Find strength within your fear
Surfing can be quite scary. There can be strong currents, big waves, rocks under the surface, lots of people on the waves… just to name a few of the challenges. Of course, a big wave for me might not be a big wave for Joado de Macedo, but it’s all about how we as a person experience it. Just like our perception of experiences differ, stress, anxiety and fear are experienced differently and on a different level by each and every individual.
Feeling fear is not necessarily a bad thing. It is a primal instinct that helps us stay alive. If we survive something really bad, we will remember it and learn from it. But fear also makes us feel uncomfortable and it makes us want to go back to our comfort zone. And fear becomes a problem when it paralyzes us. Instead of doing what we want or need to do, we are stuck and can’t move forward. The first step to overcome your fear is to acknowledge it. Then you need to prepare your mind to face your fear and commit to it. For some people this is of course easier than for others.
Ever since I was involved in a serious accident when I was 23, I thought (or I convinced myself?) that I wasn’t afraid to die. I was only afraid to get seriously injured and having to go through the physical pain and emotional stress to heal. Soon after that accident, on which I will tell you more in a bit, I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be here, that it maybe was a mistake that I had survived. All I wanted was the pain to be over, I wanted to not live anymore and not have to think about how my life would look like after. I read about other people who had almost died and had drastically changed their lives for the better because of that experience. They wanted to live their lives to the fullest because they knew it could be over in a heartbeat.
Then 5 years ago I again had the realization of how vulnerable life is when we were at the airport at the time of the Brussels bombings. We had left the check-in hall and just 20 minutes later the bombs went off. I was so scared and I thought we were all going to die that day. I did feel fear and I was afraid of of my boys´ lives ending that day. I went through a lot of stress after that morning, also because of the loss of my babygirl at 22 weeks gestation 5 weeks prior. Those weeks I was afraid to die I guess.
So what happened back in 2001, on the 1st of October. I lived and studied in Amsterdam then and I had worked until 4 PM and went for a drink afterwards. I got very drunk and was on my way back home on my bicycle when for some reason I turned back around and crossed the street. I got stuck in the rails of the tram track and fell. At that moment tram 10 came and couldn´t stop anymore. I got hit in my face and my right foot got stuck under the wheel. I had stopped breathing when the ambulance came and brought me to the hospital. I got a brain scan and went into surgery immediately. My brain was ok, but my face was not. I woke up the next day in total panic and lots of pain. For the next three weeks I was in constant pain and continuously on pain killers. One week in the hospital and two weeks at my parents´ house. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t eat. All I did was sit up and lie down. I became insecure about my appearance, yet was determined to come back. Because in the end there is no going back, no stopping. We can only go forward.
Fast forward to now and everything is fine. There are no lasting effects from that accident. I can do everything: from running, to swimming, to surfing. And when I go surfing and am pummeled by a big wave, I am not sure what I am afraid of. I think I am not afraid of drowning, as for me there is a kind of calmness underneath the waves. Another world, where I forget where or who I am. But I guess I do have- like any other human being- this innate urge to want to live. To want to survive and move on. Be better, do better, live better. Maybe that’s why I love surfing so much. Within my fear I find life.
