Overcoming Fear: Mount Teide Cable Car
- Curtis
- August 20, 2023
- Blog
- Mount Teide, Tenerife
- 0 Comments
Recently, I did a talk on what fear is, its prevalence, how to overcome it, the benefits of overcoming it, and gave example of personal experiences. Therefore, I wanted to take this presentation and turn it into a blog post so that I can share this with a wider audience as I am quite proud of it and want to showcase it as it did take me a lot of time and effort too. As always, the comments are open so you can have your say, let’s get into it.
What is fear?
In the dictionary, fear is defined as “a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger or harm, whether the threat is real or imagined”. However, there’s more to it than a dictionary definition. Some would say that fear is a natural, complex and powerful emotion that is an integral part of life,
Prevalnence of fear in todays world
In the modern world, fear is extremely prevalent. When researching this I found the following:
- 18% of people admit to being afraid of spiders.
- 10% admit to being claustrophobic (fear of small spaces).
These figures would seem quite staggeringly low due to how many people you would expect to have these fears. However, more observant people may have noticed that the verb “admit” is in there. Therefore, this clearly exemplifies that there is a vast majority of people that either don’t talk about their fears or are too scared to. People have different reasons for things like this but the most common reason people will not admit to their fears is because they are worried about reprisals. Reprisals are an act of retaliation and can take place in many different forms, the most common ones including:
- Teasing
- Bullying
- Public Shaming
As a result, the things listed above could reduce a person’s self-esteem and can leave you feeling vulnerable. Consequently, leaving a detrimental effect on you if someone finds out your weaknesses. In the long term, if you don’t embrace your weaknesses and work on them it could lead to lost opportunities & life experiences.
On the flip side, whilst conducting this research I found out that 1 in 8 people will experience agoraphobia in their lifetime. Agoraphobia is when you are afraid to leave certain environments you feel safe in eg. home). If we scared this to the current world population of 8 billion that means around 1 billion people are currently alive that have experienced or maybe still are experiencing it. That is a lot, it seems like an amazing high statistic!
My Experience in Overcoming Fear: Mount Teide Cable Car
Going back in time to 2019, I was on holiday in Tenerife and as part of it we had booked a Cable Car up Mount Teide. As you can imagine, like most people would be I was dreading it. The day we were originally meant to be doing it, it was called off because it was too windy, so I had to carry the fear for a few more days. When the day finally came, we had to drive up to the summit which is 2,356 metres above sea level. Before getting up to the summit, we had to drive up the mountains full of steep, narrow roads and no guard rail in most of the road. When we got to the base, I watched the cable cars swaying on the cable, as I witnessed this, the nerves built up increasingly inside of my body. I could feel my heart racing and my hands were sweating as we were in the queue waiting for it to arrive. I reluctantly got on, and was pushed to the side by a window as there were so many people getting on. Then it started to ascend,,, Scary wasn’t the word! It was physically impossible to put into words how I felt at that given moment. Once I eventually got to the top, I got off feeling extremely relieved until I realised I had to go back down at some point.
When we reached the bottom cable car station, I was feeling immensely relieved and ecstatic it was over, but more importantly that I had challenged myself and went on the experience. Although, I had experienced a lot of negative emotions during the experience my feelings of achievement and increase in self-confidence outweighed them. Therefore, completing the challenge of stepping out of my comfort zone left me feeling exceedingly proud and I would happily do it again!
Methods of Overcoming Fear
I understand that overcoming your fears can be extremely difficult. It is also dependent on what they are and opportunities presented to help you overcome them. Below are some examples that people use to overcome fears:
- Desensitising: taking small steps by going to a zoo and having a one-to-one with animals you may fear eg. snakes or spiders.
- Flying: some airlines provide short flights with support on board to help people overcome their fear of flying.
- Hypnosis: either self-hypnosis from CDs or from an approved hypnotherapist, it all depends on the person as to what works best for them.
- Take the plunge: if your fear is mild, you could take a deep breath and take the plunge to face it.
- Visualise success: visualisation is a powerful tool and if you picture yourself feeling confident, calm and in control this can boost your self-confidence and reduce anxiety.
- Learn from failure: if something doesn’t succeed, any mistakes will help you for next time.
- Embrace discomfort: overcoming your phobias isn’t easy and trying new things can help you come out of your comfort zone slowly but surely.
- If none of these work well for you, you could also try seeking support from friends and family or professional therapists for support and guidance.
Benefits of Overcoming Fear
Scientifically, benefits of overcoming your fear and doing things you wouldn’t normally do include: releasing endorphins which give you a “natural high” which increases your confidence and makes you feel better about yourself. As you overcome your fear, your confidence gradually increases and that makes you feel unstoppable in all aspects of life and will stop you feeling trapped and worthless and looking back in regret when you’re older.
Conclusion/Summary
Throughout this article, we have delved into what fears are, their prevalence and how we can reduce them.
Although, some of my research implied that it’s not a big issue because of the way society can view people with phobias many might not admit to them. Evidently, this highlights that fears are frequent in the modern world but people tend to ignore them. We have seen that fears can be minimised, or points along the gradient to the point of being completely eradicated by the methods I have indicated throughout the presentation. Not all fears can be completely overcome, it can lead us to have a healthy respect for weakness eg. Fears of heights would lead us to not standing on the edge of a dangerous cliff. In conclusion, I believe that you can overcome anything if you have dedication to put your mind to it as humans can be quite powerful, I also believe that if we only live once then we need to seize the opportunities presented to us to ensure that we don’t look back in regret in the future.
