Taking Flight

Several years ago I watched a movie called the Bucket List featuring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. I am sure many of you enjoyed the antics of these two aging fellows who were facing life’s final journey. The Bucket List is of course, all those ‘to do’s’ that have accumulated over a life time and which you actually want to experience before you ‘kick the bucket’.

With this reminder, I embarked on creating my bucket list which included traveling to the two places on earth I have yet to see, New Zealand and Costa Rica. I knocked the Alaskan Cruise off the list four summers ago.

I won’t bore you with all the details of my lengthy list, except to share that one item on my Bucket List is to sky dive. Why you might ask? I have this fascination with flying and being in the silence of the sky once you are you there. Oh yes, and did I mention, I have had a lifelong fear of falling. Yep, you got it! FALLING. And so I have decided that in celebration of my 60^th birthday I am going to make the great leap. The event is scheduled for this Friday, five days away, at 1 P.M. Did I mention that I asked Jim, my husband to take the leap with me and he consented, so there will be two fools dropping out of a plane.

This is of course a tandem jump. As a first timer, and a person too impatient to take the months necessary to learn the inner workings of sky diving, I decided that this was all I needed, but who knows, perhaps it will be addictive and I will feel compelled to do it again and again.

As I have shared my plans with friends and family, most have looked at us with ample amounts of skepticism and an occasional, “you’re crazy!” I have examined my motives further and have concluded that because I am sixty, this entitles me to some eccentricity.  And then there is this issue of my fear of falling. This fear keeps poking up its ugly face, not as often as it used to, but never the less, still a nuisance. It is what I call a limiting belief, stemming from my mother who was always warning me not to try this or that, that I might fall and I might get hurt.

Eighteen months ago I attended a program in California called Beyond Courage. I had signed up for this as I wanted to be tested. I believe there are some areas of my life where I am quite fearless and I wanted to check out the final frontiers of courage. The first day, the first event, was a ropes course. This involved climbing a telephone pole (no problem!) and once at the top of the pole, standing on top of it unsupported (big problem!). Of course you realize that I was on a harness and supported by a very reliable team of comrades. Regardless, I spent a very long time clinging to the top of the pole convincing myself I could make the final ascent because of course, I was afraid of falling. In my lengthy and convoluted conversation with my inner critic, I realized I could not fall because I was on a harness. Recognizing this, my voice then said, well if you try and you fall, you will have failed. Then I realized to fail would be not to try, success would be to do it anyway even if I fell. 

You will notice, if you are listening, that voice of fear inside of you holds you back in ways you have not even been aware of. The voice is quiet yet insidious. By the way, I made the final climb and I did stand up. Once the pole and I stopped shaking, I was able to take a look around me. The view was magnificent! And then I jumped and grabbed onto the trapeze that beckoned me, and I flew through the air. I suspect it was in that moment that the seed for sky diving was planted.

I am not suggesting that you need to take the steps I am taking to face your fears. I simply encourage you to become aware of what fear might look like to you, where it came from and how it serves you at this point in your life. If, like me, you are tired of it, then it may be time to try something outside your comfort zone. 

Finally, if you are reading this, you may want to also visualize me taking the great leap five days from now, eyes wide open, taking in the vista of Gatineau Park and the Ottawa River Valley, and laughing all the way down!

Until next time….

Betty