That Dreaded Four Letter Word

F-E-A-R!

This unassuming little emotion can come up from nowhere and grip you so tightly to paralyze you before you know what has happened. It can happen just before an important meeting. Or before you are going to make that momentous presentation. Or when you need to be picking up that telephone to make those calls. Or before you pop the question.

It often rears its ugly head at the most inopportune of times and blindside you. Or cripple you rendering you ineffective.

How do you deal with it?

I remember in college, going on a "Wilderness Adventure" experience with a bunch of other freshmen and transfers. To prepare new college entrants the institution offered a course that involved a mountain climbing experience, a hike through the woods and a ropes course to teach lessons on dealing with stress, resolving problems and to build confidence in each other as well as in oneself. Lessons that are all very necessary to college and life as well.

One of the activities we were introduced was a "Totem Pole" exercise. There was a fifty foot telephone pole. Once we got our safety harness on (to catch us if we should slip and fall), we are supposed to climb this pole, and then stand up on one foot-by-one foot platform. About twelve or fifteen feet from the platform is a larger platform with a ladder leading from it that one can climb down to safety on the ground. In order to reach this platform, one has to jump and catch a hold of a bar that is just slightly out of reach and swing across to the other platform.

Sounds easy enough.

I was up onto the totem pole in no time. Once I got to the top, I was breathing quite heavily and the heart was beating rapidly from the strenuous effort of climbing up 50 feet. I sat down on the platform and suddenly realized that I was actually so far high up from the ground. My heart raced a little! Then I realized that there was a steady breeze blowing and the pole was actually swaying side to side as I sat out there. I took a deep breath and prepared to stand up on the platform in order to jump off it, grab the swing and get across to the larger platform and on to safety.

But to my chagrin I realized that my legs were weighted down! The adrenalin rushing through my system along with the acrophobia from the high altitude combined to grip me with immobolizing fear. I could not lift my legs up!

From below, my teammates were cheering me on and encouraging me, but my legs would not budge! I could not stand up! I pleaded with the leader to allow me to climb down but she told me that there were only two ways for me to come down. One was to get across to the platform and climb down the ladder or the next would be to fall off and be caught by the harness and then be lowered to the ground. Under no circumstances could I climb down the pole!

After what seemed an eternity, I agreed to fall off the platform because I just could not get myself to stand up! My leader challenged me to fall backwards as that was another experience of trust. I did that, but as I fell backwards and then was caught by the harness it suddenly occured to me that I was actually quite irrational. Fear had so overcome me that I wasn't thinking right!

Why was I so afraid of standing up? I was afraid I would fall! Then what was I doing then? I was falling! What craziness! So, as soon as I was lowered to ground level, I begged the leader to let me try again, climb right back up the pole, stand and jump to grab the swing and swing across to the other side. This time I was able to do it without much hesitation and with much cheering from all my teammates!

You see, I was so fearful that I began to imagine wild things that would happen to me and fear so sidetracked me that I wasn't thinking right anymore. So, next time you are fearful, stop to ask yourself. What are you afraid of? Feel the fear and do it anyway!