Too often, we allow fear, worry, and doubt to creep in and control our lives. We allow them to steal our joy, our sleep, and even our dreams. It is said underneath your fears lie great opportunities. As scary as having cancer is, it is giving me the opportunity to face some of my greatest fears.
As long as I can remember, I’ve had a severe phobia of needles. Pretty much every time I get a blood draw, IV or shot I pass out. I can’t even watch injections on TV, let alone being done on someone I love. One time I even passed out and fell off the examination table after getting a shot and started convulsing. Scary stuff.
When I was younger, I dreamed of going into the medical field. I initially wanted to be a nurse but my fear of needles kept me from pursuing my dream. In college, I briefly majored in Occupational Therapy but later changed majors after my oldest daughter Ava was born. One time when I was in college, my volleyball coach had us pick out an inspirational quote that would become a mantra. I picked the following quote:
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
Later that year, I became pregnant with my daughter. I was scared beyond belief about becoming a mom at 20. But I knew what I had to do. I taped that quote on my dashboard and promised to do everything I could to honor the new life growing inside me and bring my daughter into this world healthy. In facing my fear of becoming a young single mom, I gained the best gift imaginable: my beautiful, smart and kind-hearted daughter Ava.
Although I chose not to pursue a medical career, I feel like it keeps coming back into my life. After my oldest daughter, Ava was born with a severe heart defect that required surgery, and my husband had his brain surgery, I again felt called to pursue a medical career. As I wrote in an earlier blog post, "Connecting the Dots", being there to support my daughter and husband through their health crises prepared me to face my own health battle. Once I’m in remission and my twins are in school full-time, my dream is to get certified in medical writing and editing. It’s part of the reason I started this blog.
Now it seems everything in my life has come full circle. I am continually surprising myself at how much I can endure and how many fears I’ve faced in the last few months. Since my ordeal began: I’ve had surgery, an unsedated bone marrow biopsy and a port surgically inserted under light sedation in my chest for my treatment. I’ve had more IVs and shots than I could ever count.
I know I have a long road ahead but sometimes you need to pause and appreciate how far you’ve come. And I’ve come a long way. We all have fears. Being afraid of something is a natural part of life, but it's important to overcome your fears. If you let fear control your life, then you won't be living life to its fullest. By facing my fears head on, I not only am confronting what is making me so afraid, I'm also taking back control.
So what has helped me face my greatest fears?
Awareness
Before you can begin overcoming fear, you have to be aware that your fears are causing difficulty or creating chaos in your life. It’s easy to get so attached to your thoughts and feelings that you think they are all that exist, which simply is not the case. You are not your fears. You are the awareness that experiences it.
Being Vulnerable
Brene Brown, a researcher from the University of Houston Graduate School of Social Work and author of Daring Greatly, found that the belief in our own unworthiness causes us to live fear-based lives. We are afraid of letting people see who we really are and potentially exposing ourselves, so we avoid the one thing that can make us more courageous: vulnerability. Courage and vulnerability are closely aligned, says Brown, and the two qualities can greatly improve our lives. According to Brown, to conquer our fear we must “dare greatly,” or go out there and expose ourselves to failure and criticism.
Changing My Mindset
Learning to deal with fear is all about putting your negative thoughts in perspective. We tend to focus too much on the negative, so by looking at all the options, you often realize that you’re making a big deal of nothing. There are so many things that can happen that it’s impossible for you to predict. In order to help myself have a positive mindset in treating my cancer, I tell myself every day that "every discomfort I’m facing is temporary and getting me one step closer to being cancer free."
Thinking Positive
Whenever fear strikes, turn it around in your head. Instead of thinking of something bad that can happen, think of something positive. What’s a positive outcome to your fear? In my case, my fear led me to seek medical treatment and may have undoubtedly saved my life.
Gratitude
Whenever you feel fear, switch your focus to what you are grateful for instead. While I still have a strong fear of needles, I have shifted my focus to be thankful I am able to receive treatment that can save my life. All of the injections, infusions and IVs are necessary to get me well again. I'm also thankful for the many skilled doctors, nurses and technicians that are caring for me.
Exposing Myself to My Fears
When it comes to fear, the only way out is through. One of the most effective ways to overcome fear is to repeatedly force yourself to face what you’re afraid of. Research has found that this repeated exposure lowers the psychological fear response until it is more manageable or in some cases gone altogether. In order to combat my fear of the unknown about my treatment, I was able to lessen my fear by reading articles about what to expect with my surgery and other procedures like my bone marrow biopsy. I also reached out to others that have gone through similar experiences to help get a better idea of what to expect.
Although the role of fear is to keep us safe, we do ourselves no good by living in fear. To reach our full potential and draw in greater opportunities we must eliminate fear from our lives through daily efforts that promote our strength and well-being. Your fear may never be fully extinguished, but hopefully it will hold less power over you and not prevent you from achieving important goals and enjoying your life. In the words of Mark Twain, “Courage is not the absence of fear. It is acting in spite of it.”
So what fears have been holding you back? What’s one fear you need to face sooner rather than later?
Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
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