The Mastery of Fear

Fear can paralyze you or spur you to action. You can battle it or hold it back in an uneasy truce. I am afraid of many things. Anxiety is the cold knot in the stomach, the sudden jolt awake in the middle of the night, the heart pounding, the breathless heaviness. I am afraid of change. I am afraid of moving to another place. I am afraid of traveling. I am afraid of life in general. I am definitely afraid of swimming in open water.


Some people were born to swim. They take to the water like fish and love it. They naturally move efficiently and quickly. I, on the other hand do not. It took me years to even get a decent form and I am still not fast or even half fast. I am utterly without swim talent. The whole world seems to swim faster than I.

It took me a long time to even be able to swim in open water without a panic attack. I failed to finish the first couple of open water triathlons I tried because I would start swimming and once I got a little distance from the shore, the fear of drowning would overcome me. I would start hyperventilating, thrash around and feel even more out of breath. Maybe it was the primordial fear of suffocation and drowning. In deep water, I don’t like not being able to touch the bottom with my feet. If I get tired, I can’t rest by standing up.

Once I became more physically proficient at swimming, my mind was the thing I had to worry about. Getting through a swim required focusing at the task at hand, not thinking about the scariness of a vast body of water to travel through. The negative thoughts had to be pushed back. They had to be corralled until the swim was done, otherwise they would take over and paralyze me. This is true of fear in general. You grit your teeth and try to get through it, otherwise you are left with the depression of inaction and with a sense of failure for not having the courage to overcome the dread.

If I do something scary often enough, it becomes less frightening. Confidence comes from facing my fears and controlling my reaction. However, I don't always have control over what a swim will throw at me.

A lake or the ocean, as opposed to a pool, is a whole different animal. Pools are clear and clean with set boundaries. It isn’t far from one end to the other if I am tired. The ocean has currents, undertow and crashing waves. Weird things inhabit the natural bodies of water, which might have plant life, boat fuel, fish, ducks and jelly fish. Massive patches of weeds seem to want to ensnare a swimmer if they have the misfortune to pass through their tentacles. Lurking sunken trees, algae blooms, toe biting fish bite are other hazards. Human hazards are boaters and jet skiers that aren’t paying attention to where they are going. The water itself may be hot enough to give you heat exhaustion or so cold that your face stings and your face, hands and feet turn numb. Hypothermia is a possibility. Sometimes I have ended up in a med tent shivering violently after a bout in cold water.

Wind is another hazard. In a lake it churns up the water in random waves, unlike the ocean. The waves slap me around and hit me in the face when I are trying to breath. Choking on water does not add to my sense of ease. Stroking harder and faster is required. In a recent race, I had to swim against a 17 m.p.h. head wind in a high altitude lake. I couldn’t get enough oxygen and had a panic attack. The only way to get enough air was to hold my head above water, which is more tiring than swimming with it down. Fear overtook my mind and it had to be fought off. I actually shouted “help”, but the kayaker was occupied with other swimmers freaking out, who were hanging on to his boat. I stopped, calmed down and continued on. Fear has its place in self-preservation, but it is also dangerous if it prevents you from doing what you need to do to keep yourself safe.

I don’t always hate swimming in a lake or ocean. Gliding through the water at a relaxed pace is kind of peaceful as opposed to having to swim a set distance and having someone is timing you. Being near a shore reassures me and I feel safe. I can be as slow as I want and not worry about being the last one out of the water.

Even if I have a bad swim, I have a feeling of accomplishment when I finish. I controlled the fear, not the other way around. It’s a simple terror, unlike the rest of life. One outcome is death by suffocation, the other is getting to a fixed point eventually, which happens 99.9% of the time. The journey from one point to the other may be fraught with hazards and difficulties, but if I keep going, I will get there. Life is less certain and takes more faith that things will work out. More possibilities present themselves, good or bad, imagined or real, unexpected or not. Outcomes aren’t always known. Spouses may leave you, loved ones will die, the economy may tank and the safe, happy life you had will blow up. Still, fear can’t predominate one’s existence, because this stuff is going to happen anyway. It has to be beaten off and subdued so that occasionally joy and peace can inhabit the mind instead.