two “simple truths” for finding courage

The dirty little secret … is that 90 per cent of it is showing up. If you can find a way to get there, [then] it’s the easiest [thing] you’ll ever do.
– Geraldine Brooks

So, on Friday afternoon I got a text message on my phone that made my heart sink, my palms sweaty, and pretty much destroyed the rest of the afternoon for me…

…it was a text to remind me about my dentist appointment this coming week.

Yes, all that anxiety and fear for a dentist appointment. And it’s not even for a procedure- it’s for a CLEANING.

Let me get something straight- my dentist is awesome. They know I’m a big chicken and they deal with it with compassion and humor. The entire staff has made me relatively “okay” with going to the dentist every six months after years of just being terrified. If I had a dentist like I do now when I was a kid, I might not be so afraid.

But, alas, I have some dental trauma in my past. I think a lot of us do. One *good* thing about being a little “iffy” about dental related stuff is that there tends to be a WHOLE lot of people in the same boat, and a whole lot of support, which makes things a bit easier.

Of course, in a  perfect world, there would be no fear of dentistry. There would be no fear of anything.

But we don’t live in a perfect world. Thus, life requires courage.

I suffer from a fair bit of health-related anxiety. It’s not just dentist stuff, it’s all sorts of doctor-related stuff. As I’ve mentioned a gazillion times, I was born with Spina Bifida and my childhood was pretty much a marathon of health related procedures, appointments, emergencies, responsibilities, and as you can imagine, most of it wasn’t pleasant.

When I was a kid I would show up for a “normal checkup” at my orthopedic’s office and walk out three hours later with an appointment for major surgery the next morning. I’ve had a doctor pull a screw out of my ankle without warning (and without anesthetic), had another one shock me with electric current to try and straighten my spine, had a doctor slice my chest open (again without anesthetic- that seems to be a common theme here) to try and fish out a central IV line… None of these things were part of the original appointments or plans for what “might happen” during that visit.

So I tend to equate medical appointments, no matter what they are for, as opportunities for EXTREMELY unpleasant surprises. Not until I’m out of the office and back in my car with the door safely locked behind me can I take a deep breath. Then I need to recover from  all the anxiety surrounding it. I just become a huge stress ball.

I’ve tried a lot of different ways of responding to my fear. Like I said, I’ve done a lot of positive thinking. A lot of reframing. A lot of behavior modification. I even tried therapy. Unfortunately, none of it worked, not for long.No amount of positive thinking helps. No amount of therapy for PTSD helped.

I’ve just come to realize- and accept- I AM SCARED.

And you know what? It’s okay. We all have something that triggers us, that makes us panic a bit, that makes us feel small and scared and unable to cope. Whether it’s dentists or spiders or public speaking or something beyond all of that, it’s very real, the feeling of fear.

But I finally figured out two “simple truths” that help me find courage to do something, even if that something really spends me into an anxiety spiral.

The first “truth” is this: All I need to do is show up.  

Show up for my dentist appointment. Show up for my blood draw. Show up for whatever it was that was freaking out. Not DO anything about it, or even get through it- just show up for it. The rest I could figure out when the time came.

See, the thing is- if I go to the dentist and check in, and the hygenist comes and calls me back, I’ll very likely follow her to the exam room. And when she asks me to open my mouth so she can clean my teeth, I’ll likely do that, too. The appointment will likely unfurl as it does. If she recommends something further, I can consider my options at that point.

So if I can just get myself there, I’m off to a good start. It’s kind of like Newton’s First Law of Motion: “an object in motion stays in motion…” So that’s what I focus on. I get myself in motion.

How does this translate into other fears, into courage in general?

I consider “showing up” my way of approaching something scary. It’s a way to attend to it without committing to it. To “circle” it, like a plane coming in for landing. Getting the lay of the land. Considering my options. Being present so I can make an informed decision on how to proceed. Whether it’s looking up something scary in google (just typing in the word in the text field is a way to “show up”), to dialing a phone number, to getting my paints out when I’m fearful about creating, to getting myself to an appointment, that’s just enough.

Which leads me to the second “simple truth” of courage: I’m the boss of me.

Sounds silly, but it’s so true.

As someone who didn’t GET to say “no” to unpleasant stuff a whole lot when she was a child, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the fact that I can say it now. Not that I often do, but there have been a few times when I exercised my right to opt out of something unpleasant. Maybe it’s not always the BEST way to approach a situation, but you know what? Sometimes it’s okay to just say “no, not right now.” 

If I show up for my dentist appointment, I can always turn around and go back out the door before it happens. If they make me wait too long (another trigger for me), I can reschedule. I can always decline a treatment. I can get up at any point and leave if I need to. If there’s more to be done other than a cleaning, I can consider my options then.

So, as I approach the coming dental appointment, I keep trying to remember the two “truths” of courage: just show up, and that I’m the boss of me. Not exactly ground breaking stuff, but simple enough to change my perspective on both the big and little fears of every day life as they pop up.

Do you have any “simple truths” for facing your fears? I’d love to hear them!