False Expectations Appearing Real

A 23 year old young man who suffers form Muscular Dystrophy came up with that acronym for fear.

False

Expectations

Appearing

Real

It was presented to me in the realm of a specialist we see to help treat my son, and as soon as I heard it it seeped into all of the other areas of my life in which I began to wonder if I was held back by fear..... or not.

If you knew me in 2005 you know I wasn't one to get on an airplane. I have declined 2 slots to Kona because of that fear of flying. It was horrible. In 2006 I traveled to Hawaii (Hilo) for a different reason and I didn't have much of a choice.... I had to go (sigh), it was business. We were actually to go to Mexico (sigh) and because of a hurricane got rerouted to Hawaii (another sigh). Curt did Kona in 99 so I was not new to I had done the flight before.

I boarded the plane armed with Ativan determined to drug myself out of the fear I was sitting in. Until a woman named Monica sat down next to us. She informed me, slurring her words that she was drunk and on morphine because she was afraid to fly. Her husband was sitting five rows ahead because he was so embarrassed, but if anything went wrong.... let him know.

I promptly flushed my medication down the toilet. No thanks. I wouldn't be her.

I can't say that flight was easy. Or fun. I was terrified. I was sick. I was worried. But I got off the plane in Hilo kissing the ground and happy. 2 weeks later the way home was just as horrid.

But I did it.

That's why I started doing these far away races. I knew that the only way to get over this fear of flying was to put myself in the place I feared most. On an airplane. For the next 4 years I flew 4-5 times a year, I went to races, conferences, anywhere I had to go to put me smack dab center in the middle of my fear. I had to sit in the middle of hell if I was going to overcome this.

Drug free.

Last March when I was returning home form Camp HTFU I was watching LOST on my iPod. I watched the plane crash scene and after I had watched it, I laughed. I just watched a plane crash on a plane! I wanted to stand up and tell everyone. I didn't, but I savored in that personal victory.

I am now a flyer.

Where did that fear come from? Movies, I did have a few bad experiences as a kid, rumors, stories. 9/11. Those were all of my experiences. Those were the past. I had allows the future to be determined by expectations that were not real.

We can't control the future, we can guide it, we can hope it, but we can't control it, especially by being afraid of it. My fears of I'm gonna crash...... well that never happened before that point, and if it were to happen, would being afraid of it change anything?

No.

We all have fears. It's natural to have fear. When it becomes so powerful in your life that you stop doing things because of fear..... then that's a problem. It was a big problem for me. I was missing out on the world. Believe me I am making up for that now.

False Expectations Appearing Real.

What is your fear?