Overcoming
Fear and
Living a life
without Limits
Kristy Curtis
One of my greatest fears in life was to live a life of mediocrity,
of never pushing myself mentally or physically because I
was afraid of failing, or of other peoples reactions or simply
because I was scared. When I was in my 20’s and 30’s I
thrived on ticking off my ‘bucket list’. This ranged from living
in 4 different continents, bungee jumping, caving in Christ
Church, abseiling, sky diving, being a contestant on a reality
tv show and even representing Australia for sport. As I got
older and started a family the less of these ‘bucket list’ items
became a priority. My mindset became more about ‘what if
this happened?’ or ‘what if I hurt myself?’ I started feeding
into this mentality of being afraid which was the very thing
that was keeping my fear’s alive. I developed a chronic case
of claustrophobia after a scuba diving accident that meant
getting on planes was uncomfortable, taking a lift made me
uneasy and getting stuck in the Sydney Harbour tunnel was
the stuff of nightmares.
As a result, I started living a life that was ‘safe’, avoiding feelings of
vulnerability and anxiety because it made me feel uncomfortable,
opting for the path well worn and travelled, opting for what felt safe
100% of the time. Slowly, I found myself surrendering to every fear
and phobia that had developed over time choosing to give these
energy rather than face the monumental task of tackling them head
on. As we know, the nature of these kind of things is, what we feed
grows, and my fear and phobias had taken on a life of their own.
Massive Action:
In order to harness these fears and phobias and to experience that
feeling of being alive and purposeful I knew I had to set myself a
pretty lofty goal. Something that made me nervous, something
that made me fearful. I had the opportunity to enter into a 12 week
boxing training program at my local gym whereby at the end of
the training you would have a 3 x 2 minute boxing match with an
opponent. I had listened to enough podcasts and read enough self
help books to understand that the only way thru your fear is with
massive action….so this boxing match was it. I couldn’t think of a
bigger statement than getting up in front of 500 of my clients and
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peers and potentially being hurt or worse still knocked out.
Much to my surprise I really enjoyed the training, there was
something about learning a new skill that kept me interested
and focused. I found myself losing body fat and getting fitter and
stronger, so far it seemed to be a win-win situation. As the fight
started to get closer my nerves started to increase. Just thinking
about the fight brought on a dump of adrenaline that flooded my
body from head to toe. The primary purpose of adrenaline is to
prime the body to ‘get ready’ for action. The fight or flight response
which gives you energy to get the job done became a familiar
adversary from 4 weeks out from the fight. Around this time as
well I started not sleeping, I would go to bed thinking about how
each round was going to play out, what my plan of attack would
be, how it would feel. As soon as I woke up in the morning I was
thinking about the fight again….was this normal? I felt like I was
starting to lose my mind, I mean I knew it was all part of the process
to feel nervous but my fear was starting to rule my life. Here I was
trying to be a mum to 2 kids and run a personal training business
but all I could think about was this boxing match. I found it hard to
concentrate on even the smallest tasks and things that required too
much brain capacity were put on hold till after the fight.
Fast forward to a week before the fight and I was a frazzled mess,
my anxiety was thru the roof and I was constantly on the edge
of tears. When the organisers declared I would be the first fight
of the night this sent me into a complete tail spin. All of my fears
and catastrophic thinking of what could go wrong reared it’s ugly
head…’your arms wont work’, ‘you will have a panic attack’, ‘your
legs wont work’ ‘you will forget everything you have been taught’.
My irrational thinking had taken on a mind of it’s own and it felt like
there was nothing I could do to control it or stop it.
Little did I know that ‘catastrophic thinking’ is just another form of
anxiety whereby we focus on the worst possible outcomes which
provide a distorted and negative picture of how the world works (No