Afraid of Heights? Try Skydiving

I recommend that everyone try it at least once in their life. Even if you aren’t the kind of person who would normally consider it (I know I wasn’t).

Why? There is something about consciously facing one of your primal fears head-on that just frees you from inside. I would call it almost a spiritual experience. After facing this fear, all other fears fall into perspective.

Any time I feel scared, I tell myself “Hah! This is nothing. I jumped out of a plane” and suddenly the fear seems almost trivial and silly in comparison.

Since then, when doing something that scares me, I can ignore my fear as if it were just a back ground alarm beeping in my head and nothing more. I do feel the fear, but I can do what I want to do anyway. I recognize the fear but no longer feel controlled by it.

It is like I have been set free from all my fears.

http://cache.zazit.co.uk/SkyDiving

dave of IL 11:57AM January 21, 2010

Skydiving to overcome fear of Heights:

I almost quit riding a big roller-coaster 30 years ago because of the scrunch at the bottom of drops. On what might have been my last ride, I had to sit in the front row. So I decided to 'look the devil in the eye' by leaning forward to look straight down the track on the first 100-foot drop. Without realizing it, I lifted my butt off the seat a half-inch. When we hit bottom, I gently fell back onto my seat without compressing my back.

No discomfort!

A couple rides later, I was half-standing on all the drops, and I LOVED it! I also learned how to make my whole body go limp on other scary rides, much to the amazement of other riders who could only let go of the hand rail for a couple seconds.

Then they installed real tight seat-belts on the roller-coaster. And the attendant on 'Mo-Mo, the Monster' kept repeating (on the loud speaker) to hold on to the hand rail at all times. So I quit going.

About 23 years ago I took 2 static-line parachute jumps from 3000 feet. As Robert in Texas says, the view was "wonderous." Letting go of the plane's wing on my first jump was no problem. But what almost made me throw-up before my second jump, was watching the first jumper let go and suddenly disappear from sight.

About 14 years ago I made a stupid decision while rock-climbing (without ropes). Some day I want to undergo hypnosis to learn if I really did, in that 'Dead-Man Falling!' instant, consciously make my body go limp, like I did so many times decades earlier at the amusement park. I fell about 10 feet, bounced off a rock head-first, fell another 10 feet, and rolled down a 15-foot slope. Despite my head wound, 5 cracked vertebrae, and a broken/separated right shoulder, I was able to pull myself up the hill with my good left arm, and walk 1/4 mile to a road where a passing motorist took me to a hospital.

My only lasting symptoms are that it hurts to stand more-or-less motionless for more than 15 minutes (but I can walk all day) and I can't lift my right hand as far up behind my back as my left hand.

I was lucky. I might have been permanently paralyzed.

It rained hard the night of my fall, and the spot where I rolled to a halt might have been submerged. The thought of laying there unable to move and slowing drowning - now THAT's really scary!

Dave Malan of MO 1:01PM September 23, 2008

Thought you may enjoy this article since you just participated in this.

Jotham of CO 9:35PM September 22, 2008

When I was seven and living in Germany as an Army brat, my family visited the Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany. Behind it is a footbridge that's pretty high up (http://tinyurl.com/3vkv7l and http://tinyurl.com/4e3zkm). For some reason, I didn't want to cross it, going so far as to toss myself down on the ground, kicking and screaming. After that day, I always had a fear of heights. Even thinking about being high up would cause me to become flushed and break out in a cold sweat.

When I was 23, my mom and I took a trip to Europe to visit relatives and friends and revisit the sights of my youth. We took a day trip down to the castle and I made a point of crossing the bridge. I walked from one side to the other and then back again, pausing in the middle to enjoy the view. I didn't know whether it would work of not, but it appears to have helped reduce my anxiety. That was seventeen years ago.

Although I can now climb ladders, climb trees, walk out to the edge of the observation decks on tall buildings, etc., I still have a smidgen of fright every now and again. When I do feel the dreaded feeling come on, I just tell myself that it's all in my head and I work through it.

I truly believe in mind over matter and that how you perceive something has a direct bearing on how you react to it. You can control your mind on a sub-concious level to some degree, you just have to want to do it.

Sam Felis of VA 3:43PM September 22, 2008