Fear of Flying
Facing your fears is an extremely liberating experience. I have always had a fear of heights, nothing debilitating, but enough for me to nervously think twice about skyscraper observatories and tall roller coasters. So in order to face this fear head on, I decided to jump out of an airplane. A little extreme, I know.
I talked about it for months, convincing a few friends to join me. I was talking myself into actually going through with it and had my friends to hold me accountable. Next thing I know I’m gearing up in pink jumpsuit with a parachute on my back and boarding the plane.
It was all quite surreal. This was by far the craziest thing I’ve ever done. I don’t think that I’ve ever experienced that level of fear in my life. Everything in my being was screaming not to do this. As the airplane increasingly gained altitude, I became increasingly queasy. I have never been so overwhelmed with fear that it physically made me ill.
When the airplane doors opened, I thought I was going to lose it. I saw one person fall out of the plane, then the next, then the next… As each person exited the plane, my tandem instructor inched me closer to the door. At this point, I flat out told him that I didn’t want to do it. He glossed over my statement with a routine sounding, “You’ll be fine,” pushing me closer and closer to the door.
By the time we reached the door, all I could do was brace myself. My tandem instructor leaned forward and his weight propelled both of us from the airplane. With my eyes firmly shut, all I could feel was that frightening sensation of falling, when you heart uncomfortably leaps into your stomach. I was thinking that if I feel this way the whole way down, I will have a heart attack.
But within three seconds, the falling sensation was gone. It was as if it was magically lifted. My body simply adjusted to the momentum of the freefall. At this point, I could open my eyes and take in the experience. The only word I could say was, “Wow.” This was by far the coolest thing I’ve ever done.
As I look back on this experience, the most terrifying stage of my skydiving experience was the anticipation. It wasn’t the actual skydive, but the build up to the skydive. And I don’t think this is wholly uncommon. I think that many of us allow the anticipation stage dissuade us from the act. And when we actually live through the circumstances we fear most, we look back and say, “it really wasn’t as bad as I thought.”
