This may be a shocker but I was at the Freehold mall with my daughter just after Christmas. (Who wasn’t?) She wanted to blow through some of her gift money and I wanted to meander. So rather than go into Pac Sun for the millionth time with her, I told her we would reconnect in a half an hour.
Excitedly making a beeline for Macy’s to see if there were any sales, I suddenly stopped short, realizing my crucial mistake. What could that be, you are wondering? Well folks, fun fact about me, I am afraid of heights. No, not afraid. Petrified. Petrified to the point that escalators in malls scare the bejeezus out of me and I sometimes have to go out of my way to seek out elevators.
I know it sounds ridiculous, but one man’s fear of heights is another’s fear of public speaking, is another’s fear of the dark…you get the picture. We all have something that gives us great anxiety and this is one of mine. When I find myself even four feet above the ground, my knees feel like they are going to buckle out from underneath me, my heart palpitates, my head feels light, and this great big fear cascades down my entire body from head to toe, as if someone is holding a bucket labeled acrophobia over my head, pouring until I am completely immobilized.
So there I was in the mall, faced with the fact that handbags were on the upper level, I was on the lower level, and I just lost my escalator buddy who lets me hold on for dear life, as if we were ascending Mount Kilimanjaro.
I took a deep breath and thought to myself, are you going to let this stop you or are you going to face your fear and get your ass on that thing? Feeling sassy and wanting to be able to tell my girl that her mama conquered her fear all by herself, I boldly stepped on.
My sassy pride lasted only a few seconds because the higher the escalator went, the more I began to freeze up, and the more I thought I was going to pass out. I’m not kidding. In fact, this is exactly what I looked like:
Okay so no elf costume, but everything else was the same. I looked like a complete and total jackass. But you know what? I did it! I did it and I survived. The pot of gold as the end of the rainbow was that got myself a great handbag at 50% off! Check it out.
Now here’s the point of all this blathering. When I got home I proudly told my husband about my escalator adventure and how even though I basically looked like a fool, I got to the second floor. He looked at me, shaking his head and said, “That’s a problem!”
And I looked back at him and confidently replied, “No, NOT taking the escalator would have been a problem.” At that point, my fear would have stopped me from doing what I wanted to do, living my everyday life. But it didn’t.
Did I look foolish? Maybe. But, here’s the thing; We don’t necessarily have to diminish our fear and anxiety to the point it is non-existent, we just have to manage it. Our feelings don’t need to be mastered in order for us to enter a situation that frightens us. Martha Beck has referenced the word fearless, and she commented that when we do something with courage we can still be afraid; We just fear less. That I’m-going-to throw-my-guts-up feeling doesn’t have to be gone completely for us to take action, we just have to take that first step. So if managing my fear means I look like Buddy the Elf, then so be it. I know that the more I do it, the easier it will get, and then maybe somewhere down the line I can ride the escalator like 99.9% of the general population. And I also know that asking for help is always an option.
And in sharing my little mall escapade I pose the question to you…What is your escalator?
Perhaps we can meet in the mall and chat about it. Will you ride the escalator with me?
Chaos to Calm 