Even though the best view may be outside of your comfort zone, there’s no shame in remaining in your comfort zone – some of the time.
While, as I mentioned in Part I, I have been able to overcome my fear of heights at least long enough to catch some amazing views, I have never been able to get comfortable with the idea of caves. There’s something about being underground that gives me the willies. Maybe it has something to do with some of my earliest memories being sneaking downstairs past bedtime to watch the Baby Jessica drama unfold on the evening news (not quite a cave, but close enough to my impressionable young mind), or maybe it is the fact that, on a family vacation to Mammoth Caves, the image of Floyd Collins trapped in the cave became permanently burned in my brain. Maybe it is something else entirely. All I know is that caves make me distinctly uncomfortable.
While traveling along South Africa’s Garden Route, my boyfriend and I stopped at Cango Caves, one of the most well-known tourist attractions in the area. As we pulled into the parking lot, I felt the familiar shiver of fear about descending into a cave. Once inside the ticket office, we were presented with the choice of the “Standard Tour” or the “Adventure Tour” — the latter of which would proceed deeper into the cave and involved crawling, squeezing, and otherwise shimmying through narrow passages. In the spirit of not missing out on experiences because of fear, I found myself agreeing to the Adventure Tour despite everything in my body rebelling at the thought.
As we queued up with the other members of our group, I struggled to keep my panic at bay, repeating my mantra of “You can do this” to myself. The guide led us into the first portion of the cave and then turned around with a wide smile, and said, “Just to confirm, no one has claustrophobia, is afraid of heights, or has asthma.” I ticked silently ticked them off on my fingers: a smidge of claustrophobia, a definite fear of heights, and a childhood history of asthma. With every single contraindication present, I dropped out of the group and waited in the lobby for my boyfriend to complete the tour.
I spent the rest of the day (and, to be honest, a good portion of the next day) beating myself up for not being brave enough to take the Adventure Tour. Finally, I stopped the negative self-talk and allowed myself to consider that opting out of the tour was the right choice for me at that moment. Just because I listened to my intuition and knew that taking the Adventure Tour was not in my best interest on that day doesn’t mean that I will never be able to enter a cave. I’ll approach that situation, should it arise, as a new experience.
What do you do when fear gets the best of you? Let me know in the comments!
Image credit: Marko Kudjerski