Overcoming Fear!

Besides jumping out of an airplane, there's only one kind of diving I swore I would never do, SCUBA. It pretty much combines all of my biggest fears. 1. Not being able to breath correctly, and duh, breathing under water is NOT natural, and also pretty claustrophobic at first, which is also my number 2. claustrophobia. 3.Something happening to me and not being able to raise my kids, I was pretty sure that scuba diving was extremely dangerous, and 4. Sharks. I know this sounds immature, but JAWS still scares the crap out of me. Anyway, so I swore I would never learn to Scuba dive. Then of course I'm married to Craig who has always wanted to certify. The thing is, for the first 4 years of our marriage, I had this kind of stubborn, obstinate, attitude towards it, and basically told Craig that he might as well not bother, I was never going to change my mind. He was free to do it himself, I was out. But here's the thing, he wouldn't do it without me. "Why would I want to go do something without you, that I know we will never be able to do together? It's not fun for me if you are not there." He would say to me. Dang it, he is perfect. So that got me thinking. If he was willing to give up something that he wanted so badly just to be with me, shouldn't I be willing to at least give it a shot? I wanted him to know that I loved him more than I loved my fear. Now I know this sounds weird, but I really do believe that we love our fears. They provide a safe place for us. They are familiar, and they give us permission not to push ourselves. We tell ourselves of course I can't climb that ladder, I have a fear of heights, of course I can't sing in front of all these people, I get stage fright, and for me, of course I can't go diving, I have a fear of being eaten alive. But the truth is, that most of those things aren't really as scary as we think they will be. I know, because on Friday morning we went and did our first open water dive. I have to tell you, I was terrified. I could hardly keep myself from shaking for the first five minutes. I was so grateful that I had Craig right next to me to keep me calm and be my anchor (no pun intended) and then the most amazing thing happened. I started to calm down, and relax and then I realized that I loved it. It was the most incredible sensation, probably the closest I'll ever come to being an astronaut, or flying. On the second dive I did even better, and that was when Craig had a little trouble, he couldn't get his ears to clear, and he started having a little pain, I could tell he was starting to get anxious, but we just stuck together and got through it, and as we descended I was so grateful that he didn't have to be there going through this kind of scary, kind of challenging thing alone. Isn't that what marriage is all about? When we ended our dives, I felt so empowered, overcoming a fear does wonders for your self-esteem, let me tell you. I feel like a big tough girl! And I realized that diving is like most other things, if you take the proper steps and do it carefully, it's not really that scary. The only thing to fear, is fear itself. I'm so glad I made myself try this. If I hadn't I would never have known how much I love it. Living a safe small life never got anyone anywhere. Go for the gusto!