This post is a part of the Summit Blog Tour, which leads up to the Soul*Full Summit hosted by Catherine Just. I’m thrilled to be a part of an event that empowers entrepreneurs, artists and creatives to take action toward their dreams while helping create more opportunities for people with Down syndrome. You can join the movement by signing up for the Summit HERE.

For so much of my life, at least the first half, while on the outside it looked a lot like Zen and serenity, on the inside it felt like terror and paralysis. Fear was the guiding principle of my existence.

I was well behaved because I was afraid of getting in trouble. I got good grades because I was afraid of disappointing. I didn’t speak because I was afraid of being judged, even ridiculed. I kept mostly to myself, afraid of being rejected.

The prevailing maxim that children should be seen and not heard was no problem for me. In fact, I often imagined myself invisible.

My brilliant father, who saw his daughter shrinking into herself like a bloom in reverse, took me to dance class, where I discovered my first love. Of course, the idea of getting on a stage in the presence of all those eyeballs was inconceivable. Only when it became impossible for me not to do so, did I muster the courage. For the entirety of my dance career, I threw up before every performance, sometimes more than once. (As a sidebar, it was actually a disturbingly effective way to maintain a dancer’s figure. Fear – who knew?)

During that period of my life, the time that I was performing, I got my first glimpse at what lies beyond the fear. I knew there was something that allowed me to be afraid and also do what I needed to do, but I had no intellectual understanding of what was really going on. It was the first crack of light through a slowly opening door.

The shift was very specific and had no immediate effect on all my other fears, which included… nearly everything: fire, water, downward slopes, falling, raised voices, the dark, and of course, people. It’s quite remarkable that I didn’t spend my entire childhood in the psychiatrist’s office, but I suppose that wasn’t the way it was done back then.

It was the heartbreak from a boy that flipped the switch for me. I saw clearly the degree to which my fear was holding me back and I embarked on the ongoing project (which continues to this day) to reclaim my life from fear.

I decided to go hard core. I was going to do the equivalent of taking someone terrified of being seen, and throw them up on a stage. I was going to take the most extreme versions of my fears and obliterate, eviscerate and decimate them. It was no more nice guy from me. This was WAR.

To address my fear of fire, instilled when my childhood house burned down, I took a 12-foot walk across a bed of hot coals. To address my fear of falling, I threw myself out of 2 airplanes, a hot air balloon, off a bridge, a 50 ft fire pole and finally, off a cliff, which also engaged my fear of water for a little terror medley, one might say.

There was white water rafting, scuba diving, rock climbing, martial arts and… the most horrifying… networking events. The most miraculous thing about that period of my life was that I actually survived.

My fear of people, the final frontier, was given the final heave ho when I began losing family members. I realized that all these people who were causing me so much anxiety were all made up of the same stuff I was. And they were all going to be dead eventually too. Problem solved.

With my fear significantly decreased, I was then able to begin studying people. I found it so fascinating how some flung themselves into dangerous situations with such ease and others couldn’t leave their houses. Why? Was it biological, psychological, mystical or something else?

The science of fear, as it turns out, is fascinating. It is a primary biological response, found in the most primitive of organisms. It lives in our amygdala, a set of neurons in the temporal lobe known as the lizard brain, and is expressed through our sympathetic nervous system. It is best known as the source of our fight-or-flight response.

I assumed that the danger-lovers could not possibly have overridden their instinctual physiological response, so how do they do what they do? Putting yourself in constant physical peril was one way, but I knew there had to be another.

Enter in my study of the psychology of fear, and how it relates to our spiritual essence. I began to read about the siddhis, the powers the ancient yogis acquired – changing their heart rates and body temperatures, resisting injury and disease, even stopping their breathing altogether.

I had been a devout student of yoga for some time by that point, but I took it to the next level. I went commando, practicing and meditating for hours a day, sometimes achieving higher states, more often achieving a head- and back-ache. I learned advanced and esoteric breathing techniques, doused myself with oils and chanted. I was less afraid, but had begun to frighten all those around me. Not quite what I was going for.

It’s not clear whether it was the extreme practices or the contemplative ones that got me to where I am now. The fear is not gone – I’m not sure it works that way – but I can move through life without significant impact on my activities.

Fear is now a frenemy. She alerts me to things I should be paying attention to, keeps me physically safe (usually), and eventually quiets down when I ignore her rants. We can co-habitate without too much conflict, and, occasionally, when I’m feeling especially open-hearted, I send her big gratitude. She definitely held the knife that carved out the woman I am today.

Maybe that’s what she was waiting for all along. Just a little love and appreciation…

What is your fear waiting for?