Dealing with Fear

DAY 21
of the 30-Day Blog Challenge

I've always been afraid of heights. But, for a few years in my late teens, I'd managed to shake off this fear when I got into rockclimbing. Maybe that's another way to deal with something you're scared of: Just keep doing it.
(That's me in the photo, taken in Palawan on a press junket for Shiseido in 2005. Photo from this blog post.)

I wrote a different blog post for tonight but I decided not to publish it, because it's not exactly pleasant. It's about a nagging fear that I'd rather not talk about right now. Anyway, I've read in Basic Black a while back—written by former Hearst Magazines president, now chairman, Cathie Black—that to deal with fear, you have to do one thing that propels you forward and tackles the feeling. I may have also read in the book or an article somewhere, that it's actually good to imagine the worst-case scenario; walk yourself through it, imagine the steps you would take. So in the event that what you fear the most indeed does happen, you've already 'rehearsed' and are emotionally (and consequently, physically) prepared to deal with the situation.

I've actually spent the last few days roughly going through that method in my mind. But sometimes, no matter how hard you "practice," things can still hurt and be bothersome. It's like dating a guy whom you know is about to dump you and you see it coming and yet, when it happens, you still keel over in pain, crying your eyes out (on another note, I'm relieved to be married; I don't want to ever have to feel that kind of pain again).