Feeling the fear

I’m just back from a fabulous holiday to Mexico. During our trip, we took a catamaran from Cancun over to Isla Mujeres and had the opportunity to snorkel in the ocean half way over. I was dying to do this and was so excited but when it came down to putting the mask on and jumping in, I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t realise the mask would cover my nose and panicked that I wouldn’t be able to breath. So I watched my husband swim off with the rest of the group, while I sat on the boat drinking lukewarm sex on the beach wishing I wasn’t such a shitbag. I’m so pissed off at myself for not taking that leap, as it’s a chance I probably won’t have again, and it’s made me really think about fear and the opportunities it steals from us.

The truth is, I’m scared of a lot of things. Although I try not to let fear rule my life, I worry all the time. I worry about work and not being good enough (appraisal time sets off my anxiety in a big way.) I worry about family and friends (dying/leaving/drifting apart/being alone.) I worry about how I appear to other people online. I worry that the cat being sick is not actually due to hairballs, but some ghastly disease. I worry I'll never taste original Irn Bru again. I worry that if I finally get to be a Mum, I’ll just be shit at it and my child will hate me. You get the gist – constant worries.

I’m much better than I used to be and sometimes I’m able to use mindfulness to stop negative thoughts. But it’s so hard sometimes, to just live in the moment, and I can’t deny I spent a lot of time thinking about the past (guilt) and speculating about the future (anxiety.) It’s not that worrying is taking over my life or anything. I’m happy most of the time. But I do waste so much time on worrying that I wonder, how much more could I achieve if I weren’t so afraid?