"Come kayaking"! She said to me. There's a bunch of us going and it will be fun!
First mental note to self was "no way" — I've seen those instructors practising in local school pools teaching people how to 'roll' when they fall out!
That vision kept playing in my head as my mate excitedly chatted on while my anxiety levels were sky rocketing as I saw myself getting stuck in a flipped over kayak with a dozen people around me that I've never met! Nope, I had decided that I would not be going on this 'fun' trip.
Weird, isn't it, but as I was consciously making my decision I heard the words come gushing forth out of my mouth.
"Oh that sounds fantastic, let me think about it and I'll get back to you"! OMG, what had I just said?
Why on earth did I set false expectations? And then from some dark corner of my mind came this little voice saying, "You should go". The voice continued, "you know Carla, you only live once, and you're 'getting on' and you may never ever get this opportunity again."
But the clincher for me, "Carla you need to feel the fear and DO IT ANYWAY". Once I hear that I know that I have little choice and the battle within me is over. I know how alive and ethereal I'm going to feel afterwards, of whatever it is that I'm running from.
It's that line that ignites the spark that keeps me forging forward and embracing change and adaptation to new situations. I hate change and I love it and need it ALL at the same time!
So a few weekends ago I went kayaking with a dozen strangers, bar one.
My fears DID get worse before they got better, as before the trip, we had a quick de brief from our tour guide 'Tony', who incidentally was NOT coming with us! What sort of a tour guide was he? Just a quick met service forecast and what to do should one fall out of the boat, and there was no practising or talk of any 'roll' upon capsize. I got so stuck on that image again that I missed the further instructions on how to manage the treacherous waters around the points that we were to kayak around and the importance of the tidal movements to help us through the tricky bits. Oh well, there were a dozen others who I hoped were listening and at least one of them would have it sorted.