This is why you’re afraid: Notes on facing our fears during adventures

The closest I ever got to those waters was burrowing my feet into sand and waiting for foamy waves to travel a couple feet towards me, before digging my feet out and retreating.

In short, I grew up seeing the ocean as this violent entity that was hell-bent on sweeping me away—either by wave or some kind of monstrous marine creature. And over the years, that fear kept me from it.

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But my fear didn’t stop me from heading out into the Pacific Ocean in a small rubber dinghy in search of humpback whales in Hawaii, hopping off a cliff while whitewater rafting in West Virginia, or snorkeling (albeit in shallow waters) in Fiji.

In fact, my fear had never immobilized me until I was staring into crystal-clear waters in Hurghada, Egypt. I could see an array of fish and marine life gliding by, bobbing and weaving through technicolored coral reefs. I saw what the depths held, but I was paralyzed. And so, while waist-deep in the water, I clung to the side of our sailboat and cried because I couldn’t let go.

The reason most of us are afraid is because we truly believe we’ll die the instant we face that fear. We worry that our hearts will stop beating the second we stare our phobias in the eye. That illogical reasoning is what morphs a healthy dose of fear into an immobilizing terror.

Healthy fear is good. It reminds us that nature is exponentially more powerful than we will ever be, and it encourages us to be cautious. Imagine the trouble we’d get ourselves into if we really had no fear. Immobilizing fear, however, is bad because it convinces us, without question – and often, reason – that we can’t do something.

Once our brains get over the unlikelihood of ‘imagined’ fear, we’re left with the healthier ‘real’ fear—our survival instinct.

“Fear is designed to warn the individual against harmful situations and to protect life,” says expert clinical psychologist Dr. Carla Marie Manly. “However, fear sometimes goes overboard in the form of anxiety, or direct fear, to keep an individual paralyzed when danger doesn’t really exist. I call this ‘immobilizing fear,’ for it does tend to immobilize the individual–often keeping a person from enjoying optimal success.” Her book, Joy from Fear, shares insights and tools for getting unstuck and creating joy-filled lives.

Whether she’s working with triathletes, mountain bikers or rock climbers, for Dr. Manly, the key is to help an individual differentiate between real and imagined fears. It’s the imagined fears, she says—those that keep a person second-guessing their ability level or aptitude—that work against enjoyment and achievement.

But how do you differentiate between real and imagined fears?

Applying this to my fear of the deep, my ‘real’ fear is one of drowning, one which can be remedied by learning how to properly swim. My ‘imagined’ fear is one of being swallowed whole by a whale. Once our brains get over the unlikelihood of ‘imagined’ fear, we’re left with the healthier ‘real’ fear—our survival instinct.

Suddenly, I’m left pondering if ‘real’ fear is tied to our level of preparation. Dr. Manley suggests we should imagine the worst-case scenario. “If you are able to imagine and face that scenario—whether it is coming in last place, injury, or even death—then there is nowhere else to go but upward.”  

For over 25 years, paragliding instructor and commercial sailplane pilot Josh Meyers battled anxiety. In college, he started working as a paragliding instructor and took on dangerous adventures to prove to himself he was brave. Over two decades later, he works as Head of Education at Break Free from Anxiety, an anxiety treatment program he co-founded with his mother Polly to help people through anxiety and panic attacks.

The stigma often associated with anxiety makes people believe they are weak. “Paragliding is a wonderful paradox. It rewards the people who feel least prepared for it and punishes those who have always been good at everything,” says Meyers. “True acrophobia—extreme fear of heights—is actually quite rare. Out of 100 people who say they are afraid of heights, only  one or two actually have a real fear of heights.”

According to Meyers, if you have true acrophobia, chances are you won’t even be able to climb a ladder or board a commercial airliner. “The rest of us, myself included, have a fear of falling,” he explains. “When we peer over the edge of a building, our brain can easily measure the height and we feel that familiar electric pang in our stomach, our fingers and toes curling involuntarily. As if millions of years of evolution is telling us to tighten our grip, even on feet that have long since lost this ability.”

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Meyers goes on to clarify that when we take flight, this fear momentarily falls away because just a couple hundred feet off the ground, our brain loses its ability to measure elevation. There is no connecting structure or yardstick for our brains to measure with. We become metaphorically buoyant and our feet have nothing to anchor themselves to. We give up control.

This made sense. I have friends who are afraid of heights yet have gone riding in hot air balloons or skydiving. Moments after lift-off, that paralyzing fear they faced was instantly replaced with some form of euphoric resignation—that nature wasn’t out to get them, but rather, awe them. “Just because we learn to punch through one form of fear, doesn’t mean we punch through them all,” adds Meyers. “I am nervous every time I fly. I would be worried if I wasn’t.”

So, is loss of control another reason we’re afraid?

For me, anxiety doesn’t mean you’re a coward. It means you’d rather not die unnecessarily, and adequate preparation can slowly chip away at the hulking slab of dread in our lives.

Bungy jump master Glenn Murray-Prior has helped roughly 50,000 people jump from a bungy deck for decades. He runs ACTION CULTURE which helps ‘ordinary people do extraordinary things’. “One of the greatest parts of the job for me,” notes Murray-Prior, “is the psychology you use on the edge to persuade people to do what every part of their body is telling them they shouldn’t.”

Preparation, and focusing on what we can control, can help push us past paralyzing fear into the realm of healthy fear, which is the instinct that keeps us alive.

According to Murray-Prior, all the symptoms of irrational fear are similar. It starts with delay, nervous laughs, constant talking and endless questions. Then reality hits, legs go weak, palms sweat, and it’s impossible to stand straight. The instant they leave the edge is followed by a panicked frozen moment, a second of free-fall, and the dreaded, “Am I falling to my death?” pondering. “Gradually and smoothly, they slow down and realize, ‘I’m OK! I’m alive!’, which then turns into victorious screams,” he adds.

That victorious scream reassures the jumper they can do anything they put their mind to. That they could control their mind and its reaction despite having no physical control. And that through mental preparation, they could momentarily punch through imagined fear to float in that surreal space of awe.

Preparation, and focusing on what we can control, can help push us past paralyzing fear into the realm of healthy fear, which is the instinct that keeps us alive.