Recently, I was forced to confront my irrational fear: putting my head under water. Yes, I admit it: I am an adult who has a fear of putting her entire body under water and swimming around. Thanks to two near drowning experiences and limited access to pools in my childhood, I have been left with a fear that takes hold any time I’m in the water. Now, don’t think I’m complete wuss: I can swim and float and spend hours enjoying my time in the water, just don’t invite me to race you across the length of the pool underwater because I won’t take you up on the offer. I’m pretty lucky to have a group of friends and family that don’t press this issue when I’m swimming, so it’s never really been an issue for me. That is, until almost four years ago.
My wonderful boyfriend of almost four years, who is the man I love more than anything in the world, believes you should always push to improve yourself. This includes exercising if you want to improve your physique and health, read and study if you want to be more educated, and face your irrational fear so you can race him underwater. (How lucky for me.) As an avid swimmer, he doesn’t really get my fears, but he’s determined to help me get over them, whether I ask him for help or not. Our last swimming encounter followed like all the one’s before: we get in the pool, swim around a little, he impresses me with his underwater handstands, and scares me by grabbing my legs when I least expect it. At this point, he asks me if I can do a handstand, to which I respond no, I can’t. He then offers to teach me, and I politely decline. But of course, this won’t do for him. These are the phases that then follow:
1. Laughter
“C’mon, I’ll teach you,” he says with a smile. I stare and laugh, because while his offer is sweet, I know that my irrational fear is going to make this difficult and I don’t want him to see me look like a complete idiot and coward.
2. Realization that this is going to happen.
“No, I’m serious. We’re going to work on this,” he says, taking my hand and leading me to the middle of the pool. My laughter stops and a fear grabs hold of me.
“Crap, he’s serious,” I think.
3. Try to get out of it.
“No, it’s ok, really. Let’s just have fun,” I say, hoping to deter him.
“No, I’m going to teach this to you,” he says determined.
4. Realize you’re stuck. Start laughing uncontrollably.
When I get nervous or uncomfortable, I start laughing. I laugh a lot. It’s a little alarming if you don’t know this about me, but after having the same thing happen when he tried to teach me how to drive his manual car, (a tale for another time), he was aware of what was going on.
“Babe, stop. You’re fine. I’m not going to let you drown,” he tells me matter-of-factly.
“I know,” I say, still laughing. I do believe him. He won’t let me drown. He loves me too much to do that. But right now, my irrational fear has taken over my brain, so sensible Kathy is not available and laughing Kathy is all you have to deal with.
5. Calm down and try.
After taking some deep breaths, we work together on getting me comfortable with sitting at the bottom of the pool, which can only be accomplished by having no air in my lungs. (I’m very buoyant, apparently.) This scares me, but I try my best to keep it cool because, again, I hate looking like a coward in front of him and at my age, I should be working to get over this fear. After a good 20 minutes of this, I feel better about the water and of what I might be able to do.
6. Trust when the person helping you says you can do it.
“Alright, we’re going to try to do a handstand, ok,” he asks.I laugh.
“You have a lot of faith in me.”
“You can do it. Just trust yourself. I’ll help you.” I nod my head and watch him as he does handstand after handstand, showing me the form I need to have. After many attempts, and with his help, I was able to do a partial handstand. An amazing feat for me.
“I’m making progress!” I realize.
7.Take your new found excitement and try something else.
“You want to try a summersault?” He looks at me hopefully.
“Sure! Sounds good!” I can feel an excitement in me as my mind begins to let go of the panic it once held and relax into its normal and happy state. Again, he shows me what I need to do, and I attempt it myself. And this time, it works perfectly.
8. Celebrate your new accomplishment!
“I did it!” I jump up and down, laughing a happy laugh instead of a scared laugh. He smiles and I see the happiness in his eyes.
“That’s great, baby! You’re doing great,” he tells me happily. I smile at his happiness, and then do a few more summersaults just to feel the rush of happiness again and to show him he’s a good teacher.
There’s a reason I’m telling this story. We all have irrational fears in life. For me, it’s being underwater. For my sister, it’s spiders and mosquitos. We all have them, and for many of us, we end up coming face to face with them at some point. In these moments, it’s horrible and scary, and we often freeze up. This is something that happens, and it’s ok that it happens. But at some point, you, like me, might decide that it’s time to try to get over these fears. There are lots of ways to do this: counseling, working one on one with someone, or slowly exposing yourself to the thing you fear so you can slowly become less afraid. Whichever method works best for you, go ahead and do that method. If it’s something you really want to do, then go for it! I believe in you, and want you to feel what I felt the day I faced my fear.
And most importantly, have someone in your life that believes in you and encourages you to keep going, because they’re the one who will keep you going when it seems too hard to finish.
