One day, while having a beer at a bar, I overheard someone talking about surfing (actual waves in the ocean). I have no idea why, but everything inside me screamed: what a great idea! So, with a rental car and a freshly acquired driver's licence, off I went to Hossegor in the south of France. In a surf shop, a saleswoman stuffed a trendy Quiksilver boardshort, a rash guard (a shirt you wear in the water), and a surfboard into my hands. Ready to head into the ocean!
Help! Within a few steps, the water was already too deep to stand in. Waves were breaking right on top of my head. The ocean is terrifying! Evacuate! Within seconds, my bum was safely back on the white sand.
Time for a new plan: an easier beach where the water didn't get deep so quickly. That turned out to be Hendaye, Europe's beginner surf beach. But I still didn't dare go into the water. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I'm better at thinking than at sports. How do you learn to surf when you're afraid of the sea? There were dozens of people practising on their surfboards, and I found myself thinking: I wish I were them. They all seemed completely unbothered. Nobody was being dragged underwater by a sea monster. Nobody was being torn apart by Jaws (yes, he was swimming circles in my head).
Then my brain came up with this: "Pretend you're one of them." It was the only solution I could think of, so I picked someone who was learning as well and told myself: "If he's okay, I'm okay."
With my "example" in the corner of my eye and the thought "if he's okay, I'm okay," the water gradually started to feel more familiar and the fear faded into the background. The fear was no longer overwhelming. It became one feeling among many others. I could simply be there, with a little fear, a little borrowed courage, and a whole lot of fun. Before long, surfing became my favourite thing in the world. And it still is.
Borrowing courage was a way of practising letting go of fear: surfing despite the fear and, every time the fear started growing again, bringing myself back to the here and now by looking at my "example." Of course, my fear of the sea didn't suddenly disappear completely. In fact, every summer I have to get used to the ocean all over again and practise letting go of that fear. I often do that by playing around in the line-up (where the surfers sit behind the breaking waves), for example by trying to stand on my board without a wave, sitting on my knees on the board, or swimming underneath it. All little tricks that make me feel more comfortable in the water and shift my attention from fear to fun. It probably won't surprise you that I still prefer sitting right in the middle of a group of surfers. While other people would love to have the whole ocean to themselves, I'm thinking: "Stay close, because if you're okay, I'm okay."
For anyone wondering: is fake it till you make it really enough to overcome your fears? Doing something while you're scared already means you're being incredibly brave but truly overcoming a fear often requires something more: you have to cultivate courage as well.
I'll tell you more about that in my next blog.
Marloes Spaander is a therapist with a background in social work and many years of experience teaching Critical Thinking. She now uses that experience to help people recognize and break free from unhelpful thinking patterns, create more space for calmness, trust and mental freedom. Marloes makes complex psychological processes easy to understand through stories, metaphors and personal experiences.
She offers online therapy for:
