FEAR

This summer I was privileged to do a favor for my youngest nephew. I taught him to put his head underwater and keep it there.

Okay, maybe there's a little bit more to it then that, but it actually started for him sometime earlier. It seems that when he was a bit younger, he had been playing in a pool with his older cousins. Combining several boys and water can quickly turn into rough housing and usually the youngest tends to get the brunt of it all. Now I wasn't there but let's just say that by the time his 3 cousins had finished with him he was scared to get in a pool let alone put his head under water.

here's the interesting part of this matter, the pool I took him to (my goal being to teach him how to swim) was approximately 4 feet deep throughout with no diving board. My nephew is over 5 foot tall and so, as long as he stood up, there was no way he could ever come close to drowning.

Now when we started I showed him this, I explained it to him, I even had him slowly climb in and walk the length of it. He agreed with the facts, however, soon as I attempted to get him to put his head under water he panicked and didn't want to have anything to do with the ordeal. In a nutshell, he was scared and he told me so.

I had promised his mother that I would commit to helping him but in order to make any progress we would have to meet for, at least 30 minutes, three times a week for the entire summer. To be honest, if I knew what kind of ordeal that would put us both through I would have gotten out of the pool and ran!

We met our final week wheich was the week before school started and I would love to tell you that he could swim like a fish but I was unable to teach him to swim at all. However, I can't tell you how proud I was that during his last lesson he jumped in the pool, held his breath, and stayed under the water for almost a minute! It was a small victory for me but a VERY LARGE victory for him. You see, I wanted him to learn to swim but it was quite satisfying tht he wasn't scared of the water anymore.

It's been said that the best way to overcome fear is to face what you're afraid of, and for some people that is true. It's been said that FEAR can be look at like an acronym - you know, False Evidence Appearing Real! And it can. But sometimes fear doesn't go away when it's faced and sometimes fear doesn't seem false, but I do know that every person living on this planet has one time or another faced fear or will face fear. Myself included.

Sometimes it the simple fear of being afraid of a spider, or that complex fear when a loved one is stricken with something that may take their life. I don't claim to know the best way to handle fear, I've just learned to handle mine, and one course of action seems to hold more merit then most, and that is, there is no guarantee that facing a fear will make it go away, but it is pretty certain if it isn't faced it will NEVER go away!

And when all else fails, how does that old saying go? Oh, yeah, "Whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger."

On an interesting note, right after school started I received a call from my nephew. He was in great spirit and he asked me one simple question. "Uncle Ricky, now that you've taught me to not be afraid of the pool, could you teach me not to be afraid of spiders?"

I just smiled.

TnjS