Choosing to become fearless

You decide on what your fear. That means there is choice involved - on what it is you're fearful of and whether or not you'll have fear.

One of my biggest fears is the ocean. It's massive, it's unknown and it has scary things it in like sharks, eels, and sting rays. Adam has the same fear and he surprised me the other week when we were in Bohol, Philippines - he turned to me and said: we will be fearless about snorkeling. It was a statement.. and from that day forward we were fearless. I'm squeamish in the water - hate seeing jelly fish, avoid schools of fish in a feeding frenzy, stay away from the deep drop off by the edge of the reef. But after making the choice to be fearless- we were. Yes, it's as easy as that and I will challenge myself to think that way about other fears.

Fast forward a week and here we are - in the middle of a diving certification in Koh Tao. That's some serious 'overcoming fear' in my book. I had a moment today during our course. As background the course is 4 days:
day 1: classroom in the evening
day 2: half day classroom, halfway pool
day 3: half day 2 ocean dives, half day classroom and exam
day 4: half day 2 ocean dives, paperwork, done

My moment came on day 3 during our first ocean dive. We were swimming through a dive spot called Twin Peaks and we rounded a corner around the reef and I looked up into this mountain of coral, swarms of colorful tropical fish and the sun shining thru the water 12 meters above me. At that moment, in all my scuba gear, I cried. I'm not a person that cries much, so two cries in one week is a bit of overkill for me (voice in head says 'come onnnn Christine'). But I was simply overwhelmed ... by the most spectacular thing I have EVER seen. In that moment I also felt very proud of myself. I don't give myself credit and I will admit I never believe that my very best is ever good enough ... but in that moment, it was enough: I had become fearless and was swimming amongst the sting rays, eels, and schools of fish.. and it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. And don't forget - I'm sick. I have food poisoning that at times was so painful it brought me to my knees. But here I am anyway - fearlessly becoming a diver - and that choice has allowed me to see what was before me.