Fear, anger, hate, suffering... Wow, lots of negative words. Delete, delete, delete, delete. But, wait a second, sometimes avoiding is no cure. Embracing is. Embracing fear? You must think I'm our of my mind. Well, I don't blame you. After all, this blog is about losing your wits. So call me crazy for now.
One morning in 2008 I went hiking with a group of friends near Sai Kung, Hong Kong. I couldn't actually remember where it was for a good reason. I had a panic attack about 15 minutes into the hike. It was my first hike on a pretty intermediate trail, so I was told. They were way ahead and 10 minutes into the hike I lost sight of the group. I imagined I was going to pass out in the middle of a vast piece of mountain jungle. In my mind at that time, I could hear rescue helicopters were all over the sky and they couldn't locate me. That my body was eventually discovered with my family weeping furiously that they lost me. I broke into massive cold sweats. I was hyperventilating. I turned back and tried to get out of the trail and back to the entry point. As I was trying to leave the trail, I drank up the entire 1.5L of water and my mind only had one mission, that was to leave the jungle before I pass out.
I didn't pass out and in fact I managed to get back to the city on a mini bus after I came out from the jungle.
I went for multiple health screenings thinking that something was very wrong with my health that I couldn't complete even 5% of the trail. All tests came back normal.
But my life didn't go on "normal". Post my panic attack I stopped all forms of exercises for about two years. I was afraid of any physical activities. At my lowest point I couldn't drive to a dinner from Kowloon to Causeway Bay. I would have stopped the car half way through the journey having a repeated panic I felt on the hiking trail.
I spent endless hours in bookstores in the Self Help sections and even more hours on the world wide web downloading books from Amazon.com or articles from websites/forums. I spoke to experts on- and off-line, tried yoga and meditation, and all sorts of vitamins. In the end, all my efforts led me to one conclusion: that I had to welcome fear. I had to embrace it, love it, and treat it like a long lost friend. So I did. And so I recovered.
What was the turning point? I embraced fear. The next time I felt I was about to feel nervous I said a warm welcome to "fear" as if an old friend was visiting me. And I repeated this over and over again.
Yoda was right about how bad fear can be for us. Yoda, however, didn't explain how to overcome it. Or perhaps I didn't pay enough attention during the movie. Any way, I discovered ways to manage fear through my journey (or rather research and reading).
Today, I want you to have this piece of advice handy. You may be in fear. You may be spending hours trying to figure out a way to handle it. The shortcut or rather the advice is this: embrace fear. Welcome it. And you will be surprised when you do that fear disappear. Just like that? Yes, just like that? Fight it, confront it (as conventional wisdom tells us), and you will have more of it. I guarantee you that.
Pic file from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
