No more fear

A young woman struggling with multiple chemical sensitivities blogs at the Gaia Community about overcoming fear. Despite respiratory damage from a traumatic mold exposure that leaves her feeling fatigued and frightened most of the time, she pulled herself together Sunday and headed out to the town pool to face the diving board. “My life is good,” she writes, “I just have to get used to the disability that I live with now. That is how I have to look at it, or it will consume me.”

And I saw the diving board staring at me saying “you can’t jump off of this - you’re afraid. What happens if you can’t breathe in deep enough? What happens if you swallow some water? What happens if (fill in the blank)??? Today, I said NO MORE FEAR. I went to the high diving board, wanted to cling on for dear life and said “don’t overthink this one” and just jumped. Hey, if the 8 year old kids can spend 40 minutes straight doing it, I could do one lousy jump. And I did! And while I was underwater it felt like I’d never have air again. But I didn’t panic. I just knew that I’d rise to the top and I’d be ok. And it was scary, but I DID IT. And even though for the 2 hours outside the house today I simply sat near the pool reading a book, used my inhaler to relieve the tightness in my chest and did have to come home and take a 2 hour nap, I overcame the fear of jumping off the board into deep water. Fear, you may have a grip on me 99% of the time, but today, I won over you! And I’ll keep fighting until you’re 1% of my day, not 99% of it.

Brava!

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