Extended World Travel

Posts Tagged ‘Fear’

Thousands, maybe even millions, of people dream about being a world traveler. Often though, it just stays as a dream. Could it be so that it requires something to overcome fears and take us out of our comfort zone and take the leap and really do it?

Have we been totally comfortable every time when we’ve been on our way to leave for a trip? Definitely not! There’s this first stage of excitement and anticipation, when we’re happily planning our next adventure and use all our time to get things into places. Then, the closer the departure, the more excited we get, but also the more “the buts” turn up. What we’ve also noticed, every time, is that just before we leave we start to appreciate our home a lot: “Aren’t things good as they are? Why don’t we just forget about this and stay home this time?”, “should we really leave everything for such a long time and now when we also have kittens” or ”when the apple trees are blooming?” or “shouldn’t we really stay here and renovate the kitchen instead?” (and these may seem like small buts, but I can assure you, they have been accompanied by loads of much bigger ones).

There’s this Swedish couple who write and publish travel guide books called “Willma” (like a Swedish version of Lonely Planet). They travel the world regularly for their business and pleasure and they say that every single time they’re on their way to leave on some new adventure, they ask themselves –why- and try to persuade themselves to stay at home this time. And every single time, as soon as they have turned the key in their front door, there’s no more hesitation. Now they’re on their way, they’re travelers, and they almost forget they even have a home in Sweden.

To me, this is a great picture of taking yourself out of the comfort zone. When you’re on the verge of doing it, you try as hard as you can to talk yourself out of it. How great your old way of doing things or of being really is! When you then resist the urge to stay in the old and take the leap, everything changes. You usually don’t even remember why you stuck to your old way and realize that it wasn’t so difficult to take a new step at all, you just did it!

And have we regretted overcoming fears and taking our leaps and leaving things to go out into the world? Not one single time! Rather the opposite. We ask ourselves, again and again, why was this so difficult? How could we even think it would be better staying at home? And very often, almost every single time, we’re so happy traveling and being somewhere else, we don’t even want to go back.

“People who stay in ‘comfort zone’ do so sometimes more because of fear than comfort.”
- Thomas Leonard

So, we may call this whatever we want, fear of the unknown, fear of change or “you know what you have but not what you’ll get”, but it can be good to remember, when you find yourself wondering if you are losing your sanity taking your whole family around the world or whatever leap you’re planning, that there’s a part of you that will do whatever it can to keep you “safe” and in the familiar and well known. And you can be sure that that part, that little voice, will let you know it’s there. And then, it can be good to bear this in mind and to follow the advice I got myself the other day regarding doing something outside of my own comfort zone: “you may do it trembling – but do it!”

I want to finish here with some wise words from Wade, an experienced world traveler who we interviewed a while ago – you can read the whole interview here. When we asked him if he had any advice to people who dream about going out into the world but experience resistace and hesitation, he said:

“Everything always works out. The great thing about leaving is that you can usually return to the same place where you are standing right now. Have faith that you will figure everything out when you need to, and rest your mind about planning. Nothing ever works out according to plan anyway, so why waste the mental energy bothering with it. The adverse consequences of traveling that you may foresee are merely illusions. You are not nearly wise enough to foresee the future, so stop trying — go forth and see what happens.

It is my impression that the human capacity for planning for the future is a very rudimentary development that usually only serves to provoke fear and to hamstring any desire that we may have for change. If anyone thinks about their future they get scared — “what if this happens, what if that happens.” You know what? “what ifs” rarely ever really happen. Humans tend to be intelligent enough to make the most of their situations when they are in the moment, and often have the ability to sidestep any “what if’s” when they need to be sidestepped. You will be alright.

Fear is an emotion that is reserved for the potential occurrence of future adversity. When in a moment of adversity, fear is rarely ever felt. I know that I have often felt fear about future possibilities — about being robbed, about getting lost, being cold etc . . — but every time I have been in such a circumstance, fear is the last thing that I felt, as I was much too busy focusing on how to get out of the bad situation to be scared. Fear is a survival instinct only in the fact that it keeps you sitting where you are, it keeps you way out of danger. When in a bad circumstance you automatically figure it out, and usually leave the moment saying, “Wow, that was not that bad after all.”

When given free range, fear will keep you sitting right where you are forever and ever and ever. It is amazing that many people would rather be comfortable, hemmed in by fears of future occurrences, than to really find out what the future may hold. There are no “what if’s” in a moment of adversity, so why leave yourself hampered with “what if’s” when the horizon is clear and the sun is shining?”

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As I’m just on my way to the airport to fly to London, I started thinking about another time when we went there, the whole family. This special occasion, we were actually flying too, something then totally new to us. We had been traveling a lot as a family even before this, but always by car, train or boat and, except for Morocco, always around Europe.

The reason for this was me. I was totally terrified at the thought of getting myself into a plane. It hadn’t always been like this though. The first time I flew, with my parents, I was about the age of one. I then continued to fly regularly around the world and actually enjoyed it, or even loved that exciting feeling of being high up in the sky on my way somewhere. My first job dream was even to become a pilot!

Anyway, some 30 years after my first flight I became a mother, and everything changed. Just the thought of flying and placing my life in the hands of someone I didn’t know, or not even could see, was totally unimaginable. It wasn’t even an option when we planned our different trips. So, we did lots of slow traveling and got to learn the geography of Europe really well. Until one day, when the rest of the family started talking about traveling farther away, like Australia and New Zealand, Canada and the US. And they didn’t want to go by boat!

I realized, the time had come for me to do something about this fear of mine. So I signed up for a weekend “fear of flying” program and went there with a rapidly beating heart. There we got to learn loads about, both the psychology around our fears, as well as how a plane is built and how it works. We even got the chance to fly ourselves (a simulator) which was great fun, like a huge computer game. That weekend really changed everything. I could actually imagine myself on a plane again!

So, shortly after this we went on this flight to London, all of us, and that was the beginning of our new traveling life. We then did this trip to Australia, as well as the one to New Zealand. We visited friends in Canada and the US and it all went very well. I have to admit, I almost enjoyed it at times! Since then there have been many more trips than these ones, both by plane and other ways of travel.

Being able to fly again has given me, and the rest of the family, so many opportunities to see fantastic places and meet wonderful people that I’m really glad I took some action and confronted my fear.

As an extra bonus it has helped me to be less frightened in other situations as well. I am generally more daring now. It has helped me realize that many of the things I have been afraid of haven’t been dangerous at all, they were just notions that had existed in my mind.

Of course, for doing some extended world travel, you don’t necessarily have to fly. There are many other forms of transportation to choose from and your journey will be something different if flying isn’t on your program. But if you do want to fly and are avoiding it because of fear, you can turn that around! And of course, whatever fears you might have that keeps you from going out in the world, there are always ways to change them around!

“Nothing is so much to be feared as fear”
Loesje

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Just read this quote by the old Greek, Seneca:
“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.”
Interesting! Talking about traveling, as this is our main focus here, there are many things which we can perceive as obstacles because we feel afraid.

If we would really go away on that long journey, for several months, maybe together with the whole family, what challenges would we not have to face? What would our friends say? Our boss? Or the children’s school teacher? And what about all the risks: crime, illnesses, even terrorism, how could we cope with that? Not to mention the issue of money. What if we wouldn’t have enough to support us all the way or if we got back home totally broke and would have to… Well, don’t even dare to think about it? Or what if…

You can probably continue making this list longer with some of your own, personal scary thoughts.There are always things that can bring up fear in us. So what to do about it? One “technique” we learned, which helps you address the fear itself rather than every different aspect of it, is to actually celebrate the fear. Sounds a bit crazy we admit, but it’s actually very effective.

So, whenever you find yourself focusing on the problem parts of a situation, and are stepping into the feeling of fear around it, just do this: raise your fists in the air and say “Yes!” (or shout if that’s appropriate). This is so easy and it will totally confuse your scary mind, “What? Am I celebrating being scared?”

After having practiced this for a while, you will start connecting being scared with being ok, maybe even start feeling a bit excited about the whole thing. Try it yourself and tell us how it works for you!

Also, you can read a lot more about how to handle different fears that keep you from going on that dream trip (or something else in your life that you’d love to do but don’t “dare”, for that sake) on our But’s pages.

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