Small Town Therapist on the only way to conquer our fears

The grands many years ago, they like to make fun of fear.

I have a darling grandniece Lily. I had the pleasure of riding the ferry with her an her siblings many years ago. At the time she was two and a half years old. Lily had sparkling ice blue eyes and she was a flaxen haired sprite who melted my heart from the first time we met. I had the good fortune to ride the ferry on my way home from a doctor's appointment to ride with them and they kept me joyfully entertained the entire ride. 

One game that Lily made up was running from our booth and darting past a particularly tolerant and amused 13 year old young woman who would smile at her as she raced past,  sometimes mouthing "boo". Afterwards Lily would run into the booth giggling wildly. At about her tenth pass through I suggested to Lily that she say "hi" to her new found admirer. Lily stuck out her lower lip and put her head down. Clearly this was way too scary. But she's two so she did her tricks several times again and on the last time of her daring adventure she came bouncing back to the booth exclaiming proudly, "I said hi!" I gave her a hearty congratulations and laughed to myself.

Some people are afraid of spiders 

I had a bike accident in May of 2015. One of the unfortunate but somewhat understandable consequences of the accident was I was uneasy riding on gravel roads. Uneasy, ha, I was scared to death. 

I'm smiling but it did hurt like hell

 For many years, my husband and I biked to a cafe with our pals for breakfast, our usual Sunday jaunt. A beautiful day, dry as a bone, warm and perfect for a ride. My good friend Magsie suggested that we take an alternate route to go to the Cafe. I was game, the other five bikers opted out. We rode pleasantly on this side road for about a mile and then...it turned to gravel. Not just gravel but also washboard gravel--- with pot holes. Exactly like the road I had the accident on. Ugh. I silently held my breath and kept on talking but Magsie figured it out and said, "I bet this is hard for you."  "Well, it isn't too bad, at least it's not down hill."  Then we came to the down hill. [As I write this I noticed I'm hunching my shoulders.] Because I didn't want her to be overly concerned I pushed on, went fairly slow and then, thank god the gravel road turned into a paved portion. We met up with the others en route to the Cafe and all was well. Whew.  

Riding with pals is the best fun

I'm glad that I did that portion of gravel but I still hadn't ridden down our one mile long gravely hilly road. I must add that the county road crew had come about a month after my accident and smoothed out the worst of the bumps and washboard. So I challenged myself to ride my bike down that very road where I fell and hurt myself. I did so thinking, "I can always get off and walk if I want to". I lit out. Down the first hill muttering to myself, "that wasn't so bad", then finally I'm on the gravel hill of my nightmares. I kept internally saying, "just go slow and pay attention" and I did down the first curve, around the pot holes, down the second part of the hill and ultimately past the part of the road where I bit it and wrecked. I made it. It's as though I said "hi"! I was so proud of myself that day that I rode seven more miles. The ride ended with another gravel road that I rode down. It was actually good almost easy.

I know from my counseling others that "you must do the thing that you believe you cannot ever do"-- to paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt. This was a very little thing but hey,  if you have a scary thing in your life and you want to get past it, you must say hi.

susansmagicfeather 2024 copyright Susan R. Grout