Gifted & Highly Favoured: Conquer your fears

I would like to share with you the below quote from an article I recently read on Conquering fear by Doug Heacock.

"It is a rare person who lives without fear of one kind or another. You may fear heights, or spiders, or new situations, or rejection–whatever your fears may be, you can either let those fears form boundaries beyond which you can’t move or grow, or you can face them head-on and allow them to become opportunities to move into new places in your life. The choice is truly yours. Fear is not always a bad thing. There are obviously some things about which we should be afraid and in which we should exercise appropriate caution. But if our fears control us, or prevent us from taking certain risks, we allow those fears to define us, to limit us only to courses of action that we deem sufficiently safe, and as a result, many of us never achieve our potential–or we cheat ourselves out of the richness that life could otherwise hold for us"

The whole

of my life I have experienced the fear of water and not being able to swim which for many years has created many boundaries, from not being able to go to water parks and swimming with my friends to not being able to enjoy the pool and all the amazing water sports available on holiday… BUT I can happily say I have conquered my biggest lifetime fear of water and swimming. I can officially say ‘I CAN SWIM’. No matter how much my friends and partner told me I could do it and reassured me I wouldn’t sink, my fear of swimming was completely paralysing, my mind was paralysed in thinking that there was no way I would be able to swim and stay afloat in the water - I had watched in admiration as people enjoy themselves in the water, gilding so freely - It was something that I just wasn’t meant to do, could never and will never do!

I couldn’t have been more wrong – I had gone into my 10 1/2hr sessions of swimming lessons with the DETERMINATION TO SUCCEED. I will swim I kept telling myself, I will face this fear head-on. So when in my 3rd 1/2 hr lesson I managed to do a few breast strokes without the float I was so overcome with joy, I couldn’t believe I had done it, all I could do was jump up laughing, the instructor must of thought I was crazy, but I was, I was crazy overjoyed.

It was by no means easy - I was a lady on a mission, a mission to conquer the water and conquer my fears. Every lesson I would watch other swimmers up above the pool to see how they moved in the water to try to perfect my technique and would practice 1/2hr after my lesson or now it’s turned into 1hr before my lesson, to practice what I had been taught by the instructor.

So here I am, my final 1/2hr session tomorrow and I can do a full length of the breast stroke and front crawl, what an achievement. I am as proud of myself as my instructor is of me too, she told me she had never seen someone learn this quickly, I told her well I am proof it can be done with enough determination and dedication.

I am not going to stop there, I love swimming and am excited to experience all the wonders that the water has to offer, I want to become a stronger swimmer so that I am able to swim in the deep end, go on water sports and diving in the tropical seas. The boundaries have been broken and this is just the beginning of a great adventure.

My message here is don’t be limited by your fears, with determination and perseverance you can achieve anything you want to and when you do it will be the most liberating experience of your life.

I will end with the 5 ways to conquer your fears by Doug Heacock – See full article here – a bit of a coincidence the site is called Zen Habits!!!