Conquering the fear of the fear!
By: Nisha Nandakumar
Tags: Storytelling, Conquering Fear, Procrastination, Fearofthefear, Overthinking

Confused? I was too.

Photo by Lê Tân on Unsplash

I recently had a conversation with a doctor friend where we were discussing life, philosophies and so many other random topics. To give a small background since it’s relevant to the story, we were at another friend’s nature stay.

With lots of greenery, pure air and a gushing river flowing right at our doorstep, our discussion fit right in. Just the day before, all of us had gone on a boat ride across the river. And when I say boat, I don’t mean a yacht but in our language, what we call a “vanji” or “canoe” if you will.

To say I was freaked out of my mind would be an understatement. Our very own Tarzan- “ Wilson-chettan” was rowing the vanji. There were two of us in it besides Wilson-chettan. We could literally touch the surface of the water as it swayed dangerously close to each side.

I was hanging onto dear life and each time it swayed or tilted too close to the water almost allowing the water to gush in, I would panic and try and correct the “balance” with my own strategy of “expert vanji navigation”! We did reach safely so that’s a plus but to say it was quite the adrenaline rush would be putting it mildly.

So back to my discussion with the doctor. I was recounting this experience, he of course had witnessed this from the shore and had been shouting out encouragement and advices. Just fyi, we had our lifejackets on, I know I lose major bravery points here!

This mild spoken doctor with hidden depths(this is a whole other story)said something that was a revelation- were you scared of the boat tipping over or were you fearing the fear of the boat tipping over.

Confused? I was too. I asked him what do you mean? He asked “what would happen if the boat did tip over?” “I would fall into the water, of course!”, pat came my answer. He says, “and? Would you drown? You have your life jacket on.” “ I wouldn’t drown but isn’t it still scary?”, I asked. “Why?”, he asked curiously. I didn’t have an answer.

He smiled and said, “ well, you fear the fear of falling over.” I thought to myself, “ How can I fear a fear?” Is that even a sentence — Fear the fear! But it was absolutely true. I was fearing the fear. I don’t have an explanation for it except that I was maybe overthinking it or I thought I would die or I was thinking about the worst case scenario of drowning which was near next to impossible. So why was I scared?

I thought about this all throughout on our journey back and even now. How many times have I stopped myself from achieving something or trying something because of this? What would happen if I had tried? A question that will always remain unanswered.

While I remain a over-thinker through and through, this discussion has given rise to a question I would forever ask myself when I overthink anything. And just maybe, it would help me experience a whole world of new!

Have you been fearing the fear like me? Did you conquer it? Share your experiences down below in the comments.

P.S.- This article was a small step towards conquering the fear of the fear! :)