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TRAVEL BENEFITS
How Hawaii Helped Me Conquer My Phobias
It took me more than forty years to face my fears
Baby steps. That’s what it takes to make any seismic shift in life. By the time I reached my mid-forties, I was still holding onto many of the phobias that plagued me growing up.
A big one was my fear of water. My mom told me she believed it began when I was two or three years old and fell face down in a wading pool at the lake. Mom jumped up and came to my rescue, but not before I realized the hazards of water.
My friends and I spent a lot of time at the public swimming pools every summer, but I never strayed from the shallow end. Still, Mom thought I should take lessons if I planned to “swim.” It was an epic fail. My biggest fear was putting my head underwater. You can’t swim if you don’t put your head in the water.
The coach had me sit on the edge of the pool, hold my praying hands in front of me, tuck my chin to my chest, and slide face-first into the water. As soon as my butt left the pool edge, my automatic reflex was to raise my head high above the water. Every time, water went up my nose as I thrashed around trying to stand up. I ended up failing pre-beginner swimming class. Who fails PRE-BEGINNER? The coach told me to try again next year, but I’d had enough.
