Fear also has different forms, including worry and anxiety. An example, and what inspired this post, is Twila's fear before and during the Pikes Peak climb. As soon as she got the idea to do the hike, she began to worry about her acrophobia. On one hand she was excited, on the other she was terrified. She spent a lot of time in distress about something that might never have happened.
I used to have fears and worry on a regular basis. I went on a motorcycle ride with a friend and was worried that he was too close to the edge of the road. I fretted about being burglarized. And I, too, had acrophobia - to such an extent that once when I was on a business trip and in a room near the top floor of a hotel, I tied myself the bed with a sheet to prevent waking up in the middle of the night and impulsively smashing through the window and to the ground below. (Most likely the window would not have broken and it's my face that would have been smashed, but that is beside the point.) But *all* of my fears went away in about 30 seconds.
It was about 25 years ago. Twila and I had just arrived in Kauai for a vacation. The first night we were walking down to the beach behind our hotel. The lighting was poor, and the roar of the waves was loud. I knew that there was no swimming allowed at the shore because of the undertow and smashing surf. I was afraid. Even though I was still walking along, I became really annoyed that my fear was ruining the experience. I became angry at my fear, and I thought, in essence, "Screw you, fear. I'm sick of you making me miserable, and I do not accept you anymore!"
It worked. I was no longer afraid, and I have not been afraid of anything since then. I am essentially free of fear.
There are, of course, times when fear is useful - it alerts you to imminent danger. To borrow my "anger" adjective, that is flash fear, and it is short-lived and important.
There has been one time since that time in Kauai that I experienced fear that I could not release. Several years ago Twila had medical symptoms that could have been indicative of a life-threatening condition, and we wouldn't know for sure for weeks. That was a very uncomfortable time, and it wasn't relieved until test reports came in and said that nothing truly serious was wrong.
The reason I started this post by talking about anger is that you can harness it and use it to deal with difficult situations. I became angry momentarily with fear and chased it out of my life. It can also be used in other situations that are trying, like being spurned in a relationship or being fired from a job - find a way to become angry just long enough to rid yourself of whatever distress you've been feeling.
Thinking about this blog reminded me of another time I used anger, though I really didn't analyze it at the time. It was about 45 years ago, when I was in college. For a long time I'd had horrible nightmares. Often they would awaken me, but the nightmare kept going on. I'd see terrifying spiders dropping on me, or worse. One night as I was going to sleep I became afraid that I'd have another nightmare, but somehow I decided that I'd had enough. I became angry with my nightmares. I told myself that they were only dreams and that there was no need for me to fear them. It was me versus nightmares, and I said, in effect, "To hell with you nightmares. Bring it on. I'm not afraid anymore!"
I have not had a single nightmare since then. (I have to qualify that. About three times several years ago I dreamed that Twila had suffered a great loss, and I awoke immediately, trembling. They were dreams that only lasted a few seconds - flash dreams, I suppose.)
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