Dance with the fear
What if you learned to dance with fear?
Focus on what you desire, not what you fear. Fear is a normal human condition, it’s never going to go completely away. That’s why you need to learn how to dance with it, to take it with you, and to visualize what you want as if it is already complete. I will share the story of the fear of being almost in a helicopter crash and how I had to take care of a tribal man’s finger after I watched him cut it off in front of me. I will share with you how I was able to make the best of it and visualize the outcome that I wanted.
Here are the three steps so that you can do it too.
1. Keep your Eye on the Prize
2. Take Fear With you
3. Create your own mental movie
The outcome in following these steps is that you will learn to not let fear win. The Mind is powerful. We need to use it. You will learn the amazing skill of learning how to use fear as fuel, to use it to help you get wherever you are going!
Has fear ever stopped you from doing what you want to do? It sure has me. Fear can be a real bitch sometimes. But we have to learn how to work with it. The idea that it's never gonna leave. It's not real, because fear is something that we as humans live with. But it doesn't have to rule us. That's the beautiful thing. I was ruled by fear for a long time. I have many examples on how fear has affected my life. One of the examples that come to mind is when we were flying into the tribe, it was near the beginning of our work there.
It was Brayden's first time going in with us. He was one year old. We had already gone in and built our plastic pole house and we pitched a tent inside of that. We built an outhouse, a bucket shower, and an outdoor fire so we could heat water for the bucket shower. We had a propane stove, and a few solar panels that ran a solar fridge. We had our little jungle camp set up. Now, it was time to bring in Brayden. We were in a helicopter, because that was the only way to get into the tribe. My tribal village was one of the most primitive, most remote villages on the planet. It took a small Cessna 206 airplane for an hour over the mountains to meet up with a helicopter and then we took it the rest of the way into the tribe.
It was another 20-minute ride over the jungle that looked like heads of broccoli for miles and miles. I was in the back with Brayden on my lap, Joe was up in the front with the pilot and beside me was all of our supplies, chainsaws, gasoline, shovels, axes, food, diapers and all the things we needed to start a life there in the tribe. Things were going along fine when all of a sudden, whoo, whoo, whoo... all these sirens started going off. So many different bells and whistles. It was very clear very quickly that we were in trouble.
The pilot, who had become a really good friend of ours, was an amazing pilot, he had lots of hours under his belt, and he instinctively knew somehow not to put it into auto-rotate, which is what they normally do in a situation like that. That’s where you literally cut the engine, let yourself fall to the earth, and hope for the best.
The Pilot was dealing with the helicopter and I was trying to deal with my fear. I have Brayden on my lap and my brain is telling me "It's time to freak out."
What I did was ask myself, "What can I do?" Whoo, whoo, whoo, sirens blaring. We start lowering our altitude and start flying just above the river. Imagine miles of trees and there at the very bottom is a little mountain stream. The pilot yelled above the sirens telling us we're looking for a place to land. Whoo, whoo, sirens screaming.
Meanwhile, I'm thinking okay, if we land this way in the water, then we're dead. There's no way. There's no way we're gonna get out. If we land the other way, then possibly, I'll be able to open the door and get out if the gasoline doesn’t blow up. I asked myself "How can I brace the impact?” Maybe, put some diapers between me and the door..." But then I'm like "Would that keep me from being able to get out?" shit “I don’t want to die”!
We literally landed that helicopter on a piece of sandbar that was probably three feet by six feet long, placing the rails of the helicopter sideways across the little peninsula. The rails were hanging over the edge on either side. We got out so thankful to be alive. But now we're literally in the middle of the jungle. We're not done surviving yet. And sure enough, there's a tent pitched nearby. Two guys get out. One is burnt from head to toe, he had been blown up in an IRA bomb in Ireland. He was there as the bodyguard for the other gentleman who was panning for gold. And so Dave, our helicopter pilot says, "Okay, I'm going to take the helicopter back. I think it's a wiring thing. You guys stay here. I'll be back later." So we literally sat and had tea with these two Irish dudes in the middle of the jungle, and even got to hold gold nuggets in my hand from gold that they found in the streams. We didn't know when he was coming back if he was coming back. But sure enough, we hear the helicopter and he lands back down on that little sand sandbar. We load back up and head the rest of the way into the jungle.
It was something else. My heart was in my throat. I can hardly believe that we had just gone through that.
Another example of having to face and take fear with me was when somebody in the village passed away. It was the mother of literally one of the main guys in our tribe that was working with us to help learn the language. She had passed away from a tree hitting her and crushed her skull. She lived in another village a whole day's hike away. Eight hours to be exact. It was the first death in the village for us and we really wanted to know and understand how they do their funerals and to be able to grieve with them and show support. So Joe and I with Brayden in a backpack on one of the tribal guys' backs started out on this hike. We had all of our supplies, a tent, and all of our supplies to spend the night. We had to cross big logs across rivers and go over mountain terrain. I wasn't 20 minutes into the hike and my shoes gave out so I had to do the rest of the hike in my stocking feet. It was straight up straight down. There wasn't hardly any piece of ground that was flat. We hiked and we hiked and we hiked until we got down to the bottom of the mountain where we found this beautiful stream. I placed my feet in the water and just let the cold water soothe my feet and take down the swelling. I put my socks back on and we kept going. When we got there we could hear the wailing and smell the body. Her head was completely crushed, and I’ll never forget the vision of that and the ladies sitting and wailing around her swatting at flies.
As soon as we arrived, they started the ceremony as she had been dead already for three days. They carried her to a tree that they had dug out. They laid her inside the tree and then put the lid on the other half of the tree on top of her. So she was killed by a tree and then laid in a tree. The irony wasn’t lost on me. The people wailed and we were there and we watched, listened, cried, and supported each other. All of a sudden Roni was right beside me, he bends down, puts his hand on a stump, takes an axe, and chops his finger off right in front of me!
I jumped back and almost screamed. There his finger is laying on the stump. He's crying, but more like, he's crying for his mom. I didn't know what to do. I'm the medic, right? I was the nurse/doctor there. We don't want to intervene unless they ask us to and he seemed fine. Everyone seemed fine. Nobody was freaking out by this, and it was literally in front of everybody and right in front of me. I remember noticing that a lot of people didn't have fingers, but I just thought it was because they work with axes and machetes a lot of the time. No, it's because they chop them off willingly, to show their grief and to show how much they love that person that passed away. It's also a spiritual thing. They put the stub of the finger in banana leaves, and they hung it in the rafters, to appease the spirits. This was their custom.
Later we had a big feast. They did a mumu, this is where they dig a huge hole, and put hot rocks in there and banana leaves. And then they put the pork in and the veggies, and then more hot rock and leaves, and more veggies and they layer it like that and then they cover it all up with dirt. They leave it for a period of time until they think it's done. And then whether it's done or not, they eat it. This is what they've been used to, and their stomachs can handle this type of thing. We brought food with us but we didn't bring near enough, and it smelled so good. So we ate some of that food and went to bed in our tent.
In the middle of the night I hear someone yelling "Roni is dead! Roni is dead!" in Pidgin. Pidgin English is the national language of New Guinea. In Pidgin, they say "He’s dead", or "He’s dead finish". That means he’s really dead. Well, in the middle of the night when someone says he’s dead, I don't think about the translation properly. And so I think they're telling me that "Roni is dead". So I tore out of the tent and I ran over to Roni. There he is laying on the ground, bleeding out, with his hand in a bag.
He was not dead, thankfully. I have never dealt with something like this before. I could see the bone. It was so gross. I'm not made for this stuff. I'm not really trained, only with First Aid, I just know more than they do and want to help but I was so scared "What if I do it wrong? What if it gets infected?" Fear. I didn't want to do anything. I was so scared. I'm like, "No, no, no, take the fear with you. So what if you're scared, take it with you, do it anyway, he needs you." And so I took the fear with me. And I acknowledged it and then said, "Okay, come on, we're doing this." I cleaned up the stump and I tied it off with a string. Not sure if that's what you do or not, but that's what I did. There was no one to ask in the middle of the jungle. I tied it off and thankfully and gave him antibiotics so that he wouldn't get an infection.
The next day, we have to head back. So we're washing in the river underneath this beautiful waterfall and I looked down and there's this machete and I picked it up and I said: "oh someone forgot their machete.” One of the ladies yelled at me in her own language, I didn't understand her words as I didn't know enough of the language at the time but I understood her tone and immediately dropped the machete back where I found it. I later found out that it was a murder weapon that was being washed off of it’s sins in the stream. And here I am the unknowing foreigner. So funny, not funny.
It was time to walk back and I still of course didn't have shoes. So in my stocking feet. We hiked for eight more hours through the jungle and up and down the mountains. By the time we got to the last hill, I was green and had a burning fever.
I had food poisoning, and I could barely move. I was violently shaking, and they had to push me up the last hill. Thankfully I got home before Montezuma's revenge (diarrhea) hit me. But I have never been sicker in my life. That time I pooped and puked at the same time, for days. I thought I might die, I was so scared. I didn't have help. Because Joe didn't help, with really anything. I had that fear again. I'm trying to take care of Brayden and myself and had to take the fear with me. I had to just do it. That's what I learned from that experience and many others, you take the fear with you. You work through it, and you come out the other side. Otherwise, you let fear stop you.
What if I would have let fear stop me, what if I hadn't helped Roni, he might have actually died. The good news is that he survived and he's fine. And so whether it's life or death or not, take the fear with you. So what, you're scared, do it anyway. Everybody gets scared. Just do it anyway. It's worth it.
One of the tricks that I've learned to overcome fear is to visualize yourself on the other side. Visualize yourself safe and sound for whatever it is that you want to see happen. With the helicopter, I visualized us landing in the tribe and telling the story of how we had this crazy adventure of landing in the middle of the jungle, and along each step of the way, I didn't know what was going to happen, but I would visualize me safe on the other side, telling the story. With Roni, I visualized him living and being okay, and hearing that he was fine because I left him there in that small village and went back to my village. So I didn't know if he was gonna be okay. I didn't know if what I did was right or good enough. So I just visualized him fine. And that helps you get through the fear. Take the fear with you. Dance with it.
How you can learn from me…
1. Keep your Eye on the Prize
Focus on what you desire, not what you fear.
I do this step by sharing the story of our Helicopter almost crashing and having a tribal guy cut off his finger in front of me in the middle of the jungle.
To start…
A. Know what you want
When you are facing something that is scaring you it’s important that you focus on what it is that you want, not the fear. To do this next step breathe deep into the lungs again. Make sure it’s through your nose, hold for 5 seconds and exhale through your mouth making the sound “ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”. Now ask your higher self this question, “ what is it that I want?” reflect on the answer and write it down. For me it was getting home to our new village safely. In the case of Roni, I wanted him to survive, and in the situation of me being scared out of my mind to ask time off, I wanted to take my kids on a trip around the world. Really bad. “What do you want?” This will take 3-5 min to complete.
B. Why you want it
The next step is to ask yourself, “ Why do you want it?” Write down all of the reasons that come to mind. For me, I obviously wanted to live and I needed to keep my wits about me so that I can raise the odds of that happening. With the situation of Roni cutting off his finger and almost dying, I wanted to see him live a long healthy life. I wanted to take my kids around the world because I thought it would be epically fun, a massive life teacher for the kids, a bonding time, and a trip of a lifetime. “ Why do you want it?” This will take 3-5 min to complete.
C. Commit, to making it happen.
The third step is to make a decision to commit to making it happen, fearful or not. Decide, make a choice, get strong, choose! It was pure chaos for me in that helicopter but I was fairly calm because I made a choice to live, or at least do my best to do that. With getting time off work for our trip, I was so committed to going that I was willing to quit my job to go. Sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn’t. But I was committed. There was really only one option, We were going or we were going. Period. Are you committed to what you want? I hope so.
The outcome of this step is: Don’t let fear win.
2. Take Fear With you
The importance of this step is that fear is a normal human condition, so what.
I do this step by sharing the story of how I helped clean off Roni's stump finger, and how we made the most of the landing of the helicopter in the middle of the jungle.
Here’s what you want to do…
A. You can't wait for fear to leave to be ok or to move forward
Here’s the thing about fear, you can’t wait for it to leave to be ok, or to move forward. If you do, you will spend your whole life being scared. Tell yourself right now, “I must move now, the only way is through.” Again, “I must move now, the only way is through.” Again, “ I must move now, the only way is through.” This is what I said to myself as I stood there staring at Roni’s bloody stump of a finger. You must move now, the only way is through. Repeat until you believe it.
B. Talk to it, acknowledge him or her and tell them there is nothing they can do to stop you so either leave me alone or join the fun.
Then what I do sometimes is I speak to the fear. I acknowledge its presence and I let it know that there is nothing it can do to stop me, so it can either leave or join me for the fun. So repeat after me, “ I see you you fear, I hear you too, but I just want you to know that this is important to me, and so there is nothing that you can do or say to make me change my mind. So shit or get off the pot, I’m doing this!” I would say it three times. Three times often is what it takes to get our subconscious on board. Do it. I don’t care if you think I’m crazy, this works. I care too much about you to allow you to give up on your Big Dreams and let fear win. No way, not on my watch.
C. Take the leap.
Guess what the next step is, yup, you guessed it! Take the leap. Step forward. Move. Take action. Take one small step at a time and next thing you know you will be experiencing what was once impossible. Now, a living breathing example to yourself and the people you love and love you, that you are bigger than your fear! You’ve got this. Take the leap.
The outcome of this step is to use fear as fuel.
Step 3. Create your own mental movie
The importance of this step is to visualize what you want as if it is already complete.
I do this step by visualizing getting off the helicopter safely, and that Roni was healthy, happy and alive.
Here’s how you do it…
A. See clearing in your mind like a movie what you want to happen
How do you take the first leap and the next and the next. It helps to see clearly the end result. In other words, create a mental movie of what it is you want to see happen. Visualize it going all your way! That’s what I did when I was abandoned in the middle of the jungle with my one-year-old baby. I visualize the helicopter picking us up and us landing in our new home with a really great story to tell. Right now I want you to take a minute to visualize yourself on the other side of your fear, doing what you are excited about. See it and write it down. This will take 3-5 min to complete.
B. Imagine how you would feel
Step two is to imagine how you would feel in that moment or moments. What would you feel? Can you see the joy, the smiles, the pride on your face and the face of others? How would you feel to overcome your fear and accomplish whatever it is that you want to see happen? The helicopter did come, we did get to land in our new home, and did we ever have an exciting story to tell. Roni did survive, hallelujah. How would you feel when you are on the other side of your fear? Feel it, and write it down. This will take 3-5 min.
C. Hear or smell whatever smells you would experience
It’s also really helpful to hear the sounds and smells of your success. For me it was imagining hearing the helicopter come back over the mountains, to smell the fuel as it landed, and to imagine hearing the news later that Roni was alright. All of which happened. What do you hear and smell as you imagine your amazing accomplishment? Hear it, See it, Smell it, and write it down. This will take 3-5 min to complete.
The outcome of this step is to understand that the Mind is powerful - we need to use it!
When you follow and implement these steps you will learn how to dance with fear. How to focus on what you desire, not what you fear. That fear is a normal human condition, and it’s never going to go completely away. That’s why you need to learn how to dance with it, to take it with you, and to visualize what you want as if it is already complete. Just like in the story of the fear of being almost in a helicopter crash and how I had to take care of a tribal man’s finger after I watched him cut it off in front of me. And how I made the best of it and visualized the outcome that I wanted. Here are the three steps so that you can do it too.
1. Keep your Eye on the Prize
2. Take Fear With you
3. Create your own mental movie
The outcome of following these steps is that you will learn to not let fear win. The mind is powerful. We need to use it. You will learn the amazing skill of learning how to use fear as fuel, to use it to help you get wherever you are going! The only way is through!
Your Action Steps: Are to implement the steps above, and come back and let us know what your results are!
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