Overcoming Acrophobia and Relishing It!

A challenge remains one only till you face it head-on and show it who's boss. In this post, guest writer, Shivani Sharma, talks about how she literally took the plunge to overcome her morbid fear of heights. If you share her acrophobia or nurse other irrational fears, read on and get inspired!

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If we get talking about challenges, boy, there will practically be no end to it. Every day is a different hoop you’ve got to jump through in order to just survive, let alone enjoy your life. But there always is, for everyone, that one hurdle that is the mother of all challenges to you. For me, it was heights.

I have been terrified of heights ever since I started walking. I won’t go on rides, swings and I never, ever jumped! The phobia survived through my childhood and piggybacked through my adolescence as well. I refused to even set my foot on an airport, let alone take a flight. There came a time, when this phobia wasn’t just a fear in the back of the mind, but a very real problem which was hampering my functioning. I would waste a lot of time travelling, all my activities and sightseeing were limited to the ground level. I couldn’t take the stairs anywhere if it did not have a balustrade.   

One day, just out of nowhere, it hit me. That I am losing to my fear. That I have to fight back, and win. Live better. Not be afraid. Two days later, I had a bungee-jumping trip planned out in front of me. And did I get the jitters! I contemplated cancelling the trip even as we boarded the train to Delhi, and the bus to Rishikesh after that. I contemplated feigning sickness to avoid going to the Bungee-jump venue. I was looking the biggest challenge of my life right in the eye, and I was the one blinking too much. I was scared, but I refused to budge.

Finally, the moment of truth came, and I stood of the edge of the platform, all tied and geared for the jump. The instructor asked me to look down. I couldn’t. She understood my fear and said that I can back out if I wanted to. I almost said yes. But I just couldn’t accept the defeat. The fear transformed into a steely determination. Let’s see, once and for all, how bad can it be? Let’s get this over with and never be afraid again. I looked down, and my head spun. I stepped back. The intimidation of the height shook me, but only made my resolve stronger. I braced myself, took a long deep breath, gave an imaginary figurative tight punch in the eye of the challenge, and jumped.

If I could ever describe that feeling in words, I would say I felt alive. In that moment, when you are free falling, in the air, flying, all your problems seem so petty and your life back home seems so ordinary. As the wind gushes past you at crazy speed, the bliss, the taste of victory and the tremendous pride for overcoming the fear engulfs you. All those years of being afraid seemed silly. That was a cage. This is life.

That feeling, of taking the challenge down, is an addiction in itself, and ever since my jump, I have found myself eager to experience that feeling again and again. Challenges thrill me now, and when I win over them, it makes me feel what that free fall did. Alive. And alive is awesome.

(Note: The hyperlinks lead to Cinthol's Alive is Awesome videos, which encourage us to relish challenges.)