essay on how i overcame my fear

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The official magazine for TIPsters in 4th–6th grade

Turning Fear into Confidence—A Personal Essay

October 14, 2020

Facing obstacles throughout your life is inevitable, and the obstacles you overcome can define who you are as a person. Not only will this build character and self-confidence, it will show others how strong you remained and inspire them to overcome their own challenges.

But overcoming obstacles is no simple task. Most obstacles are incredibly hard and testing. Yet, by overcoming them, you will come to understand why they are important. The significance of overcoming obstacles in life is to make you more grounded, courageous, and wise. For me, one of these life-altering obstacles emerged during my undergraduate years.

I had a serious fear of public speaking. There were times where I would struggle with presentations and in-class discussions. When these sessions would take place, my fear built up in a pressure cooker of discouragement and convulsive anguish. I felt humiliated before my teachers, partners, and most of all, my close friends. I soon realized, however, that the same people who seemed to be the source of my fear became my lifeline, their inspirational words filling my mind and heart with positive thoughts.

Seeing my struggles, my peers tried to build me up, to increase my confidence in myself and convince me that anything, including overcoming my fear of public speaking, could be accomplished with enough enthusiasm and belief in oneself.

The obstacles we face in life can distort how we see ourselves and cripple our ability to face our fears. By facing these conflicts head on, though, we can completely flip their effect on us, transforming them into experiences that strengthen our resilience and push the boundaries of what we think is possible to achieve.

Taking everything into account everything I’ve learned from this experience and many others like it that I’ve encountered in my life, it’s clear that obstacles are impossible to avoid, and when you do encounter them, you must view them as learning opportunities. You might just surprise yourself at how easily you overcome them.

This post was written by Duke TIP’s outgoing Marketing & Communications intern, Christina Gordon. Christina graduated from North Carolina Central University in the spring of 2020.

About Duke TIP

The Duke University Talent Identification Program (Duke TIP) is a nonprofit organization that has served over three million academically talented students in grades 4–12 since it was founded in 1980. Collaborating with educators and parents, TIP helps gifted students assess the extent of their academic abilities with above-grade-level testing, recognizes them for their achievements, and provides them with a variety of enrichment benefits as well as accelerated face-to-face and online educational programs.

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How to Write the “Overcoming Challenges” Essay + Examples

What’s covered:.

• What is the Overcoming Challenges Essay?
• Real Overcoming Challenges Essay Prompts
• How to Choose a Topic
• Writing Tips

Overcoming Challenges Essay Examples

• Where to Get Your Essay Edited

While any college essay can be intimidating, the Overcoming Challenges prompt often worries students the most. Those students who’ve been lucky enough not to experience trauma tend to assume they have nothing worth saying. On the other hand, students who’ve overcome larger obstacles may be hesitant to talk about them.

Regardless of your particular circumstances, there are steps you can take to make the essay writing process simpler. Here are our top tips for writing the overcoming challenges essay successfully.

What is the “Overcoming Challenges” Essay?

The overcoming challenges prompt shows up frequently in both main application essays (like the Common App) and supplemental essays. Because supplemental essays allow students to provide schools with additional information, applicants should be sure that the subject matter they choose to write about differs from what’s in their main essay.

Students often assume the overcoming challenges essay requires them to detail past traumas. While you can certainly write about an experience that’s had a profound effect on your life, it’s important to remember that colleges aren’t evaluating students based on the seriousness of the obstacle they overcame.

On the contrary, the goal of this essay is to show admissions officers that you have the intelligence and fortitude to handle any challenges that come your way. After all, college serves as an introduction to adult life, and schools want to know that the students they admit are up to the task. 

Real “Overcoming Challenges” Essay Prompts

To help you understand what the “Overcoming Challenges” essay looks like, here are a couple sample prompts.

Currently, the Common Application asks students to answer the following prompt in 650 words or less:

“The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?”

For the past several years, MIT has prompted students to write 200 to 250 words on the following:

“Tell us about the most significant challenge you’ve faced or something important that didn’t go according to plan. How did you manage the situation?”

In both cases, the prompts explicitly ask for your response to the challenge. The event itself isn’t as important as how it pushed you to grow.

How to Choose a Topic for an Essay on Overcoming Challenges

When it comes to finding the best topic for your overcoming challenges essays, there’s no right answer. The word “challenge” is ambiguous and could be used to reference a wide range of situations from prevailing over a bully to getting over your lifelong stage fright to appear in a school musical. Here are some suggestions to keep in mind when selecting an essay subject.

1. Avoid trivial or common topics

While there aren’t many hard-and-fast rules for choosing an essay topic, students should avoid overdone topics.

These include:

• Working hard in a challenging class
• Overcoming a sports injury
• Moving schools or immigrating to the US
• Tragedy (divorce, death, abuse)

Admissions officers have read numerous essays on the subject, so it’s harder for you to stand out (see our full list of cliché college essay topics to avoid ). If events like these were truly formative to you, you can still choose to write about them, but you’ll need to be as personal as possible. 

It’s also ideal if you have a less traditional storyline for a cliché topic; for example, if your sports injury led you to discover a new passion, that would be a more unique story than detailing how you overcame your injury and got back in the game.

Similarly, students may not want to write about an obstacle that admissions committees could perceive as low stakes, such as getting a B on a test, or getting into a small fight with a friend. The goal of this essay is to illustrate how you respond to adversity, so the topic you pick should’ve been at least impactful on your personal growth.

2. Pick challenges that demonstrate qualities you want to highlight

Students often mistakenly assume they need to have experienced exceptional circumstances like poverty, an abusive parent, or cancer to write a good essay. The truth is that the best topics will allow you to highlight specific personal qualities and share more about who you are. The essay should be less about the challenge itself, and more about how you responded to it.

Ask yourself what personality traits you want to emphasize, and see what’s missing in your application. Maybe you want to highlight your adaptability, for example, but that isn’t clearly expressed in your application. In this case, you might write about a challenge that put your adaptability to the test, or shaped you to become more adaptable.

Here are some examples of good topics we’ve seen over the years:

• Not having a coach for a sports team and becoming one yourself
• Helping a parent through a serious health issue
• Trying to get the school track dedicated to a coach
• Having to switch your Model UN position last-minute

Tips for Writing an Essay About Overcoming Challenges

Once you’ve selected a topic for your essays, it’s time to sit down and write. For best results, make sure your essay focuses on your efforts to tackle an obstacle rather than the problem itself. Additionally, you could avoid essay writing pitfalls by doing the following:

1. Choose an original essay structure

If you want your overcoming challenges essay to attract attention, aim to break away from more traditional structures. Most of these essays start by describing an unsuccessful attempt at a goal and then explain the steps the writer took to master the challenge. 

You can stand out by choosing a challenge you’re still working on overcoming, or focus on a mental or emotional challenge that spans multiple activities or events. For example, you might discuss your fear of public speaking and how that impacted your ability to coach your brother’s Little League team and run for Student Council. 

You can also choose a challenge that can be narrated in the moment, such as being put on the spot to teach a yoga class. These challenges can make particularly engaging essays, as you get to experience the writer’s thoughts and emotions as they unfold.

Keep in mind that you don’t necessarily need to have succeeded in your goal for this essay. Maybe you ran for an election and lost, or maybe you proposed a measure to the school board that wasn’t passed. It’s still possible to write a strong essay about topics like these as long as you focus on your personal growth. In fact, these may make for even stronger essays since they are more unconventional topics.

2. Focus on the internal

When writing about past experiences, you may be tempted to spend too much time describing specific people and events. With an Overcoming Challenges essay though, the goal is to focus on your thoughts and feelings.

For example, rather than detail all the steps you took to become a better public speaker, use the majority of your essay to describe your mental state as you embarked on the journey to achieving your goals. Were you excited, scared, anxious, or hopeful? Don’t be afraid to let the reader in on your innermost emotions and thoughts during this process.

3. Share what you learned 

An Overcoming Challenges essay should leave the reader with a clear understanding of what you learned on your journey, be it physical, mental, or emotional. There’s no need to explicitly say “this experience taught me X,” but your essay should at least implicitly share any lessons you learned. This can be done through your actions and in-the-moment reflections. Remember that the goal is to show admissions committees why your experiences make you a great candidate for admission. 

Was I no longer the beloved daughter of nature, whisperer of trees? Knee-high rubber boots, camouflage, bug spray—I wore the g arb and perfume of a proud wild woman, yet there I was, hunched over the pathetic pile of stubborn sticks, utterly stumped, on the verge of tears. As a child, I had considered myself a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes, who was serenaded by mourning doves and chickadees, who could glide through tick-infested meadows and emerge Lyme-free. I knew the cracks of the earth like the scars on my own rough palms. Yet here I was, ten years later, incapable of performing the most fundamental outdoor task: I could not, for the life of me, start a fire. 

Furiously I rubbed the twigs together—rubbed and rubbed until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers. No smoke. The twigs were too young, too sticky-green; I tossed them away with a shower of curses, and began tearing through the underbrush in search of a more flammable collection. My efforts were fruitless. Livid, I bit a rejected twig, determined to prove that the forest had spurned me, offering only young, wet bones that would never burn. But the wood cracked like carrots between my teeth—old, brittle, and bitter. Roaring and nursing my aching palms, I retreated to the tent, where I sulked and awaited the jeers of my family. 

Rattling their empty worm cans and reeking of fat fish, my brother and cousins swaggered into the campsite. Immediately, they noticed the minor stick massacre by the fire pit and called to me, their deep voices already sharp with contempt. 

“Where’s the fire, Princess Clara?” they taunted. “Having some trouble?” They prodded me with the ends of the chewed branches and, with a few effortless scrapes of wood on rock, sparked a red and roaring flame. My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame. 

In the tent, I pondered my failure. Was I so dainty? Was I that incapable? I thought of my hands, how calloused and capable they had been, how tender and smooth they had become. It had been years since I’d kneaded mud between my fingers; instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano, my hands softening into those of a musician—fleshy and sensitive. And I’d gotten glasses, having grown horrifically nearsighted; long nights of dim lighting and thick books had done this. I couldn’t remember the last time I had lain down on a hill, barefaced, and seen the stars without having to squint. Crawling along the edge of the tent, a spider confirmed my transformation—he disgusted me, and I felt an overwhelming urge to squash him. 

Yet, I realized I hadn’t really changed—I had only shifted perspective. I still eagerly explored new worlds, but through poems and prose rather than pastures and puddles. I’d grown to prefer the boom of a bass over that of a bullfrog, learned to coax a different kind of fire from wood, having developed a burn for writing rhymes and scrawling hypotheses. 

That night, I stayed up late with my journal and wrote about the spider I had decided not to kill. I had tolerated him just barely, only shrieking when he jumped—it helped to watch him decorate the corners of the tent with his delicate webs, knowing that he couldn’t start fires, either. When the night grew cold and the embers died, my words still smoked—my hands burned from all that scrawling—and even when I fell asleep, the ideas kept sparking—I was on fire, always on fire.

This essay is an excellent example because the writer turns an everyday challenge—starting a fire—into an exploration of her identity. The writer was once “a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes,” but has since traded her love of the outdoors for a love of music, writing, and reading. 

The story begins in media res , or in the middle of the action, allowing readers to feel as if we’re there with the writer. One of the essay’s biggest strengths is its use of imagery. We can easily visualize the writer’s childhood and the present day. For instance, she states that she “rubbed and rubbed [the twigs] until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers.”

The writing has an extremely literary quality, particularly with its wordplay. The writer reappropriates words and meanings, and even appeals to the senses: “My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame.” She later uses a parallelism to cleverly juxtapose her changed interests: “instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano.”

One of the essay’s main areas of improvement is its overemphasis on the “story” and lack of emphasis on the reflection. The second to last paragraph about changing perspective is crucial to the essay, as it ties the anecdote to larger lessons in the writer’s life. She states that she hasn’t changed, but has only shifted perspective. Yet, we don’t get a good sense of where this realization comes from and how it impacts her life going forward. 

The end of the essay offers a satisfying return to the fire imagery, and highlights the writer’s passion—the one thing that has remained constant in her life.

“Getting beat is one thing – it’s part of competing – but I want no part in losing.” Coach Rob Stark’s motto never fails to remind me of his encouragement on early-morning bus rides to track meets around the state. I’ve always appreciated the phrase, but an experience last June helped me understand its more profound, universal meaning.

Stark, as we affectionately call him, has coached track at my high school for 25 years. His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running. When I learned a neighboring high school had dedicated their track to a longtime coach, I felt that Stark deserved similar honors.

Our school district’s board of education indicated they would only dedicate our track to Stark if I could demonstrate that he was extraordinary. I took charge and mobilized my teammates to distribute petitions, reach out to alumni, and compile statistics on the many team and individual champions Stark had coached over the years. We received astounding support, collecting almost 3,000 signatures and pages of endorsements from across the community. With help from my teammates, I presented this evidence to the board.

They didn’t bite. 

Most members argued that dedicating the track was a low priority. Knowing that we had to act quickly to convince them of its importance, I called a team meeting where we drafted a rebuttal for the next board meeting. To my surprise, they chose me to deliver it. I was far from the best public speaker in the group, and I felt nervous about going before the unsympathetic board again. However, at that second meeting, I discovered that I enjoy articulating and arguing for something that I’m passionate about.

Public speaking resembles a cross country race. Walking to the starting line, you have to trust your training and quell your last minute doubts. When the gun fires, you can’t think too hard about anything; your performance has to be instinctual, natural, even relaxed. At the next board meeting, the podium was my starting line. As I walked up to it, familiar butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Instead of the track stretching out in front of me, I faced the vast audience of teachers, board members, and my teammates. I felt my adrenaline build, and reassured myself: I’ve put in the work, my argument is powerful and sound. As the board president told me to introduce myself, I heard, “runners set” in the back of my mind. She finished speaking, and Bang! The brief silence was the gunshot for me to begin. 

The next few minutes blurred together, but when the dust settled, I knew from the board members’ expressions and the audience’s thunderous approval that I had run quite a race. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough; the board voted down our proposal. I was disappointed, but proud of myself, my team, and our collaboration off the track. We stood up for a cause we believed in, and I overcame my worries about being a leader. Although I discovered that changing the status quo through an elected body can be a painstakingly difficult process and requires perseverance, I learned that I enjoy the challenges this effort offers. Last month, one of the school board members joked that I had become a “regular” – I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Just as Stark taught me, I worked passionately to achieve my goal. I may have been beaten when I appealed to the board, but I certainly didn’t lose, and that would have made Stark proud.

While the writer didn’t succeed in getting the track dedicated to Coach Stark, their essay is certainly successful in showing their willingness to push themselves and take initiative.

The essay opens with a quote from Coach Stark that later comes full circle at the end of the essay. We learn about Stark’s impact and the motivation for trying to get the track dedicated to him.

One of the biggest areas of improvement in the intro, however, is how the essay tells us Stark’s impact rather than showing us: His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running.

The writer could’ve helped us feel a stronger emotional connection to Stark if they had included examples of Stark’s qualities, rather than explicitly stating them. For example, they could’ve written something like: Stark was the kind of person who would give you gas money if you told him your parents couldn’t afford to pick you up from practice. And he actually did that—several times. At track meets, alumni regularly would come talk to him and tell him how he’d changed their lives. Before Stark, I was ambivalent about running and was on the JV team, but his encouragement motivated me to run longer and harder and eventually make varsity. Because of him, I approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running.

The essay goes on to explain how the writer overcame their apprehension of public speaking, and likens the process of submitting an appeal to the school board to running a race. This metaphor makes the writing more engaging and allows us to feel the student’s emotions.

While the student didn’t ultimately succeed in getting the track dedicated, we learn about their resilience and initiative: I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Overall, this essay is well-done. It demonstrates growth despite failing to meet a goal, which is a unique essay structure. The running metaphor and full-circle intro/ending also elevate the writing in this essay.

Where to Get Your Overcoming Challenges Essay Edited

The Overcoming Challenges essay is one of the trickier supplemental prompts, so it’s important to get feedback on your drafts. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. 

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

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How I Overcame My Anxiety

I wasn't always so calm..

Posted April 15, 2019 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

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My experience with anxiety has been a long and winding one. I knew I was shy from a young age—hiding behind my dad in public, crying in the corner at ballet class, talking to no one but my best friend at Brownies.

But things kicked up a gear when I was 15, and I started having panic attacks. Suddenly, I was exposed to a dark side to a life where things could go wrong; it was the ultimate in losing control, I thought I was dying and on top of that, I thought I was losing my mind too.

Fast forward to 2010 and anxiety had been holding me back and poisoning my mind for nearly 10 years. I’d had countless panic attacks, millions of obsessive worries, several trips to the doctor, and God knows how many missed friendships, messed up relationships, times I’d doubted myself, restrained the real me, and been really, really mean to myself. Finally, at 24 years old, I realised I needed help.

But change didn’t happen overnight. It was a steady process of slowly learning to open up and talk about how I was feeling (I found this so hard at first), trying different techniques and therapies, reading every self-help book I can get my hands on, and learning to accept myself.

I now feel so honoured to be able to help other people who feel the same way I felt.

Today, I’m sharing the key tools and insights that helped me the most. I hope they help you too.

Make peace your priority

A few years ago, I came across a quote from Brian Tracey: "Make peace of mind your priority and organise your life around it." When I read it, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I realised that for ages, I’d been prioritising achievement, work, and being busy at the expense of my mental health and happiness . I’d been comparing myself to others and believing that I needed to be "successful" to be happy.

When I started to make peace of mind my goal in life, everything changed. I started making time for things that made me feel good and decided that taking care of myself was my primary job. The funny thing was that as I did this, every area of my life improved. My relationships got better as I had more to give, my work life grew because I could think more clearly and creatively, and I became so much happier.

Challenging beliefs

This was an incredibly important step for me in overcoming my anxiety. It’s something that I learned through therapy as well as my training as a hypnotherapist. We all carry old beliefs from our past. As kids, we’re like sponges, absorbing things that Mum and Dad tell us, stuff our teachers say, and giving meaning to the experiences we have. As the oldest child of three, I’d felt a need to be a "good girl" because I didn’t want to upset my Mum, who would get very stressed when my Dad was working away. I’d taken on a belief that I needed to be "perfect" in order to be "liked" and I carried this belief into adulthood. This meant I put a lot of pressure on myself; suppressing the real me around new people and never feeling good enough.

The first step to making a change is to identify what negative beliefs are holding you back. The second step is to create a new belief and start telling yourself that new belief on a regular basis. For me, it was "I am good enough just as I am" and I used hypnotherapy (which helps us to embed new positive beliefs into the subconscious mind) and positive self-talk to change that old view into the new, more supportive one.

Shrink the fear

There’s a saying—" fear shrinks when you walk towards it"—and I absolutely know this to be true. Anxiety makes you want to hide from your fears, which is totally understandable. The fear can feel paralysing and impossible to overcome at times. But challenging myself to move out of my comfort zone was one of the best things I’ve ever done.

Whenever you do something you’re afraid to do, you’re proving to yourself, "I can do this, it’s safe, I’m ok," and the more you do this, the more confident, capable, and calm you become. Things like going to networking events, public speaking , and traveling alone would have once seemed impossible for me, but now they’re things I enjoy. The only reason I can do them now is that I slowly pushed myself further and further out of my comfort zone, growing my confidence in the process.

Finally learning to calm my mind

I believed for years that I was just one of those people who "couldn’t" meditate. I couldn’t sit still, closing my eyes felt boring , and it made me too aware of my racing heart. I resisted it for years.

Finally, I discovered something that yogis of India have known for millennia. It’s called meditation "practice," not meditation "perfection." I let go of needing to be good at meditating, just doing my 15 minutes dutifully each day and throwing in a few yoga stretches beforehand, and something "clicked."

The trick is to not beat yourself up if your mind wanders during meditation; you simply bring your awareness back to your breath (or mantra) as soon as you notice it’s drifted. Having thoughts during meditation is totally normal and doesn’t mean you have failed.

The thing that convinced me to really give meditation a try was learning about the science behind it when it comes to anxiety. It changes our brains, reducing the part responsible for the fight or flight response (the amygdala) and helping the part of our brain that thinks about the future (the frontal cortex) to become more calm and rational. I started to feel results gradually, and after a few months of regular practice, I felt as though I’d rewired my brain.

Don’t fight the feelings

A big thing for me was learning to float rather than fight against my feelings. Sounds counterintuitive right? Why wouldn’t you want to fight your anxiety, it’s the baddie, isn’t it?

But when the famous psychiatrist Carl Jung said, "What you resist, persists," he had a point, especially when it comes to anxiety. Ever found that the harder to fight against your worries or feelings of panic, the worse they get? For me, learning to float with any anxious feelings, relax with them and allow them to be there meant that they started to reduce on their own. It’s a bit like being in the sea and allowing your body to be supported by the saltwater, rather than thrashing and fighting against the tides. If we fight, we just end up exhausted and panicked but if we relax and float, we are supported.

Being kinder to myself

Sounds so obvious, so how come we don’t do it? Self-compassion is one of the most important things we do for ourselves in life, and for anxiety, it’s crucial. Self-compassion is like a cushion against the difficulties of life. It makes everything easier. I thought that giving myself a hard time was motivating me to do better, but in fact beating myself up was holding me back. It sapped my motivation and meant I was too scared to try things, knowing I’d give myself hell if I felt I’d failed.

These days, I choose to live my life as though it’s all a training montage from an ’80s or '90s film. Failure is inevitable, but I get up and try again. All the while I remember that my "audience" (my friends and family) love and support me no matter what and that I grow and learn all the time. We are all in our own training montage, failure is never final and being kind to ourselves (and others) and trusting in the process is all we need to do.

Chloe Brotheridge is a hypnotherapist and anxiety expert and the author of The Anxiety Solution .

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At any moment, someone’s aggravating behavior or our own bad luck can set us off on an emotional spiral that threatens to derail our entire day. Here’s how we can face our triggers with less reactivity so that we can get on with our lives.

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Essay on How to Overcome Fear

Students are often asked to write an essay on How to Overcome Fear in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on How to Overcome Fear

Understanding fear.

Fear is a natural response to danger, but sometimes it can be overwhelming. Understanding what fear is and why we experience it can help to manage it.

Identifying the Fear

The first step to overcoming fear is identifying it. Is it a fear of heights, spiders, or public speaking? Once you know what scares you, you can start to confront it.

Gradual Exposure

Start by gradually exposing yourself to the thing you fear. If you’re scared of dogs, start by looking at pictures, then maybe visit a pet shop.

Positive Thinking

When fear strikes, try to replace negative thoughts with positive ones. This can help to reduce the intensity of your fear.

Seeking Help

If your fear is too much to handle alone, don’t be afraid to seek help. A trusted adult or a professional can provide useful guidance and support.

250 Words Essay on How to Overcome Fear

Fear, a primal human emotion, is a response to perceived threats. It serves as a protective mechanism, alerting us to danger. However, when fear becomes overwhelming, it can hinder our daily lives and decision-making processes.

Identifying the Source

The first step in overcoming fear is identifying its source. Fear can stem from past experiences, perceived future events, or even an overactive imagination. By pinpointing the root cause, we can confront our fears directly.

Exposure Therapy

Exposure therapy is a common method used to combat fears. It involves gradually and repeatedly exposing oneself to the fear source. Over time, this can help desensitize our reaction to the fear stimulus.

Positive Affirmations

Positive affirmations can help in reshaping our thought patterns. By consistently practicing positive self-talk, we can replace fear-induced thoughts with empowering beliefs.

Mindfulness and Meditation

Mindfulness and meditation can aid in managing fear. By focusing on the present, we can avoid getting trapped in past fear-inducing experiences or worrying about future uncertainties.

Professional Help

Sometimes, fear can be deeply ingrained, requiring professional help. Therapists and psychologists are trained to help individuals navigate their fears and develop coping strategies.

In conclusion, overcoming fear is a process that requires understanding, confrontation, and practice. By identifying the source of fear, utilizing techniques like exposure therapy, positive affirmations, and mindfulness, and seeking professional help when needed, we can gradually learn to manage and overcome our fears.

500 Words Essay on How to Overcome Fear

Fear is a common human emotion, an instinctive response to perceived threats or danger. It can be both a protective mechanism, alerting us to potential harm, and a hindrance, preventing us from pursuing our goals or engaging fully in life. Understanding fear is the first step towards overcoming it. Fear can be categorized into two types: acute fear, which is immediate and temporary, and chronic fear, which is long-term and often irrational, such as phobias or anxiety disorders.

The Role of Perception in Fear

Perception plays a crucial role in fear. Our brains are wired to make rapid assessments of situations and respond accordingly. This is why we might feel afraid when walking alone at night, even if we are in a safe area. Our perception of the situation, rather than the reality, drives our fear. To overcome fear, we need to challenge and change our perceptions.

Strategies to Overcome Fear

There are several strategies that can help in overcoming fear.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT is a type of psychotherapy that can be highly effective in managing fear. It involves identifying negative thought patterns and challenging them with rational, positive thoughts. For example, if you have a fear of public speaking, CBT would involve identifying thoughts like “I will mess up and everyone will laugh at me,” and replacing them with more rational thoughts like “I have prepared well and I am capable.”

Exposure therapy is another effective strategy, particularly for phobias and anxiety disorders. It involves gradually and repeatedly exposing yourself to the thing you fear, in a controlled and safe environment, until your fear response decreases.

Mindfulness and meditation can also be beneficial in managing fear. By focusing on the present moment, rather than worrying about the future or dwelling on the past, we can reduce anxiety and fear. Techniques such as deep breathing, visualization, and progressive muscle relaxation can help to calm the mind and body.

Physical Activity

Physical activity is another effective tool in combating fear. Exercise can reduce stress hormones and stimulate the production of endorphins, chemicals in the brain that act as natural painkillers and mood elevators.

Seeking Professional Help

If fear is significantly impacting your life, it may be helpful to seek professional help. Therapists and counselors are trained to help you understand and manage your fears.

Fear is a complex emotion that can both protect us and hold us back. By understanding the nature of fear, challenging our perceptions, and utilizing strategies such as CBT, exposure therapy, mindfulness, meditation, physical activity, and professional help, we can learn to manage and overcome our fears. Remember, courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.

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How I overcame my fear of public speaking – and learned to love it

I used to get palpitations at the mere thought of going on stage. But it was taking a teaching job that gave me the confidence to face any crowd

I wonder if anyone actually likes the sound of their own voice. Town criers, perhaps. Toby Young. The rest of us have, at least at some point in our lives, likely been a member of what I call the sweaty-hands club: those who would sell their first born if it got us out of a presentation, or have palpitations at the mere thought of getting up on stage.

A study by Chapman University in 2014 found that one in four people admit to being frightened of speaking in public. I don’t know when my fear of public speaking started, but I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have it. Fear comes from the unknown, they say, and for years I had no experience of talking in front of more than a small group of people.

Like most state schools in the 90s, mine in Grantham, Lincolnshire provided few chances to practise public speaking. The extent of it was a debating club, which from the outside appeared to consist of three girls in blazers glued to cue cards from WH Smith. But then, even if a teacher had offered me one-on-one training with the world’s greatest orator, I would likely have feigned a stomach ache to get out of it. It wasn’t that I was painfully shy – I was creative enough to write good lines, and stubborn enough to get any presentation done – but I could think of few things worse than getting up in front of a room of my peers and delivering a speech.

This continued for the next decade, through my undergraduate degree, PhD and first forays into journalism. If I had considered my fear of public speaking as part of the awkwardness of adolescence, I didn’t seem to be growing out of it.

As the years went on, I found two things determined how nervous I got: the scale of the event and who was in the audience. A school careers talk to a crowd of teenagers I could blag with confidence, but ask me to deliver a presentation to a small room of academics and I would want to vomit.

Imposter syndrome is both a cliche and a frustrating reality. My sister and I were the first generation in our family to do a degree and I fell in at the deep end by opting for a Russell Group university, and sticking around for a doctorate. I loved the experience but was surrounded by the voices of private school alumni, and without similar tools to get my own words out. It wasn’t that their thoughts were necessarily better, but that they had the confidence to believe it was worth hearing. It didn’t help that public speaking isn’t typically designed with wheelchair-users like me in mind. When you can’t reach the PowerPoint controls or see over the lectern, you can feel all the more self-conscious.

What changed for me was taking a punt on a part-time job: teaching first-year undergraduates political theory. I saw it as a way to be out of my comfort zone, but not so far away that it would be overwhelming. It turned out to be a surreal and invigorating experience, where I had to be a ringleader and critical thinker, a lecturer and babysitter, handling anything from political analysis to an exploding yogurt pot (don’t ask).

Teaching is far from a traditional public-speaking gig (for one, it involves far more listening by the speaker), but it helped give me the tools to get up in front of any crowd: thinking on my feet, the ability to engage a room, understanding your audience, and above all, confidence in my own voice. (If you can get a hungover 18-year-old vaguely interested in Aristotle, you realise your powers of persuasion are borderline hypnotic.)

There was never a transformative event that turned things around, no lightning bolt of newfound confidence. But sat in front of a class for the umpteenth week, listening to myself hold their attention, I realised (whisper it) I was actually pretty good at this.

Within a couple of years, I had gone into political journalism full-time and made the leap to taking on broadcast and event work. I felt panic before my debut on live TV – I recall it mainly involved being locked in a Travelodge toilet in Bath at 5am wondering how I had got myself into this – but once I had done it, I felt elated. And each new experience built my speaking confidence, allowing me to agree to more things. I found methods that helped, such as detailed planning (ignore anyone who says speeches fail without spontaneity), practising at home beforehand, and getting used to the rhythm of my voice. Since then, I’ve done regular live TV and radio, spoken in front of crowds of 800 people, and recorded an audiobook.

It isn’t that my nerves have gone away, but I no longer see myself as someone unable to do it. What I have learned is that it is a myth that there are natural public speakers – and that some of us are destined for TED Talks and others to quiver in the corner. Whether it’s through posting Instagram Stories or agreeing to that work presentation, there are ever-increasing ways to get used to talking publicly. There is a public speaker in all of us. Even those in the sweaty-hands club.

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Nsn memorial senior secondary school, how i overcame my fears- essay.

• October 21, 2020

All of us have fear in the our lives.

Fear is a common to all of us in life. Each and everyone has fear. If anyone doesn’t , wont it be a surprise for us?

What about me ? I have so much fear in my life- it’s about my future and career. Almost all of us have fear while writing exams and thinking about what marks we will score. Even I have the same fear but for me the most common  fear is what would happen tomorrow and how I would be in future, good or bad?

If I speak truthfully, I am scared of small insects like mosquito and cockroach too. I will scream when I see this insect. Everyone in my family and  neighbourhood ask me why I am scared over something so small. I wont be able to sleep alone or be alone.

First I thought that I cannot overcome these fears. My fears started to increase. If I go near any big person or give an interview, I would start sweating.

Then at night, I would ponder over what I can do?

How can I overcome my fears?

Even my family would complain about it. But I would listen to them and try to  reduce my fears and problems. When anyone would criticize me for it, I would get tensed and would secretly wish to prove them wrong.

Here is what I tried to reduce my fear –

1) I listed out my weaknesses and decided to try and reduce them

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How I Overcame My Fear of Driving

I used to be so scared of driving that I couldn’t even look at my car parked outside my house. I didn’t drive for seven years. I was too afraid.

Happily, these days I can and do drive whenever I want. So what makes people scared of such an everyday activity as driving, and how do those of us with a driving phobia overcome it? 

If the thought of zooming off down the motorway brings you out in a cold sweat, then rest assured you’re not alone. Fear of driving is one of the most common phobias that exists, yet we seldom talk about it. Official statistics are hard to find, yet hypnotherapists say that this is one of the most common complaints they hear from their that clients. 

Why do some people and not others develop fear of driving? There are four key factors :

• A parent who was a non-driver or an unconfident driver
• Experience of any type of car crash, including minor prangs
• A prolonged and high degree of stress, particularly in the time before the car accident
• Stopping driving for a period of time

Any of these factors by themselves can lead to a driving phobia, and if more than one applies to you then the risks are higher. So someone who’s suffered a car crash might not develop a phobia, but if they are also highly stressed at the time, and then take a prolonged break from driving, anxious feelings around driving could easily develop.

All of these factors applied to me - my mother is very nervous in cars and has never gone beyond a provisional licence; I’d had a near miss whilst out driving, when my brakes had failed in heavy traffic; I had a very stressful job as a TV producer; then I had a baby and got rid of the car, and didn’t drive at all for several months. I’d also fallen out of a moving car on to a dual carriageway when I was four. The seeds that grew into this phobia were sprinkled throughout my life.

What can you do if you’re scared to drive?

• Deal with the root cause of your stress - what is it that has made you stressed enough to develop this phobia? It might have nothing to do with driving at all.
• Practice breathing exercises and relaxation techniques, relaxing your muscles and using positive affirmations such as ‘I am a calm and confident driver’
• Recall your past successes - the times you drove well and took journeys you enjoyed
• Take refresher lessons
• Use music to boost your mood – play music you love whilst driving and sing along
• Seek professional help – many hypnotherapists are skilled in helping people with driving anxiety
• Enrol with a professional driving instructor at a specialist school
• Keep driving –  you won’t want to, but aim not to let a week elapse between drives

Above all, take comfort in the fact that this phobia is much more common than you might think. Many of the people you see out driving are just as scared as you are, they’re just masking it better. Being scared of driving doesn’t mean that you don’t drive at all - it could be that you’re scared of certain situations, such as motorways or driving over bridges.

What worked for me was a combination of these techniques. I took around 10 refresher lessons and used them to relearn to drive in my local area. I forced myself to drive frequently, even when I didn’t want to and felt afraid. I kept an eye on my blood sugar and caffeine levels, as both can contribute to panic attacks - so no driving on an empty stomach or after too much coffee. I had a stab at hypnotherapy, though to be honest the most effective part of the session was standing in the rain waiting for the bus afterwards, reflecting on the fact that if I had driven I would have been home and dry by then. 

My experience of overcoming this phobia has brought me to the conclusion that the important thing here is not that we drive. It’s that we stop living in the shadow of fear, because that is a very stressful place to be. I love that I can drive anywhere I want to. But I love even more that I overcame my fear and moved beyond it. Living with a fear you have not dealt with is an enormous mental pressure. And the relief when you’re free from that pressure the best kind of freedom of all.  

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Fear — How to Permanently Overcome Fear

How to Permanently Overcome Fear

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How I Overcame My Fear of Public Speaking: Danish Dhamani (Transcript)

• October 18, 2018 9:25 am October 19, 2023 2:13 am
• by Pangambam S

Here is the full Transcript and summary of Orai’s CEO Danish Dhamani’s TEDx Talk: How I Overcame My Fear of Public Speaking @ TEDxKids@SMU conference . 

Listen to the MP3 Audio:

Danish Dhamani – Co-founder at OraiApp.com

My name is Danish and my full-time job is to count people’s ums arms and ahs and like.

It all started at my first day of school, after my family moved from Pakistan to Tanzania. I was busy sketching my dream cars in my notebook and all of a sudden, I hear a voice in my direction: the teacher.

“Danish, can you please rise up and introduce yourself?”

She had put me on the spot. I was in this foreign land, 30 pairs of eyes staring at me.

How would you feel when a teacher puts you on the spot in this kind of situation? My mind went blank. My heart started racing.

I kept quiet. I started hearing giggles in the classroom. And then tears ran down my cheek. That was the first time I felt the fear of speaking in front of others, the first time I felt the fear of public speaking .

Fast-forward a few years, I was at college here in America. That fear still stuck with me. It was as though, it was part of my soul.

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How to Walk Across the Sky with Faith Dickey

I tested my nerve on a thin line high above the Utah desert. It changed how I face fear in my life.

Heading out the door? Read this article on the Outside app available now on iOS devices for members! >","name":"in-content-cta","type":"link"}}'>Download the app .

The first I see of Faith Dickey is a headlamp beam floating in the driveway, her dark form loading two metal construction tripods from a storage shed into her pickup truck. It’s 4:30 A.M., and I’m about to hitch a ride to Day Canyon, an hour outside of Moab, Utah, to help her finish rigging and watch her lead a group of clients as they try highlining.

Highlining is slacklining , or walking across a springy inch-wide length of nylon webbing, but done between clifftops instead of low to the ground over grass or a mat. Once her paying guests have had their fill of the thrill, I’ll get to walk the line, too. I’ve never met Faith, 35, but I know her by reputation; she’s established highlines all around the globe, free-soloed (meaning she used no leash) some of them with aplomb, and—perhaps most memorably—walked some in high heels.

Her new company, Elevate Outdoors , is the world’s first highline guiding operation.

We say our headlamp-haloed hellos, heads tipped to shield the others’ eyes. Slacklining was historically a leisure occupation, invented by Yosemite climbers to while away the hours on rest days, but is now a known form of athleticism. There’s nothing idle about Faith. Her demeanor and build, as she efficiently loads her dark-blue pickup truck and double-checks the gear list, are those of a professional athlete. She’s a tight ball of focused energy, and a lot more awake than I am.

Soon we’re four-wheeling across a dry wash, and I’m holding my coffee out the window to keep it from sloshing all over the truck’s upholstery. Faith pilots us over boulders, not spilling a drop from her own mug.

“I guided for other companies, but I’d always wanted to start my own thing,” she says, casually gunning the truck up a sandy embankment. “The places I’d worked, they were fun, but I thought I could do it better myself.”

With the help of a couple classes from the Women’s Business Center of Utah aimed at supporting female entrepreneurs, she drafted a business plan, incorporated an LLC, built a website, and in 2023 began taking clients out.

We park in a sandy riverbed that spills into an expanse of red sandstone. Conifers and prickly pear cactus, surprisingly lush, burst out of the gullies between hillocks of slickrock. The amount of gear—three giant backpacks’ worth—is staggering for an adventure that revolves around one strip of webbing. Most burdensome are the two six-foot tripods that, I learn from Faith, were designed to lower sewer workers into manholes. At 50 pounds each, they can withstand 5,000 pounds of force. They’re the innovation that makes Faith’s business possible, because they allow her to set up a wire above the highline, keeping clients upright as they walk across it.

We each hoist a tripod onto our shoulders, and packs onto our backs and chests and for the next half hour we grunt our way across the slickrock. We’re on top of a huge plateau, and as we approach its edge, Day Canyon emerges below us. Beyond it are the sheer red cliffs that flank the snaky Colorado River, and the La Sal Mountains on the horizon with a dusting of snow.

In the foreground, strung loose between two thrusting promontories on the rim on this side of the canyon, is our highline, a blue and white ribbon stretched loosely across 60 or 70 feet and holding perfectly still in the windless air. Faith had hung the line last night, and now, reaching the rim, she springs into action, pulling dozens of straps, cables, and carabiners from the packs and directing me as we erect and level the tripods, finishing the setup.

“Has anyone you guided ever had a total meltdown?” I wonder. “Not yet,” she says. “You could be my first!”

“It’s quadruply redundant,” she says, meaning that three systems back up the first, or it would take four separate catastrophes, each annihilating various lines or anchors, for the system to fail. The phrase “quadruply redundant” will become a self-soothing mantra when it’s eventually my turn for a walk.

The key to her teaching setup is not the highline itself, but rather the second set of two cables stretched across the gap between the construction tripods like telephone wires. This system allows the highliner to hold onto a stabilizing tether, which hangs from the pair of upper cables, while walking along the webbing. Without this setup, which Faith calls the “toprope” after a term used in climbing, highlining would likely take months to master. With its aid, Faith says she’s never had a client, even a first-timer, fail to make it across the line.

A climber of 20-plus years, I am not sure what to expect out here. I tell Faith, “I’m used to trusting gear. When I’m climbing, at least. And I’m pretty good with exposure.”

I’ve taken roped falls on small pieces of protection, slept on a portaledge, climbed El Capitan, logged time in the “no-fall zone” on highball boulders, and even done a bunch of easy free soloing, where a slip, though unlikely, would be fatal. Walking horizontally while wearing a harness ought to be mellow, I think.

Faith nods and says, “Yeah, it’s hard to know how people will react to being on the line.”

“Has anyone you guided ever had a total meltdown?” I wonder.

“Not yet,” she says. “You could be my first!”

We spend several hours tying anchors of webbing and cordelette, tensioning cables, checking knots. In the late morning, a rig arrives carrying Faith’s client, who is a life coach; four of his acolytes; and a videographer. All are in Moab for a multi-day, multi-sport confidence-building retreat intended to amplify their boldness in their careers as CEOs and entrepreneurs.

When the life coach and his posse appear on the slickrock in clean outdoor attire and new trucker hats, Faith pivots from engineer mode into guide mode. She matches the newcomers’ energy, adopting a bit of girl-bro swagger as she meets the all-male group. Throughout the day I’d continue to be impressed by her people-skills, complex and subtle, in navigating the shifting dynamics of a group of strangers under recreational stress. As much as athletic prowess and mastery of safety systems, this social performance is central to the job of a guide.

The deeper task, at the very heart of highlining, is to learn to control the agitation of our minds.

She leads the men to the rim of the canyon, and they survey the line, tiptoe to the edge. It’s several hundred feet down to the canyon bottom, which is littered with boulders and threaded through by a corridor of bright green foliage that follows the trickle of a spring. The men absorb the height and exposure with furrowed brows and postures tilting away from the drop.

Even the leader coach looks nervous, and I realize he hasn’t done this before, either. He calls his group to circle up for private reflection and journaling, and when Faith returns to the circle with a clipboard, they sign their waivers.

Assuring everyone that what we’re about to do is going to be both completely terrifying and completely safe, Faith moves into her pep-talk. I’m surprised by how little she addresses the actual mechanics of highline-walking; on flat ground, she demonstrates the ideal posture with legs bent and shoulders upright, and the stride, taking small steps during which the moving foot stays close to the centerline.

But her advice is directed much more toward our minds than our bodies.

“Fear exists for a reason,” she says. “It’s here to protect us, to prevent us from experiencing pain, Faith says. “You have to approach your fear with a spirit of curiosity. Don’t try to beat it into submission, just see what it wants to teach you.”

In the 20-minute-long primer, she defines the technical difficulty of highlining as secondary to the mental component. Sure, she tells us to have soft knees, keep our trunks upright, and resist the temptation to lean forward. But the deeper task, at the very heart of highlining, is to learn to control the agitation of our minds.

“You can begin to notice the fear in your body, notice where it’s located,” she says. “Then you can breathe it out. You can breathe it out of your body and into the line.” There’s a pause and we all look over at the 60-foot gap between the sections of cliff, and the lines extended between them, imagining our own bodies suspended there.

“It’s fucking cool,” Faith declares matter-of-factly.

The cleverness of Faith’s rig becomes apparent as soon as people start out on the line. Without a toprope, a highliner has to maintain balance with slight adjustments of the upper body, hands held out to either side as counterweights. But the toprope lets clients hold onto a dangling rope with both hands, so that if they start to fall to one side or the other, they can correct and pull themselves upright.

The toprope is a useful training tool for learning to highline unassisted, but it also works like a summer-camp ropes course, in that it minimizes the required physical difficulty and skill, leaving primarily a psychological challenge to grapple with.

The clients are definitely grappling. One guy, halfway across the canyon, teeters to the side and then overcorrects, toppling over with a panicked yelp until his chest harness catches him. He dangles in space, panting and shaken, and then tries to climb hand-over-hand back up the tether onto the line.

Instead, Faith throws him a rope, and he clings to the end of it as she pulls him across the cables and back to solid ground. Another guy, a military vet, demonstrates his genuinely unflappable psyche by letting go of the hand-line and falling on purpose. The toprope catches him, and a moment later, with his hands and knees latched over the highline he shimmies back to the cliffside himself.

The Moab landscape is fabulously varied, each of its architectures is explored by different means: the river by watercraft, the cliffs by climbing, the slickrock by biking, the narrows by canyoneering. But I think the most striking part of this landscape is the contrast between the blue sky and the red rock, which are perfectly juxtaposed in the airspace of a canyon—and highlining inhabits that space.

The clients each get a turn on the line, break for lunch, and then do another lap. The videographer pulls the drone out and buzzes it around the canyon to capture long shots and close-ups of his subject.

As soon as I wrap a leg around the fabric and push off from the ledge, my heart rate skyrockets. The sensation is nothing like my first stroll.

As their allotted time draws to a close, the men persuade Faith to walk the line, too, which she does effortlessly, without the aid of the toprope. Her head and torso are perfectly motionless, all the wobble of the line disappearing into her feet. Whereas the other walkers hoved grossly right and left in a battle to stay standing, Faith seems to maintain her balance with nothing more than micro-adjustments of her fingertips, fanned out like wing feathers.

She has free-soloed this gap in the past—walked it without a harness or tether—and shows the requisite mastery for such a feat. She graciously accepts the group’s (and my) awestruck applause, and after another round of journaling and reflection, the clients amble back across the slickrock to return to town.

Now, it’s my turn. I pull on my harness, step out of my shoes, grip the hand-lines, and touch a toe to the nylon webbing. It’s exciting, but not especially frightening, to see the canyon open up underfoot as I step from the ledge, and I feel the reassuring spring of the line pressing up into the soles of my feet as I start to walk.

Calmly I look at the bottom of the canyon, the greenery, the play of light and shadow. I enjoy my own serenity, take a little pride in it. I’ve spent a decent amount of time slacklining in parks and campgrounds over the years, so the basic mechanics are familiar, and the hand-lines work just like training wheels on a bicycle, making it almost impossible to fall over. I walk across the line, turn around, walk back.

Faith asks, “Now do you want to try it for real?” This is what I’d been hoping-slash-fearing she’d ask.

“Heck, yeah.”

“OK, so we’re going to pretend the toprope isn’t here,” she says as she takes the dangling red rope from my hand. “You’re going to tie in exactly the same way I do. And you’re going to take your first whipper”—the climbing term for an uncontrolled fall.

She demonstrates how I should start by scooting across the highline: hook it under my thigh, place one hand on the line in front of me and one behind, and pull forward on my butt. I’ll use this method to get eight or ten feet out before I try to stand up, so that if—when—I fall, I won’t knock my head on the cliff. I nod and claim that this all makes sense.

But as soon as I wrap a leg around the fabric and push off from the ledge, my heart rate skyrockets. The sensation is nothing like my first stroll. The webbing skitters madly, and the more I fight its oscillations, the wilder they get. I raise one foot up to the line and attempt to pop to a standing position, but I categorically…can’t. It’s like my brain intercepts and deletes the command before it reaches my body.

In the truck this morning, Faith had related her experience of such a shutdown the first time she tried to highline. She’d already been a confident (low-height) slackliner when, over a decade ago, she attended a festival with a highline strung through the window of a building. Faith slid over the sill, tied in, butt-scooted a few feet over, and tried to stand. The motion was a well-worn motor pathway, but with the street far below and the sheer walls flanking her and the void swarming all sides of the line, her body simply refused.

She was “gripped,” in the parlance of climbers, but in a way deeper than that: a paralysis, one’s whole self a clenched fist. On that first highline, Faith found that her body’s refusal to behave was precisely what made highlining so compelling to her. I know I can do this , she thought, but my body won’t let me. Ever since, she’s been a student of fear, taking deliberate risks in order to understand body, mind, and the way knowledge passes between them.

Space is everywhere, canyons and sky. Never in all my climbing have I been this terrified. I’m tied in, I’m safe, but my body simply doesn’t care.

Today my mutinous legs won’t pistol-squat, so Faith slides the knotted red top-rope across the cable to me, and I use the tethers to stand. “So now you’re going to take your first real whipper.”

“OK,” I lie.

“Put the red rope in your left hand.”

I clutch it hard. The line underfoot is a living thing. Space is everywhere, canyons and sky. Never in all my climbing have I been this terrified. I’m tied in, I’m safe, but my body simply doesn’t care.

“You’re doing great,” Faith says encouragingly, her tone gentle, even-keeled.

“Now you’re going to let go with that left hand, and you’re going to try to walk.”

“I can’t,” I insist, near petulantly. “I’m gonna fall.”

“That’s the point.” I think Faith stifles a laugh. Her voice softens. “You can do this,” she says.

The line buckles and I pitch sideways and freefall, swallowed up by the maw of the canyon.

I count down to myself: Three, two, one , and tell my hand to open. It just…doesn’t.

“You’ve got this,” she says. Three, two, one , I count, my hand still inoperable. I stand in midair for 10 minutes, then 15, speaking to my body now, speaking to my fear. I stand still long enough that the angle of the sun seems to change.

“You got this,” Faith says. “Just let go.”

Three, two, one .

“Just let go.”

I take one step and half of another. The line buckles and I pitch sideways and freefall, swallowed up by the maw of the canyon. When, with a spring and a jolt, my harness catches me, I have never been gladder to be alive. Faith is clapping. I’m verging on tears whose origin isn’t any specifiable emotion, just an absolute saturation of experience. This unnameable bubble bursts out of me as laughter, my limp body swinging below the line, as a new convert is born.

Not long after the outing with Faith, I try climbing the classic highball boulder “Airwolf” in Indian Creek. The boulder is 20 feet tall, and the moves feel like you’re clinging to the sides of a tilted-over refrigerator. Three times I get to the last move of the crux, only to bail and drop to the pads. My skin feels electric and my ears ring, my whole body too adrenalized to execute the last few moves. Usually on climbs like this I can take my fear, compress it into a ball, and bury it. But not this day.

So I try Faith’s tactic: I observe my fear with calm curiosity, rather than forcing it away. I understand my fear is insisting that if I fall onto the pads, I’ll get hurt. But I have just fallen to the pads and remained intact. As I sit on a flat slab of sandstone I visualize falling again, and being fine. Falling and laughing. Then I visualize, instead, sticking the move and sending the boulder, and I do.

Over time I make more attempts at highlining, too, visualizing my pistol squat, my steady first step. Then I get on the line, and once again I’m too gripped to move. My fear, it seems, still has more to teach me.

Brian Laidlaw is an author/songwriter and recipient of a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Denver. He has a book of climbing and mountaineering essays forthcoming next year from Milkweed Editions. Brian lives in Moab, Utah, where he rock climbs competently, mountain bikes cautiously, and highlines poorly but with great enthusiasm.

• Aerial Sports