gets so low, we can find our world becoming quite small. Scary is different for all of us: maybe it is just leaving the house; maybe it is throwing oneself, a la Laird, off a 100ft wave. Let’s not compare specifics, but rather identify with the feeling: we all get scared. The best we can do is: when we feel it in ourselves, acknowledge it is trying to be helpful; and when we see it in others, some comfort and understanding goes a long way.
Onward and upward,
David