The Joy of Facing a Fear
My daughter is learning how to pedal bike, which means she is also learning quite a bit about facing her fears. Recently, she learned to pedal small distances without me holding her bike. This increased rather than decreased her fear of falling. For a while, the better she got, the more scared she was. The other day, she broke through her fear and pedaled further than ever without any help. I could tell that she understood biking in a new way because she had a smile on her face as she chugged along.
On the day of her breakthrough, she was adamant that she did not want to bike because she was afraid she would fall. For her, the fear of falling was much more about fear of the unknown pain she might endure. She finally agreed to bike after I talked to her at great length about what it is like to fall from a bike, complete with examples of past bike falls I’ve had, and a comical demonstration of me flying off of her little bike and not getting seriously hurt. Having a bit of a picture, she agreed to bike, and for the first time, she had fun riding without my help.
She talked later about how she “faced her feels.” If she hadn’t faced her fears (or feels), she would not have discovered the joy of pedaling on her own. If she’d decided to stop biking altogether right then and there, she would have missed out on what could be a long relationship with her bike, one that could take her on many adventures. Yesterday, she had one of those adventures. She fell and got her first “bike boo-boo” and she is quite proud of it. Today she did a happy wiggle-dance while showing her teacher her band-aid and telling her a rather embellished tale of flipping over her handlebars and flying through the air and getting a boo-boo.
The tale is epic because the feelings are epic. Her worst fear about biking was realized, and nothing horrible happened, AND she got a cool band-aid that she wears like a badge of courage. The scary unknown is a little more known and turns out not to be so scary after all, and she’s feeling the exhilaration that comes from being released from the captivity of fear.
As adults, it can be much harder to face the fear that comes from doing something new and unfamiliar, especially if life has been fairly predictable for a long time. It helps to remember the payoff that comes from facing our fears. There may be pain involved, just as my daughter learned from falling yesterday, but then we are free because the fear no longer is keeping us from moving forward. Think of a fear you want to face, and let the adventure begin. You can practice your proud happy dance right now.
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